We were up bright and early to have a nice breakfast, enjoy the picturesque views from our guest house and then make our way to the bus station. Luckily for us it was a public holiday and taxis were very hard to come by, so the manageress of the guest house kindly gave us a lift down to our bus. We weren't able to book a VIP bus this time, so we had to make do with the regular one.
As we were waiting an old bus limped into the station and sure enough this was ours. We quickly stowed our luggage and got on board of the bus, it wasn't too bad really, at least the aircon was working which was an improvement over the last one! The journey was good and afforded some lovely views of the stunning countryside, until of course our driver started driving like Jenson Button! Bearing in mind that the road weaves in and out of the mountains on very high, small hairpin bends, this proved pretty hair raising at times. Luckily though, we didn't have any incidents out of 'The Italian Job' and within 5 hours we were back in the hustle and bustle of Kuala Lumpur, with decent temperatures we were now used to. The bus driver didn't drop us off at the bus station, for some unexplained reason, but around a block away, so we had to walk almost a mile through the unpleasant bus station to get to our hotel. Now of course we were complaining that it was too hot!
We had booked ourselves into a different hotel this time called 'Hotel Malaya', on our last visit to KL we had checked the rooms out and they seemed ok, but the real bonus was that breakfast was included, which is indeed a hard thing to find in Chinatown at the best of times!
We checked in and dropped off our bags, it wasn't too bad, just no windows again, but it was only for one night. Our flight back to Bangkok was the following morning, so it was time to get shopping for souvenirs, as this was our last time here.
After a quick lunch, Clare got straight to work and after some very good haggling managed to get herself her much desired Gucci handbag. After the deal was sealed, the stall worker disappeared to get a new one from the warehouse, only much to his embarrassment this one ended being the same in every way, but no Gucci logo! We finally got one with the correct logo and then it was Adams turn for a little shopping, this time for a leather wallet. We had seen a nice one the week before, so we headed off to find it. In no time at all and after some more heavy haggling he had bought his Hugo Boss wallet at a good price. This was again funny as they all had exactly the same wallet but all with different logos stamped on them! The stall owner quickly spotted that Clare had been buying handbags and after asking her the price she had paid, was quick to tell her it was cheaper at his stall, he then pointed at a better quality YSL bag and told her the cheap price he would've accepted. We thanked the man and got on our way. We retired to our hotel to admire all of our shopping, they do sell very good leather goods at the Chinatown market, be it fake or not.
A little later we went out to get ourselves some dinner. It can be very expensive in Chinatown, but we managed to find a great little Chinese stall and enjoyed some great tasting noodles with chicken and Chinese mushrooms. After dinner we decided to have a last look around the market, we went past the stall where Adam bought his wallet and Clare couldn't resist asking about the YSL bag. The owner told us a very hefty price, but we quickly reminded him of the bargain price he told us earlier. Smiling, knowing he was well and truly beaten, he reluctantly sold the bag to Clare. On our way back to the back to the hotel Adam treated himself to some delicious roasted chestnuts, it was weird seeing them outside of London, nevermind in this heat and not in winter! After more than enough shopping we headed back to the hotel to get some rest for our flight back to Bangkok the following morning.
We awoke early with the rare treat of a breakfast provided at the hotel. As our flight was quite early, we checked out first and then headed to the breakfast room excitedly. Unfortunately the selection was far from good, with a choice of rice, rice porridge, stale triangular sandwiches or toast, not an egg to be seen anywhere! So, after a quick cup of tea and a slice of toast, we decided it was time to get on our way.
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