Banned Items & Activities, Kuala Lumpur

There are so many places to buy fake designer watches in KL that it is amazing. The area around Chinatown seems to have the highest concentration. Man, they look good. The price typically starts at RM300-300 which you can easily get down to sub RM100 by walking away a few times.

However, anywhere near Bukit Bintang or KLCC you may be approached by someone who surreptitous shows you a single watch, often within a handkerchief. On about the 10th such event I decided to ask "How much?". The answer was "Rolex! Its real! Only RM1000!". Real? Yeah right. Who can tell real from fake anyway? I certainly can't. Within 30 seconds (really) I had him down to RM100 with little or no conversation on my part except repeating "Too much". I didn't want the watch at any price (who wants a watch that will probably fail within a year) so that's when I said "No" and he walked off to find another victum.

These guys are basically harmless, they are just looking for the naive tourist who thinks that the watch is truly real so that he can make the big score. One RM1000 score a week and they are set.

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All over Malyasia you will find the not permitted signs. Sometimes I find these quit a challenge to figure out. These sign were at the entrance to a park. On this particular one we have a lock and key that seem to be exploding, a man sort of jumping, a hand with a leaf and a warped clock.

A lot of americans traveling abroad do so because of the looser drug statues in other nations in the world. If you want to do that, fine, that's your deal. However, think twice about doing it in Malaysia. The penalties for being caught with nacrotics in Malaysia are bad enough if you're a local, but for us travelers, there's just one sentence: death.

That's right, death. We get caught? Off to the execution block. Sound worth bringing a few ounces of pot in or buying some from a local? Not to me, at least. You go to Malaysia, stay away from drugs. The cops are good at catching people, and they will not hesitate to haul you in on suspicion. A lot of them in Kulala Lumpur seem to be very religious, too, which certainly doesn't help, as it means you can't bribe them like you can cops in many places in the world (let's all be honest with each other, it can and does happen).

Okay ... they are cheap and the quality is almost like the originals ... but be warned ... it used to be easy to buy them in the past but the government has now taken strict measures against piracy.

It used to be that the police will go after the people selling the pirated goods but now ... they will catch and fine the ones buying them too.

Well, the sign says it all. (Top row, 2nd from the right). Or you're going to get yourself into trouble.