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Tues 19th Dec – Penang – > Kuala Lumpur

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An unremarkable but comfortable six hour drive from Penang to KL. The highway diverts around towns and is largely shrowded in a vast and saddening amount of palm tree plantations. Declan has recently subscribed me to the Dum Dum Club Podcast Patreon and I burn through the backlog of mini episodes.

First impressions coming into KL is that this is a big city. It’s less garish than Bangkok from a vices level (likely the Muslim influence) but just as consumerist. An obvious difference is also the Indian community, which were entirely absent in Bangkok. I find the lingering clumps of youngish Indian men a bit daunting, for no logical reason.

This dim sum cafe is going off at 6.30am. It’s thrumming with old Chinese men reading the paper, smoking, drinking tea. You’d think three sets of dim sum for one girl would be too much for breakfast. You’d be right.
This is when you know locals frequent.
Palm trees cover the entire six hour drive.
A concrete manufacturer breaks up the monotonous palm trees.
KL itself is clearly poorer than Penang. This is attributed to more Chinese business people being located in Penang, I am told.
Kuala Lumpur means the meeting of two rivers, where it is muddy.
As in Bangkok and Krabi, there is a mad rush to try and attract tourists. Tomorrow I am going to avoid these ‘food streets’.
The British have broken our tour guide. After this conversation he likes to giggle at me when they are late or slow or dumb. We are now united.

Categories:Holiday​Summer 2023

Cait

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4 Responses

  1. Love the tea sign.

    I know there is palm oil in Nutella and I always feel slightly guilty when I eat it for that reason. Really shits me that it tastes so good and that I am to weak to resist its environmentally destroying temptation.

    Absolutely adored the text exchange. You are a kind person and they are obviously enjoying your company. Must be so difficult having to be polite and pander to rude irritating customers. Especially when those same oafs then ‘rate’ you at the end of the tour.

  2. I will think twice about Nutella after seeing Malaysia. Taronga talks about palm oil a lot and I had seen it on Steve Backshall as well but driving through it was another thing completely.

    Being rated by people you don’t like must be agonising. I got told that they get a financial rewards if they are personally well rated, so I felt like they never wanted to criticise anything about anyone.

  3. I get that the tour company wants positive feedback but because they create a system that gives to much power to dickheads it places the guide in a losing position.

    That then results in a worse outcome for the rest of their paying customers because the guide has their hands tied behind their back and can’t control the selfish member.

    Would be like if high school teachers had their pay determined by student feedback and the kids knew that what they wrote impacted the teacher directly.