After waking up, I headed to Starbucks. I had been coming to this Starbucks for three days in a row. A different person was working there this time. I spent time learning French, updating my blog, and publishing YouTube videos.
If you would like to focus on something, I highly recommend Starbucks Coffee Green Hall.
I had lunch at the same hawker center that I had gone to the day before. It felt so comfortable having a meal there since it was my third time visiting.
Then, I took a bus to get to a bus terminal where I was going to catch a bus to Kuala Lumpur. It was raining in the morning, so although I had planned to walk to the bus terminal, I took a local bus instead. You can take a local bus for less than a dollar, by the way.
After arriving at the Billion Stars office in Prangin Mall, I saw two staff members, a man and a woman. Both looked Indian or Indian Malaysian. I asked the woman if I needed to get a paper ticket for my online booking. She looked a little annoyed, checked my ticket on my phone, and told me to get on a van, pointing at a parked van on the street outside.
It was one hour before the departure time, so I wanted to make sure I was supposed to get on the van right away. She said yes.
When I was about to get in the van, there were other passengers who were also about to get in. After getting into the small van, the man I had seen in the office started driving to another bus terminal, where I was supposed to catch my bus to Kuala Lumpur.
It took about 15 minutes to arrive at a large bus terminal. I got off the van and headed inside the terminal. I went to the bathroom, had some snacks and water, and then tried to go through the gate. However, I found out that I had to download a specific app to get a boarding pass and pay about a dollar, which annoyed me a little.
After going through the gate, I went down an escalator to the area where passengers were waiting for their buses. The bus staff was playing music loudly through a speaker.
Although the bus was scheduled to depart at 3 PM, it ended up leaving at around 4 PM. There were two seat numbers displayed above the seats, which was confusing. Also, there were two passengers who told me that I was sitting in their seats. I looked at their tickets both times, and the seat number on their tickets was correct.
What that meant was that they had issued three tickets with the same seat number.
I told them that they could take any seat they wanted since there were many empty seats and the bus staff didn’t seem to care.
The bus itself was very comfortable, but it eventually took seven hours to arrive in Kuala Lumpur because of heavy traffic. We had two quick breaks along the way. Looking back, it makes sense that there was heavy traffic, considering it was Friday night.
I decided that I wouldn’t take a long-distance bus that departed in the afternoon again.
Although the final destination of the bus was TBS in Kuala Lumpur, I found out that it was quite far from the hostel I had booked. Luckily, the bus stopped somewhere near the hostel, so I got off and took my backpack. It was already after 11 PM.
I was worried about whether I could get a taxi through Grab, but I was able to get one quickly. It was just $2.50 for the ride. Unfortunately, Grab motorbikes are not available in KL.
The driver looked Chinese and wore glasses. He seemed like he didn’t really want to talk. I put on my headphones to signal that I didn’t want to talk either, since I was tired after the long bus ride.
After about 10 minutes, I arrived at the address of the hostel, Jeea Hostel. According to Google Maps, the hostel was part of a large apartment building. I walked a little further to the entrance.
I asked a security guard right by the entrance if the hostel was there. He spoke English with a strong Indian accent. He told me to write down my information on a piece of paper and let me into the building.
I thought there must be a sign for the hostel in the elevator, so I got in. I realized that there were more than 20 floors in the large apartment building. I couldn’t find any sign for the hostel, so I asked a couple of guys in the same elevator if they knew where it was.
They didn’t know, so I went back down to the ground floor and asked the security guard again. This time, he checked my phone more closely, but he didn’t seem to know where it was either.
I spent another 15 minutes or so trying to figure out the location by asking a bunch of pedestrians whom I assumed lived in the apartment building, as well as another security guard.
Eventually, I got a message back from the hostel with the location. It turned out to be part of the apartment building after all, so I took an elevator to the floor where the hostel was located.
At the entrance, there was a sign with the name of the hostel, but the entrance password I had received from the hostel didn’t work.
As I was struggling to enter the password, a guy who looked Asian came from behind me and let me in. He started talking to me in a friendly way and asked where I was from as we entered the room.
There was a small open area where two guys were sitting next to each other, working on their laptops, a small kitchen, and four rooms with bunk beds.
The message I received from the hostel showed me my bed number but not my room number. I randomly opened one of the rooms and had to figure out which room my bed was in.
Everyone who saw me in the hostel gave me a strange look, as if they had never seen a Japanese guy before. Most of them looked Indian.
My bed was a top bunk. There were four bunk beds without curtains.
Since I hadn’t had dinner yet, I went to a small hawker center to have dinner at around midnight. I was surprised not only that they were still open, but also that there were quite a lot of people there.
I felt like 90% of the workers and customers were Indian, which made me feel like I was in India rather than Malaysia.
I sat down, ordered a noodle dish and some tea, and had my dinner. The juice was expensive. The noodle dish was good enough to finish quickly.
I got back to the hostel, and the Asian guy who had helped me get into the room earlier started talking to me while I was changing my clothes.
I gave up on taking a shower that night because I was tired and the hostel didn’t provide towels.
He turned out to be from Turkmenistan. He was 24 years old and planned to study in China. He was waiting for a visa in Malaysia so he could study in China.
He had been staying at the hostel for over a month and had no idea how long he was going to stay. We talked a little bit, and then he left the room for the open space.
As I settled down on my bed, someone turned off the light. It was already after 1 AM.
Although two Indian guys in the bottom bunks of different beds were talking to each other, it didn’t bother me, and I was able to fall asleep.
I didn’t anticipate any of this happening. I had imagined a very smooth journey from Penang to KL. But this is a part of traveling. You will never know exactly what is going to happen.
That’s why I like traveling.
Even though I get annoyed and bothered by unexpected things like this, a part of me actually enjoys them. At the end of the day, I made it to KL.
Penang – KL
Dinner near the Hostel
Hostel ($5/night)
