Malaysia Truly Asia

I arrived Kuala Lumpur LCCT 3 o’clock this morning, when i arrived the airport, the vibe of the whole place felt like it was only 3 in the afternoon! There were so many people, and everyone seems to be awake. I was bombarded by hawkers!

I went out of the terminal and too the Sky bus that i booked online. I wasn’t sure from whom I could ask information from because Malaysia is so diverse. You cannot really tell who is a local. In one corner you’ll see a bunch of Malaysians, then some Indians, and Chinese; they could be tourists, who knows?! so I just went and approached a group whom I overheard was speaking in... Filipino.

This is my first time ever, officially, to be travelling alone. I am not here to meet anyone, I do not know anyone here, I am just here and figuring things out on my own. So... it’s pretty lonely. Haha. I found myself choking up, almost crying, ok, crying when I called up my sister Girlie this afternoon.

This afternoon I went to the Kuala Gandas Elephant Sanctuary. In here you can ride the elephants’ back, swim with them, feed them and take photos with them. Here is how to go to Kuala Gandas Elephant Sanctuary: Take the Monorail to Titiwangsa Station, go down the station to the other side to the Pekeliling Bus Station, look for KL Temeloh in ticket booth 8, the ticket costs RM 10.40 one way, tell the driver that you are going down at Lanchang. This trip will be around 1.5 hours. When you get down, you will see a store selling cellphones called HOTLINK. Owners are Chinese and were very helpful. It is very important that you tell them that you want to buy a ticket back to Kuala Lumpur because maybe by the time you get back; there will be no more tickets available. It is also at the shop that I got the owner to arrange me a taxi to go to Kuala Ganda, it costs RM 30, 2 way.

So when they did, they called on an old Malay driver with an old minivan. His name is Mr. Wam Ismael. He drove me to the sanctuary and became sort of my personal tour guide; although half of the time he couldn’t express himself and speaks to me in Malay, and I just tell him: I don’t know. HAHA. He is so friendly and really helpful (details below).

In the sanctuary, I took an elephant ride for about 30 seconds, this was mainly my goal today. I’ve always wanted to see elephants up close and personal. They are just so cute, they really do look like Dumbo (or should I say Dumbo looks like them), with the long lashes, big ears and everything. So Mr. Wam offered to hold my bag and I asked him if he could take my photos while I was on the elephant!

Here is the best photos he took of me on the elephant:



Here is a photo of the elephant swimming:



Here is the photo of me and the other elephants:



I did not expect to have finished so early, I arrived the sanctuary at 3PM and rode the elephant and everything (thank God I was there on time, because the elephant ride ends supposedly at 2:30pm) and I’ve done everything except swim with the elephants (which i didn’t want to because i had to go change, it’s a hassle). So I was done by 4:15PM. I was hoping to go back to Lanchang station so that I can catch the 4:30 bus instead of the 6:30 i booked. But when we arrived, it was already 4:45PM and then the 5:30 bus was already full and i have to wait for 2 whole hours before i can come back to KL. I was standing with Mr. Wam and told him, “oh! We didn’t catch thew 430 bus and now i have to wait for 2 more hours!” and just as I was saying this, the KL Temeloh bus just pulled up in across the street. He then went to the other side, talked to the driver and asked him to accommodate me right away even if my ticket was for 630!! He’s one of the best things that has ever happened to me so far in this trip! 