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Published: November 11th 2008
None of us knew what to expect of Kuala Lumpur, other than we knew that the Petronas Towers are there. So when our driver dropped us off outside McDonalds in the heart of a bustling, super modern city with shopping malls galore, we realised that this city was probably gonna be our downfall where our budget was concerned!
Staying at the Cardogan Hotel on Jalan Bintang in the centre of the Golden Triangle district, we have about 5 shopping malls right on our very doorstep. Sadly, we can only wonder what it might be like to stay at the various posh hotels, including the Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton. We wandered through the former as it houses the Starhill Gallery shopping mall and salivated at all the designer shops, each with their own doorperson who looked upon us like the Riff-raff travellers we are! Ha ha!
Most of the shopping malls have food halls in the basement which have loads of different stalls selling chinese, malay, thai, korean, indian, vietnamese and western food - all for about 7/8 rm (under 2 pound) per meal. Thanks to Natalie and Jenny, our Scottish friends, who gave us the heads up on this.
And one
thing about KL is you'll never go hungry. There are restaurants and takeaways, coffee shops and donut places to suit every taste and budget . . .and making up for my food poisoning episodes earlier, I think I must have sampled about every one of them!
However, we have reasoned that the amount of food we've been scoffing has balanced out what we have not consumed in alcohol. Drinking in KL is very expensive - certainly compared to what we've been used to in Thailand, so our solitary night out here was a bit of a sober one, with little to write home about in terms of the club life (if we'd have been drunk it prob woulda been brilliant, but as it was . . .) but as usual we did manage to find a local Malay band doing rubbish cover versions of naff 80s tunes so it wasn't a complete wash out.
We went up the Petronas Towers and visited the Dataran Merdeka (old courthouse of colonial era) and had a look down the Jalan Petaling, a street full of hawker stalls selling all kinds of stuff, down in china town. We also visited the Lake Gardens, a
beautiful park, which was somewhat spoilt by the tannoys dotted everywhere blaring out football results and the weather!
Fancying a little bit of 'normality', last night we also went to the cinema- paying a bargain 3 pound 50p for ticket, popcorn and drink - to see Tropic Thunder. Which was apt, seeing our next destination is back in the jungle in Borneo.
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Helen Cocks
non-member comment
Hey Gina! Still keeping up with your travels. So pleased to see you're well and enjoying every minute. KL looks great and the shopping must have been fab - hope the budget held it's own. Plymouth is very very cold now, my car temperature guage shows about 3 degrees on the way to work in the morning! Look forward to seeing your next blog. Will keep in touch Hx