January 16
We took a taxi to the long distance bus station. We got there and there was nobody at the ticket counter that we were supposed to pick up the tickets that we paid for. 10 minutes before we were supposed to leave, some girl (we think) showed up and gave us our tickets. We walked downstairs and found our bus. We put our bags underneath and got on. Our seats were huge. It was awesome. And the long bus only had 10 people in it. Little did we know, the bus would stop for like a half hour at a time about 8 times throughout the trip for no reason. We also picked people up along to the way to Kota Bharu. It was a long ride but the seats were nice. We got to Kota Bharu and took a taxi to our hostel. Our hostel was near the city center and it was only $4 a night. It was straight up in some guy’s apartment. He converted it so there are two dorm rooms and two double rooms. He was nice and gave us good advice on how to spend our night and how to catch a local train south tomorrow. Matt and I had a makeshift double room that had nothing in it but a bed and one tv table. Whatever, it’s all we needed. We then walked around the smaller city and went to a night market. I bought some chicken things and meat things and then we caved and went to mcdonalds for the first time this trip. Sue me, I’m ‘Merican. It was great and I regret nothing!!! We went to 7-11 to get some food for the train tomorrow. We ended up getting bread, peanut butter, peanuts, and cookies. It would be enough to hold us over. We aren’t sure how far we will get on the train but we would at least get to Gemas in the south of the Malaysian peninsula. That is the city that has no significance other than it connects the eastern part of the country and Singapore to Kuala Lumpur and Thailand. It is kind of like the central hub for trains in Malaysia. We headed to bed around 10:30 pm so we could wake up for check out and out 5:20 taxi to the train station.
