Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur

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Suzanne here...

Fortuitously, we snagged the last two seats on the bus from Jerantut. Cutting it a little too close for comfort, especially as we'd dawdled and let the other westerners on the bus from Kuala Tehan get to the ticket office first. Still, all worked out ok. Said westerners seemed totally clueless about the seat numbers on the tickets (surely the same in any country?) causing mayhem at the next town and getting annoyed when people who had booked quite reasonably asked them to move. We sat smugly in our allocated seats not getting involved.

It was raining hard when we arrived in KL but luckily the monorail stop was just steps away and it had stopped by the time we got off. We found the City Comfort Hotel easily. A bit nicer than the one we'd stayed in on the way through, as we were here for three nights. Clean modern western style rooms with little extras like wash powder, a hairdryer and disposable slippers.

We're revisiting as few places as possible on this trip, so why Malaysia and why KL? Hard to explain really. It is enroute to Burma, but we could still have easily skipped it. But ever since our last visit we've thought about KL and wanted to return. I don't quite know why. Yes, it's a nice enough city. Like the rest of Malaysia it's 'Asia-lite', a much westernised version of Asia. It's an easygoing city that I could see myself living in. It's a place of real contridictions. Massively commercial (see the overblown Christmas displays in the malls) but at the same time with plenty of gritty reality. However if I'm honest, the food was a major factor. There really is the most wonderful food of every possible variety everywhere you look.

On the topic of food, we'd planned where we'd go for dinner that night months ago - Coliseum Café. It's difficult to explain its charm. At 95 years one if the oldest colonial style resturants. A lot of the fittings and fixtures are original which does add some class. But the overall feel of the place is shabby, tatty, and run-down. If you popped your head inside without knowing its history there is nothing about it that would make you stay. Yet it is a KL institution, with past customers including Somerset Maugham. In our memories it was the best steak ever. Well, we've had a lot more steak since that first visit and it isn't that amazing (not nearly as good as Black Dog in Paris for example). Having said that it is perfectly tasty and we had no complaints. In any case it's the history, and the whole experience of the waiter tying a bib around your neck and serving the steak on a sizzling platter. We thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterwards we retired to the adjacent bar for a Tiger beer and a Gin Sling. This caused much confusion when the bill came as we were only charged for the bar tab. We're too honest to be able to live with that so we fessed up and the staff ran around trying to rework the bill. In the end it was £51, too much for dinner in Asia when you are on a budget perhaps, but a small price to pay for a meal you have been dreaming of for over five years. We grabbed a Tiger each on the way back to our hotel. So much for no beer in Malaysia!

The following day our first stop was to get roti canai for breakfast - delicious and just £1 for both of us with a water each. This simple Indian bread and dip is one of the things we'd been dreaming of, we could eat it all day. Then we just wandered around. In the massive Bajaya Times Square mall we finally got temporary wedding rings. Very simple plain and cheap but we like them and the main thing is that if we do happen to get mugged in some dodgy alleyway somewhere we won't feel any temptation to fight to keep them. It's nice to be wearing rings again.

On our walk we saw a bit more of KL including the Royal Sengalor Club, and some other nice old buildings. A horrid man shouted at us when he thought we were trying to get into a mosque (we were not in fact interested in his precious mosque) but other than that the day was good. We got another portion of yummy roti (£1.60 as David went mad and had a Sprite) and later some coffee and cake. Told you it was about the food.

Which brings us on to dinner. Another place we'd visited on our 2010 trip, and discussed over the years, was The Magnificent Fish and Chip Bar. Last time it came at a time we needed a reminder of home. Although we didn't have that urge this time, we couldn't bear not to go back. It was pretty much as we remembered it. Great chips, decent battered cod (sadly not as quite good as Man Frydays in Bali). Soft drink seemed expensive so we ended up having beer (that's our excuse), first a Tiger each then a Paulaner for David and a Strongbow for me, which was a treat. Bar a bit of a blip, the music was cheesy 80's pop which we don't actually mind. It did set us back £41 though. Still, another good evening, finished off with a couple of beers in the room.

On our final full day in KL we stopped for a double portion of roti canai for breakfast (come on, how could we not?) then caught the train up to Batu Caves. It was a nice (and easy) journey and didn't take long. Sadly there was some renovations going on (the story of this trip) so the golden statue was covered in scaffolding. Still impressive though. There seemed to be about a hundred steps up and people were asked to take buckets of sand up with them to the builders! David took two, I'm afraid I shirked it. About two thirds of the way up David left his with a pile of them (in the absence of any other instructions). There were lots of monkeys on the way up, and in the temple area itself, which was very impressive and worth the climb.

After Batu we caught the train back to the KL Lake Gardens. Very relaxing and pleasant. We saw a couple of lizards and a big terrapin. It was nice to wander but we were tired by this point so walked to KL Sentral for a coffee and a suprisingly tasty bagel each. Then we caught the Monorail back to Imbi, and our hotel.

So on to dinner. It seemed wrong to come to KL and not eat any Chinese. We chose Village Roast Duck - perhaps a slightly sanitised version compared to the little street places but still full of locals. We ordered a spread of crispy aromatic duck, pancakes, bbq pork, soy roast chicken and rice. It was nice, really nice. But it did highlight that Chinese food is never going to win over Indian for us. Still, a good evening and a fair bit cheaper than the previous two nights.

Sadly it was nearly time to leave. The next morning we made the most of our air conditioned room for a while before checking out and heading to TG's Nasi Kander for lunch. A typical little local side of the road place, chicken curry, rice and chapatti each came to less than £5 and was absolutely delicious. We'd both have liked to have stayed longer in Malaysia, and specifically in KL, but there are so many more places to visit so a week was probably enough. We made our way to Imbi, onto KL Sentral, then got the bus (RM 12 each) to the airport. Which is huge and has every sort of food and drink just like the rest of KL.

Malaysia has been fun. We totally and utterly blew the budget, much worse than Bali even. One of the main reasons for this is that we treated ourselves to a nicer hotel in the rainforest, but that was a decision we'd made in advance and well worth it. Another reason was food and drink. The expensive Denpasar airport meal came under this weeks budget and also we chose to eat at two relatively pricy KL resturants (and had beer). But I can't really regret this either. We'd reminisced about both places numerous times over the past five years and would have been too sad if we had not revisited them. If we'd stayed longer we'd have brought the average cost down but over seven days there wasn't the time to do that. So, we averaged a shocking £84 per day. Oops.

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