Advertisement
Published: March 10th 2014
Edit Blog Post
So, after 10 months of planning, Ian and I are finally here in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia!
The journey to KL was long but thankfully uneventful. We headed from Macclesfield to London, where we spent the night at my parents place. The following morning, not wanting to rush, we left in plenty of time for Gatwick airport, where we dropped off our bags, grabbed some lunch and boarded the flight to Istanbul for the first leg of our journey. Must say, I am really impressed with Turkish Airlines. Comfy seats, each of them has a screen on the back, which you can use to watch a variety of different TV shows and films, listen to music, play games and much more. The food on board was very good too, Turkish chicken, kofte kebabs, rice, olives, goats cheese, smoked salmon..mmmm....we certainly didn't go hungry!
We had a long wait in Istanbul before boarding our flight to KL. Istanbul Ataturk Airport was busy and bustling. It seems to be a gateway to Asia, and there were many flights leaving to wonderful exotic places: Tokyo, Colombo....
The flight to KL took a while to board, but after a slight delay we got
Aloft Hotel
Funky artwork at Aloft going. Dinner arrived, more delicious food, then everyone settled down to get some sleep. I'm a light sleeper, and I don't really sleep well while travelling, so I rested as much as I could and watched movies throughout the flight. Ian, on the other hand went straight to sleep.
9 and 1/2 hours later, we began our descent into KL. The first glimpse of Malaysia from the plane, I could see many palm trees and other exotic fauna. It was also incredibly misty. When we landed and got through security and waited for our bags. Thankfully, they had both made the journey - This was one of the things I had worried about as a previous time I went holiday, my bag hadn't made the connection, but was on the next flight. I was stuck without my stuff for 24 hours until it arrived. KL Airport is about 30 mins away from the city by train. As we walked through the airport to get the KLIA Ekspres, Ian commented that there was a certain distinctive "smell" that he recognises whenever he arrives in Malaysia. I totally understand this - having been to Italy many times, there is a certain
smell that is always familiar to me each time I go back there.
The KLIA Express was cool - in both senses, and we were soon in KL Sentral station. As it's name suggests, it is the main transport hub of the city. After a little while getting lost trying to find our hotel, we made it to Aloft. I reckon Aloft is probably the swankiest hotel I've stayed in by far, but it is also colourful, funky and characterful, so it doesn't have too much of a corporate feel. Our room was massive! Huge bed, desk to work at (where I'm writing this now), walk-in shower room, free tea and coffee and bottled water, all topped up each day. It even had an oversized bean bag. I've now decided every hotel room should have a bean bag!
We dropped our bags off, and then wandered into Brickfields, and had a meal at one of the restaurants near the KL Sentral monorail stop. Ian had a beef in ginger and spring onion, and I had a tasty (but spicy) Nasi Lemak, washed down with watermelon juice. Fully satiated, we headed back to the hotel, where we had a
Up at the top...
View of the twin tower beer, played some pool, then hit the hay.
The following day, Ian woke me up saying "Hey Vicki, wake up! It's 3 pm!" - we had slept for 16 hours! Before leaving for KL, we had booked to go up the Petronas Twin Towers at 5pm and needed to be at the Box office at 4.30 to collect our tickets. This was something we had both wanted to do - Ian tried to get up the Towers on a previous visit, but wasn't able to as it was all sold out. This time we booked in advance. Wasting no time, we got changed and hailed a taxi to take us there. Built in 1996 and standing at 452 metres, The Petronas Twin Towers are certainly impressive, dominating KL's skyline, with a massive walkway connecting the two. We got our tickets then waited for the tour to start. We were all split up into coloured groups - ours was the red group. Three high-speed lifts took us up to the top. The first took us about halfway up, to the walkway that connects the two towers. Here, our tour guide gave us some info about the towers, then let us
all take pictures from the walkway. After about 15 minutes, our group was called and we took the second and third of the lifts, all the way up to the observation deck. KL, unfortunately was very misty, so the view from the top wasn't perhaps as fantastic as it could have been, but we could see quite a bit of the city. From above, everything was in minuture, people and cars seemed like ants scurrying about. After more pics and a group photo, we headed back down.
After our visit, we headed to the nearby KLCC mall and had a wander around the shops. KL has a ton of shopping malls, which I shall probably visit in due course. KLCC is quite upmarket, the equivalent of Westfield in KL, with shops like Gucci, Salvatore Ferragamo, Shu Uemura, mixed in with high street names like Topshop, Uniqlo and H&M.
We were quite hungry at this point, and after a 16 hour sleep and not having had much to eat all day, we had a slap-up meal at Chili's, an american tex-mex chain. Ian then took me to Bukit Bintang, the Oxford Street of KL. The place was all hustle
Nasi Lemak
Yummmm...... and bustle, a We had a good wonder around, and headed for Jalan Alor, known as "food street". Located just of Bukit Bintang, this street is a feast for the senses. There are many food stalls here, all selling delicious food really cheap. You can get a main for about £2. This area is popular with locals, students, backpackers and adventurous foodies alike. Along the road I got some fresh coconut water, and I also tried some pungent Durian fruit. When I say "pungent", I am not kidding, you can smell it a mile away and durian is actually banned on the trains in Singapore. However, I think it is something that everyone has to try if they visit South East Asia. It is a bit like marmite in the sense that people either seem to love it or hate it. It tastes very savoury (or umami?)...which is strange for a fruit, you'd expect it to be sweet. It reminds me of spring onion flavour crisps, and has a very odd texture. . I didn't dislike it, but the flavour was so strong that I could only take a few bites.
Ian and I then decided to head back
Aloft Potion No. 9
A lovely cooling drink... to Bukit Bintang for a bit to find a place to charge up my phone, but got sidetracked by some rock music playing in a bar, so we went in. The band were really good, playing some rock classics such as Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits, Rosanna by Toto and Pride (In The Name of Love) by U2. We sank a couple of cold beers, then headed back on our quest to find a phone plug. One great thing about Malaysia for us Brits, is that the plugs over here are the same, so no need to bring an adaptor. By this point it was getting towards midnight, and places were closing. When we did eventually find a place with plug sockets and wifi, we were ushered out as it was closing time.
We were hungry, so we walked back to Jalan Alor for some food, and had a bite to eat there at a place called Wong Ah Wah. Ian was keen to show me where he had stayed previously, the Irsia guesthouse, so after our mealwe went over there, had a couple of beers and watched Man City vs Wigan at a bar next door. British
football is huge in Malaysia, and it's not difficult to find somewhere that's showing a match. Surprisingly, Wigan beat Man City 2-1. After the match, we hailed a taxi, which took us back to the hotel and to sleep.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 14; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0426s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Julie & Joe
non-member comment
Hi Vickie and Ian!!
We really enjoyed your blog!! And look forward to the next instalment!! Have lots of fun!! Julie and Joe XXX