Switching the coast and hello ramadan!

After spending few nice days in Langkawi and enjoying quite cheap drinks at the hostel's bar it was time to switch to the east coast of Malaysia. I had now basically explored the west coast excluding Malacca but my flow didn't take me there so screw that. I almost forgot, special shout out to the Russian girl working at the hostel's bar in Langkawi. The best dual hand cocktail shaking I have ever seen. I have to admit, I kept buying cocktails just to see her shake and perfectly she shook  =)

Here is once again one of my stories about how to get into places (if you have had enough of those already just skip to the first picture)
1) Don't book in advance.
2) Try you luck.
3) Get to your destination eventually

As said earlier there was no bus connection in Langkawi so I asked if the hostel owner would call me a taxi. I don't know what happened but the guy told me that his gonna be my taxi driver today. "I'm fine with that". Ended up having an extremely interesting conversation about women and problems with them and the owner certainly had some :) It was a pleasant journey.

After saying goodbye to the owner I tried to board the ship without a ticket. Sometimes it's just a bit confusing where to buy the ticket... Managed to purchase one and got to the mainland to hear that there's no busses to my destination, Kota Bharu. Let me rephrase, there was a bus but no seats left. Shit. After asking basically every ticket booth I was ready to spend the night in that port town with sailors and hookers...well there we none but sounds cool.
One guy at the bus station gave me an another option. If I first took a bus to a place called Alor Setar I just might be able to catch a bus to Kota Bharu from there. Luckily there was one bus going there in half an hour. It was a little bit on the expensive side and smelled like a scam but the price was still reasonable. "Where to I buy the ticket from?" No no, I take you to the bus. You give money to me and I take you to the bus" Hahaaa, well this is interesting. Like I said, the ticket price was still somewhat in line with the prices so I took the bait. The trip was supposed to be one hour.
The bus came and some money got exchanged, first from me to the "pusher" and then from him to the bus driver. Aaaaahh...so this is how they make some side income. They split the money and there's no ticket aka "I'm not in the bus".
The only problem was that the bus took quite a long detour and instead of one hour it took two and half hours. I was quite furious because my timeline of getting a bus from Alor Setar was getting narrower. Once I finally got to Alor Setar I was repeatedly told that there's no more tickets available meaning I have to spend the night there. Well I was already mentally prepared for that so what the heck.
Just as I was leaving the station to get some food I heard a quiet voice calling "Kota Bharu". I instantly headed for the furthermost ticket booth and asked for a ticket to Kota Bharu. There were 6 seats left and the bus was leaving at 10pm. Time was then 8.30pm. Lucky me! Paid the ticket and headed to a indian restaurant and met a backpacking couple there. They were also heading to Kota Bharu and were also told that there's no seats anymore and therefore decided to stay overnight. Überlucky me.
Arrived at KB around 4am. Taxi to the hostel (no running busses at that time of a day) and straight to bed.

There's definitely something burning but locals didn't seem to
mind. Neither did I.

There's nothing much to tell about KB itself other than it's a really conservative muslim city. The funniest incident there happened at the muslim night market (and that is what they called it). The owner of the hostel told me that is a perfect time to go to the muslim night market since it's ramadan and to be more precise kind of only time a year that it's on ;)

I've been wondering it quite often lately that how is it that I find my self in places where I'm the only westerner/tourist? It's not that I'm complaining. I'm just wondering why in the hell don't people go into places where I go/I've been. Well, anyways, so there I was at the night market with the natives and the first time in Malaysia I get stared at. Still way less than in Vietnam though. So now that you don't get confused I have to make one thing clear. It is a night market because it opens at 5pm but the sun was still shining around 6pm when I was there.

The stalls where full of grilled chicken, fish, ice cold drinks, rice, vegetables, everything and I was waiting for the kill. I found this interesting looking kebab stall and decided to try one of those as a starter. The natural thing is to eat it right away when it's still warm. So I opened the wrapping and started to bite it with a healthy appetite.

That's when the staring really started. Everyone passing by was staring at me. Some people were whispering to each other and I was wiping my face because I thought that theres some bits and peaces of that kebab on my face. Then it hit. Holy shit! It's ramadan, the sun is still up and I'm eating a kebab at a muslim market. No wonder why anyone else we're not eating anything but just carrying the food around. Well, I'm not a muslim so I decided to finish my kebab before heading to the grilled chicken stall.

That is some serious barbecuing! 

By the way, I asked a local guy afterwards if they considered it being wrong but he said that probably they were just really hungry and they do understand that everyone ain't fasting.

There's even some 3D art in KB

Tower (of power?)