Malaysia

****Welcome to my blog. It's the first time I've written one so go easy on me. Please feel free to laugh wildly in the right places and post congratulatory comments on myspace page for everyone else to read.

Due to Tom's computer being rubbish I have had to journey into town to write this. I hope you appreciate the sacrifice. It also means that I'll have to add some of the photos at a later date.****

Sydney figures

0 = Times I've seen the sun since arriving in Australia
1 = Occasions I've worn sunglasses. And this was in an attempt to be ironic
2 many = Times people have 'joked' about me bringing the weather with me
1 = Times I've got into an argument with a Canadian about cricket
87 = alcohol units consumed
1 Fulham 0 Everton

I've been in Sydney for four days now and I have yet to see the bloody sun. Does anyone else struggle to conjur up an image of Australia lacking obligatory sun drenched cheeriness or without Madge Bishop? I did. Until now. I wouldn't mind so much but it's the third time I've landed in a country this year to be greeted by thunder (and hysterical toothless women demanding I leave at once).

Croatia in June. Lashing it doon. Malaysia in October? Monsoon time. Sydney in November is currently five for five in the opened heaven stakes.

Despite the poor weather situation I've had a great start to my holiday. I am a terrible flyer and couldn't really get excited about my 3-month excursion whilst still back in England. I'm always convinced the wings are going to fall off in front of my eyes or that I'm going to press the wrong button on my tv remote and eject myself from the plane. Hearing Dave Blurton's horror stories about his 30 hour flight back from Greece just days before I left town didn't help.

For the record, his plane started to take off seconds before the engines failed. And this was after the initial flight had to be aborted minutes after take off.

Anyway, as it was I got exit seats on both my flights. And due to the amount of valium and alcohol I'd stuffed down my fat neck I actually managed to sleep/pass out for large amounts of the flying time, and neither of my planes crashed into the sea. Which was a bit of a result.

I also snored so much that the woman next to me was forced to swap seats with her older (and more hard of hearing) husband. I took her pained grimace as evidence that she saw the funny side of things.

I got into Kuala Lumpar the day after Fulham lost to Wigan. That's a week last Sunday to you. I was staying for four nights at this plush hotel perched alongside a ridiculous shopping mall. It was roughly the size of Streatham. But without the ice rink. Or rookery. It had a MegaBowl though. But as it lacked large groups of rude boys hanging around outside demanding fags and cash I opted against visiting.

Strangely, one of the shops had a huge photo of the N159 to Streatham Garage. I shed a small tear when I saw that. I'm still crying a little inside as I write.

Kuala Lumpar itself is interesting enough. It has a China Town. Which struck me as a bit of an oxymoron considering the population of Malaysia is so mixed and has such a large Chinese contingent. It's a bit like London having an English quarter. Except it isn't. But you know what I'm getting at.

Sian and I checked it out anyway. She'd been the day before and seen a dead dog in a cage in one of the shops. Classy. Buoyed by the thought of this and hoping I'd be offered a fake Fulham shirt I hot-stepped it into town.

Unfortunately I saw neither. Though I did note that nowhere is safe from the moped riders. Not only do they ignore the rules of the road they pretty much ignore the rules of gravity, physics, the sidewalk, off-side rule etc etc. They sure love their bikes over there. I wouldn't be surprised if they take a shower whilst sitting atop these 2-wheeled death machines.

As it was, I learned very quickly that you had to keep your wits about you no matter where you were. Which also reminded me of back home.

The main reason I was in Malaysia was to see Sian and watch Pluck play. I watched them the first night I arrived and thoroughly enjoyed the ten minutes of the performance I witnessed before a power cut brought a premature end to the evenings entertainment.

This meant that we could all go out and sample some Malaysian cuisine for the first time. Being quite jet-lagged and also completely crap at trying new foods I was a little wary about this. We were taken to this local Chinese place and my initial fears were immediately realised when the girl sitting next to me started to tuck into some dubious looking weak looking gruel. I'll avoid the obvious Indiana Jones eyeball stew comparisons. But I did pass out when she started chewing on a chicken foot.

I was brought round just in time to see Adrian, one of the Pluck crew, pulling half a fish jaw out of his mouth. Mmmm nice. I've never dreamt more longingly of a McDonalds in my life. Okay, I have. Several times. But you get the point.

The next day we traveled to the other side of Malaysia to a place whose name I have already forgotten. But a quick look on the net tells me it's called Kuantan. As mentioned earlier it was monsoon time so it didn't seem too wise to head to the coast. But as luck would have it the weather was pretty decent. Sydney, take note.



We were taken to a waterfall and enjoyed mucking around in the water and sitting in natural jacuzzis for most of the day. 



However the news that you could come along and catch sight of Western women in bikinis obviously had spread like wildfire and by about 4pm the ladies got tired of being gawked at (and having their photos taken) by the local yoofs, so we called it a day.

The remaining time spent in Malaysia was back in the capital. On my last day Sian and I checked out the Petronas Towers. They're also called the Twin Towers. You can't actually go to the top so we went up the KL Tower which is also fairly tall. At the top I had my customary 'oh my god, it's going to crash to the floor, I'll be dead inside 30 seconds' moment. But instead of bolting for the lift like James Carey and I did at the top of Chicago's Sears Tower I plugged myself into one of those portable guide books and had a good look round. Unfortunately the smog was quite bad and it restricted the view.



The next day took me to the second installment of my holiday. Australia. It was where I was going to meet up with my old school mate Tom 'not quite as rude as he used to be' Rees, his girlfriend, Rachelle and my uni mate, Newkster Jon.

And you would be reading all about that crazy first weekend in Sydney right now if this stupid internet cafe computer hadn't decided to delete it all. So, as Tom is beside me right now and I can't be arsed to write it all over again I'll have to leave it til next time.

Tomorrow, Tom and I will be embarking on a trip up the coast to Byron Bay. We're on a learning to surf holiday. One of the beaches where we'll be taught is where they filmed the live shark footage for 'Jaws'. I kid you not. So if we survive that I'll be sure to post another blog.