Advertisement
Published: January 10th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Near Central Market
Colorful street adjacent to market. Sunday January 6, 2008 - Monday January 7, 2008 Our visit to Kuala Lumpur was a quick one. It was basically a lengthy layover on our way to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We were scheduled to arrive in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday at 3:00pm, and depart Monday at 7:00am. Not a lot of time to see the city, but just enough to create a lasting impression.
Our flight in was on Air Asia. As we experienced on our flight from Bangkok to Penang, everything seemed to go perfectly with our air travel. I continue to be impressed with the low cost Air Asia experience. You can’t help but wonder why other airlines around the world don’t operate accordingly.
Before leaving Penang, we opted to book a room in Kuala Lumpur at Pan Pacific hotel. Originally, we thought we’d just leave our baggage in an airport locker and eventually spend the night in the airport. However, after our experience in Bangkok, we quickly changed our minds. I’m very glad we did because we would have been extremely tired on Monday morning in Siem Reap had we not stayed in a hotel room the night before.
The Pan Pacific hotel
Petronas Pose!
Who's that fly guy? was advertised as being connected to the Kuala Lumpur airport. A very luxurious hotel, probably the nicest we’ll stay in during our trip. The airport being 30 minutes from the city center, I don’t imagine the hotel is ever used by anyone other then airport layovers.
Airport travelers beware. It appears there are two terminals at the Kuala Lumpur airport, Main and LCC. We arrived in the LCC terminal. Our hotel was connected to the Main terminal. The alarming discovery for us was the lengthy bus/taxi ride between the two terminals. It took about 15-20 minutes of high speed travel to move between the terminals. The bus was an affordable $1; however it only operates during certain hours. The taxi on Monday morning was a harsher $15, which we had no choice but to pay as we needed to be in the LCC terminal in time for our 7:00am flight. It almost feels like two separate airports based on the distance between the terminals. It kind of caught us by surprise.
Once we reached our hotel room, we geared up for our trip into the Kuala Lumpur city center. We hopped on the 30 minute KL Express train
ride into the city. On the way the skies opened and the downpour ensued. This was a bit deterring as we had planned to walk the streets, but didn’t think to bring an umbrella. Thankfully, by the time we reached the city, the rain had pretty much stopped for the afternoon.
The airport Express train dropped us off at the KL Sentral station. We grabbed a quick, late lunch and set out. Our first destination was the Central Market.
The Central Market is an indoor market with numerous stalls selling all sorts of goods. It was a good place for us to do a bit of people watching and introduce ourselves to a piece of Kuala Lumpur culture. We looked at various items, but ultimately walked out without a purchase. We didn’t really look back on the Central Market being a place of interest; feel free to skip this if you’re short on time as we were.
From The Central Market we set course for the Petronas Twin Towers. The towers were once the tallest buildings in the world from 1998-2004, so they’re pretty much a “must see” on any first time trip to Kuala Lumpur. We
Roller Coaster In Mall
Blurry unfortunately, but you get the point. tried to access the towers and visit the viewing deck on the bridge between the two towers, but alas all tickets had been granted for the day. Instead, we took a few standard photos from outside and moved on.
Next stop was an enormous mall in an area I believe they call Times Square. Approximately 10 floors or so, the mall had a bowling alley (over 40 lanes), and IMAX theater, and an indoor theme park. It was certainly the biggest mall I’d ever set foot in. Being a Sunday, it was also packed to the gills with customers.
From there, we decided to grab dinner before heading back to the airport. We decided on a Lebanese restaurant recommended in our travel guide called Al Nafourah. Initially, we wandered around for an hour or so trying to find the place. It turns out the restaurant was inside a hotel, which our travel guide failed to mention. The meal was very good, but we’d certainly had better back in the states. The atmosphere was very pleasant and allowed us to relax before heading back to the airport.
Once back at our hotel we crashed knowing we had an early 4:45am wake-up call ahead of us.
Overall, neither Tegan nor I were very impressed by Kuala Lumpur. It seemed a good stop if you’re interested in shopping, but otherwise it felt very much like your typical modernized city. We’re glad we had a small amount of time to visit, but even happier that we did not plan to spend more time in Kuala Lumpur.
Next stop, Siem Reap Cambodia.
Random Observations/Nuisances
-The mass transit system has multiple lines; however each seems to be owned and operated independent of one another. A real nuisance when you’re looking to change from one line to another.
-Taxi fares are not metered. You negotiate a fare before you hop in. As a tourist, you’re a walking target for an extreme overcharging. We walked away from a couple taxis where we felt the fare was a bit much. Very annoying.
- We’ve struggled with the airport checked bag restriction of 15kg on Air Asia. It’s been a real juggling act to move items between bags so we don’t have to pay an overweight extra fee at check in.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.065s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0348s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
Brian
non-member comment
What did I tell you...
see, I told you the Towers and the Market would be a waste of time. :-p