10th April - Kuala Lumpur - Geo Hotel - off to Langkawi to be reunited with 2XS

Thursday 10^th April

Farewell to the contented cats of Samosir Island
(no this is not Pete's lap...it belongs to a random cheery German tourist)

We were very tired BigCity tourists last night…  It had taken us many hours to get from Samosir Island to Kuala Lumpur.  Up at 5am then:

a ferry (1 hour)

a minivan (4 hours)

a plane (1 hour)

a bus (1 hour – KL International Airport is way out in the sticks!)

and a train (not long at all but…it was nearing peak hour!  Crowded queues, crowded trains.)

Geo Hotel, pretty lamp-posts

Geo Hotel was comfy and clean, just what we needed.  And then – off to Little India to the Betel Leaf restaurant – just one more train, one more stop.   We had eaten there once before.  They cook Chettinad food, from the south of India, and it is totally delicious.  There are LOTS of waiters; most of them lean against the wall and look bored and forget to bring me my watermelon juice but…the baby brinjal* curry was so very wonderful all is forgiven!

I have looked up the long-term forecast for Langkawi.  27-32 every day, with the odd rainshower.  Perfect for our Wakefield family visit in NINE DAYS!  And also maybe possible for Pete and me to paint the bottom of 2XS with antifoul while it is up on the slip…I think there are a few days of hard labour coming up!

We spent the morning in the vicinity of Geo.  The Chinatown mall was just waking up so I got the opportunity of taking photos of a stall in its cocoon state and then unfurled in its full glory!

So tiny!

And then…almost a department store!

* Brinjal is, I think ,my very favourite vegetable…you can hardly go wrong with a brinjal or two.  I was sure his was eggplant (aubergine) and asked people in various Indian restaurants along the way, and they all looked baffled and said, No no, not eggplant – brinjal is a style of cooking! I think they couldn’t understand what I was saying – that weirdo Australian accent.  So finally I did the sensible thing and looked it up on google and of course brinjal is eggplant, in its many manifestations  big, fat and glossy dark purple, small and round and mauve, long thin and stripey…oh how wonderful; especially in a spicy curry sauce!