I went into the hotel and put my stuff down. I had no Malaysian Ringgit on me and I had not seen an ATM in the vicinity. The receptionist let me into the room and shower before I had to pay. I took a very refreshing shower, then headed out to find an ATM, which are surprisingly hard to locate in KL. I suddenly found a street with a slew of ATMs. I went to the first one, not expecting any problems, but as I tried to withdraw money... "Transaction Cancelled" showed up on the screen. Okay, no big deal, just try the next ATM. Next ATM, same result. Okay, something is amiss. ATM after ATM just kept repeating the phrase "Transaction Cancelled." At that point I was a bit worried, but I just had to call the bank. Unfortunately, I had no Ringgit on me; what I did have were Thai Bahts, but it was Sunday morning and no exchange offices were open. I went into a bank and after talking with them, they were nice enough to let me exchange some Bahts for Ringgits. I also asked if I could make a phone call to my bank and see if there was a problem. Of course I would have to pay, but I was expecting the bill to be somewhere around RM40 or so. The call lasted about 40 minutes, and my bank said that nothing was wrong and transfered me to Visa Fraud Protection who also proceeded to tell me nothing was wrong. Visa Fraud said that my PIN would have to be reset and after a day it would be fine. So this 40 minute phone call really accomplished nothing. I hung up and the hotel receptionist called for the cost of the phone call. The total for the phone call.... RM 152 (43 USD) which is about 4 times as expensive as Macedonia. I think I only had RM100 on me and I needed at least 50 of that to pay for the hotel, so I was in a bit of a rough situation. I tried using my checkcard to pay but it said "Do Not Honor." I wasn't sure what I was going to be able to do, but to my surprise the clerk said, "Don't worry about it." I was quite grateful for this gesture and very relieved. He had just let me make a $40 phone call for free! At least one thing went my way.
I checked into the hostel and they said I could pay when this bank situation was cleared up. With no money, I decided to hang around the nearby mall for the day.
The mall was called Times Square and it was gigantic, ten stories of shopping glory and even an indoor roller coaster. I'm not kidding. I had a "I'm not in Kavadarci anymore" moment while looking at all the excess and consumerism. It was very overwhelming. Plus I think there were as many people in Kavadarci as there were in the mall... maybe not, but it seemed that way. The best thing about Malaysia is the different cultures, ethnicities and dress so spending the day at the mall was great people-watching. Malaysia is a Muslim country and the Muslim women all wear headscarves. However, it's not the black dress and headscarves that you find in Arab countries. The women here have headscarves of every different color that coordinate with their dresses that they wear. It's a very colorful scene. On top of that you will see Indian women wearing sari along with a bindi (the Hindu forehead dot). Then you'll have a Chinese woman wearing some more "Western" fashions. Also, there are Arab Muslims that come to KL for holiday and the women are wearing all black in this 90 degree weather and humidity! It's really quite a sight.The following day, I woke up and tried my ATM card again. I was optimistic in thinking that it would work this time. As I tried to withdraw money... same result as yesterday. Uh oh. I tried several more ATMs after that. No dice.... Crap, I have absolutely no money and I cannot seem to access it. I went into a bank and asked what the problem might be. The teller told me that sometimes foreigners have a problem with their ATMs because in Malaysia they use an extra chip on their cards. So the problem is a matter of compatibility with my card?
I called my bank again and they again stated that there was no problem with my card and that it should be working. The bank even said that my card was not being read because they would have a record of my attempts to withdraw money. So I guess the problem was that my card wasn't being read by the sophisticated ATM machines of KL. So after going back to the hostel, I figured out the best way to get money would be through a money-wiring service. Unfortunately, they were all closed in KL at that time. One more day without money. I had not eaten and did not have a Ringgit on me. Sarah, a girl that worked at the hostel, was gracious enough to lend me money so I could eat. I am eternally grateful for the kindness that I had been shown in KL. That meal I ate, was about the best meal I had eaten in a while perhaps due to the fact that I hadn't eaten all day. With no money, I could not do anything for yet another day.Finally, on day three I had money wired to me. Holding that Malaysian Ringgit was a very relieving experience and I think I was probably the happiest person in Malaysia at that time.
I extended my stay at the hostel for one more night (I had originally planned to go to Singapore that day) so I could cram one day of sight-seeing in. I did as much as I could. I visited the Petronas Towers (pictured above) and then headed to Chinatown. From Chinatown I visited the Batu Caves a little outside of town. I would suggest that anyone that visits KL take the journey and see the caves. The public bus takes around a hour to get there, but it's a nice ride through all of KL. I think there are some companies that serve the caves direct from Sentral, but I am sure they are much more expensive. The #11 Metrobus leaves from Chinatown in front of the Bangkok Bank and the ticket is only RM2. The caves are a series of Hindu Temples, with a 43-m high Murga Statue in front of the caves. 
There are 272 steps to climb, and I, of course, went at the peak of the sun which made the climb up quite unbearable, but there were several monkeys along the way that are begging for food for some entertainment.After returning from the caves, I visited the Menara Kuala Lumpur, or KL tower, to watch the sunset.
I was able to get a 360 view of all of Malaysia. The one surprising thing about KL is how developed and metropolitan it is compared to Bangkok. Bangkok is very metropolitan, but KL seems cleaner and a bit more business-oriented.The hostel I stayed at was the Equator Hostel. It was a great hostel and the staff there was very helpful and friendly. The people that stayed there were great too. I opted for a private room, which was nice, but there are also shared rooms as well. I would recommend this hostel for anyone staying in KL.
I took a bus from KL to Singapore. In KL, the bus agency that I purchased the ticket was in the bottom floor of the mall. The trip on the bus took about 7 hours including going through customs. The line that I took was directed at Chinese people and the driver only spoke Mandarin, which was good for me since I understood any directions he had for the bus (when breaks were, customs etc.).
Singapore was rather expensive, which is very interesting considering the countries that are near it. The city is very modern and very Western. There is a lot of business that runs through Singapore. I did not do too much in Singapore due to the price of most things and there isn't much to "sight-see" in my opinion. Singapore really has a lot of shopping, which again requires spending of money. Much like Malaysia, I was fascinated with the people and the diversity there. I think that the cultures of both Singapore and KL mix a lot more than in Chicago. In Chicago, every ethnic neighborhood tends to keep to its own and there is little mixing of cultures going on. However, in Singapore and KL you can see this mixture just crossing the street. On one block in Chinatown, there was a Hindu temple, a Buddhist temple, and a mosque all within 5 minutes walk from each other. I don't know if you could find such an occurrence so easily in America. I visited the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum which was a highlight of Singapore. There were thousands of Buddha statues and other deities. There was also some sort of Buddhist prayer/learning session going on as well, and to make it even better the entry to the Temple was free.
I also had a chance to go have a beer at the Long Bar, which is quite famous from what I read. It was nice being able to sit and have a beer at a bar, but the beer was more expensive than in America (18 S$ or 12 USD). I am not too sure what the draw of the bar was, but since it is in a lot of guidebooks there were a lot of tourists there drinking overpriced beer.
What struck me about Singapore is how clean it is. There are heavy fines for just about everything which in turn makes the city very clean. What was strange was, even though there were so many laws and fines, I hardly saw any policemen around.
Perhaps the Singaporeans just police themselves and respect the laws of the land. Another great thing about Singapore is the MRT. Through the MRT, one can access pretty much the entire country, given that Singapore is so small. It runs very efficiently and the most time I had to wait for a train was about 5-6 minutes. There are also TV monitors letting passengers know how soon a train would arrive. In keeping up with the diversity of Singapore, all the announcements are given in three different languages: Mandarin, English and what I believe is Malay, but I'm not too sure.The hostel I stayed at was the Axis Hostel. It was very clean and very well maintained. When I first checked-in, the staff seemed very curt and not so friendly. However, during the daytime they were most helpful. The hostel lets its guests use free WiFi so there were a lot of laptops out in the common room, but there was also very little socializing going on. There was also not a locker to store my valuable possessions which would have been a nice option to have.
The best feature of the hostel was the location. Axis is situated right outside the MRT system so one can easily access the city. The hostel was good for the price especially considering how much things cost in Singapore. I think this picture of the rules is very humorous. I would like to think that refraining from taking a sh*t on the floor would be common sense to most people, but apparently not.I am glad I took the week and saw KL and Singapore. These two places are vastly different from Bangkok. I will now fly from Singapore to Bangkok on Tiger Air. The tickets are relatively cheap and you can access a lot of southeastern Asia through Singapore. I paid $134 for my ticket back to Bangkok, which includes extra money for my enormously sized backpack. If I had taken a train, it would cost roughly $70-80 for sleeper cars, I would have to switch trains twice, and it would have taken two days to get back to Bangkok. I didn't feel like "wasting" that time sitting on a train so I opted for a 2 hour flight instead.
Back to Bangkok then off to Northern Thailand....
For more pictures:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2154661&l=e2530&id=22013612
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