Over in the blink of an eye!

The thing about holidays is that they are all an illusion - you think about them for a long time but when they are happening they feel surreal and then before you know it - you think you were just dreaming it all anyway.

So my dream will soon be over - I will be waking up tomorrow...

We went back into K.L. city last night.The taxi drivers give you a lot of info, if you talk to them.
- all is not as it seems here in Malaysia - the muslim malays are treated with high regard and are given benefits that are not extended to malays of other religious beliefs. Then you have the other ethnic peoples who are treated even more badly - the Chinese, the Indians...all find it difficult to own anything, to get work, to be afforded the same courtesy as the muslim malays.The goverment seems to play favourites.

We decided to go into the city and walk around for a while - the Sunway is a strange place. Very uninviting I would say. We tried to get into a cinema last night but the sessions were booked out in advance, so we went into Kinokuniya again and bought some more books - crazy I know.
How can you resist - some of the titles are so good I would buy them all - we took more photos of the Petronis towers at night.

Today is Wesak - a big Hindu celebration in K.L. There will be processions in Chinatown and in the temples.It is a public holiday whis is strange as the Muslim religion is the main one in Malaysia.

We also learnt that we are not in K.L. anymore - we are actually in another state - Selangor, even though we can see the city from our hotel window and it is only a 20 minutes drive away.

Just to give you some idea.....The average wage for a cafe worker in Langkawi is about 500 ringit - approx $150 a month. They survive on tips and in the off season, between May to August they hardly have enough money to buy food.
The taxi drivers get one day off a month, yet still have to pay the car rental every day - if they get sick they must get someone else to drive the taxi for them so that they can pay the rental on it. They cannot own their own taxi unless they are muslim malays.Petrol is about 80 cents per litre. Most taxis run on lpg gas.
Most food is a lot cheaper here - the shopping complex has a supermarket and it is easy to compare.

Still,we in Australia do not know how lucky we are - we still live in the best counrty in the world and travelling reminds me of this fact every single time.

Today we take baby girk to the theme park - the man and her have stopped coughing somewhat.I am not looking forward to exposing my fat arse to thousands of foreigners.How I wish I had a figure, other than 808 turned on its side.....