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Published: March 20th 2009
Kuala Lumpur
The Petronas Towers downtown KL.We woke extra early this morning to make sure we had time to eat breakfast and make it to the pier in time for the earliest ferry of the day. All went well until the ferry was 45 minutes late...how does this happen? It's a daily ferry with the same schedule every single day, the water was almost like glass today, yet somehow we were 45 minutes late! I'd like to break away from my complaints for a moment and tell a story I heard from my friend Michael, a fellow travel, that directly relates to this experience.
Michael was taking an overnight train somewhere in Thailand, according to the set schedule the train left at 9pm and arrived the following morning at 9am. He asked one of the train employees the following morning what time they were going to arrive because it was 9:15 and they were still moving, to which the employee replied 11am. He said, “but it says 9am on the ticket,” to which the employee replied, “yeah, the train is always two hours late because it has to go over the top of a mountain along the way.” Where the hell is the logic there, if
Kuala Lumpur
A view from inside the skybridge. anyone had any theories, I'm open for suggestions. If anything, the one thing that I've definitely become completely immune to on this trip is the element of surprise. I could be in the middle of a mall and see some guy skip by naked on one of those broomsticks with a horse head and not look twice.
Anyway, back to the story....so we arrive at the pier and all we wanted to do was jump off the boat and run like 200 yards to where the taxis were waiting but we had to wait for some guy with OCD to line the boat ramp up perfectly. So, while he's measuring the boat, dock and ramp with a protractor we are losing precious time. Finally we got off and ran to the taxi waiting area, agreed on a price way too high and made our way to the airport. We arrived later than the mandatory 45 minutes but thankfully they let us board anyway. So we were on our way to KL.
We arrived in KL, went through customs and grabbed our luggage. We found a reasonably priced bus into the city and an hour and half later we
Kuala Lumpur
From the window of the skybridge, I think it was 44 stories. arrived. Unfortunately we parted ways with the bus at the wrong station but it all worked out in the long run. We found a little place next to Chinatown, dropped our luggage and headed out for a bit to eat. I was ecstatic when I saw a Nando's Chicken. The only place I had seen these before was in Australia, they have awesome chicken and hot sauce so I opted to eat there. The menu was a bit different than the one in OZ but it was still awesome. We walked through Chinatown and the night market after dinner. All they sell there for the most part is knock off merchandise. You can get any purse, watch, cd, dvd, video game or article of clothing that you want for a mere fraction of the cost at home. I wanted to buy a ton of stuff but felt I had already burned through enough money on this trip that it wasn't entirely necessary. I did however purchase 3 games for Nintendo Wii. I picked up Zelda, Mario Kart and Tiger Woods golf all for $12 US, now let's just hope they work.
The next day we woke early to head
Kuala Lumpur
Me in the skybridge. to the Petronas Towers in downtown KL. These are the twin towers with the 44 story skybridge connecting them. It was also filmed in the movie Entrapment with Sean Connery. Anyway, every morning they allow 300 visitors to visit the tower, the tickets are free but they are on a first come, first serve basis. So, we wanted to make sure we could get our hands on some of them. We were pretty far back in line but it worked out for the best. They send visitors up in groups so we were the 10:30 group which meant we had an hour to grabs some breakfast. We went into the mall area below the towers and found a Dunken Donuts, finally a normal coffee! I ordered a ham and cheese croissant and for a few extra ringgets I could add sausage, so I did. The problem with this decision and I would imagine the reasoning behind the strange look I thought I got while ordering is that sausage to them meant hot dog. So, you can imagine what it looked like to get a ham and cheese croissant with a dirty hot dog sticking out of it at 9:30am. Again,
Kuala Lumpur
View from Petronas Towers. I was not surprised, I just said, “yup, should have seen that coming.”
We headed back to the entrance to the skybridge where we were placed in a room with 3D glassed for a presentation on the towers. It was not as cool as I thought it would've been and don't understand the though process behind the 3D movie but they get an A for effort. The bridge was really cool and modern feeling even though it was built some years ago. It had a great view even though it was overcast and a bit rainy.
After the Petronas Towers we met with my buddy Ikky whom I met in the dorms while living in Australia. He picked Bryan and I up outside the train station and he gave us a tour of the city. It worked out really well because another guy in the dorms was in town that I hadn't spoken to in years, his name is Shohan and he's from Dubai. It was very cool because I have a strong interest in Dubai and was able to learn a little about what's going on over there from a first hand source. Plus, I'll have a
contact when I eventually make it there.
That night we did some shopping, well Bryan did and I went along for moral support. By moral support I mean, he would ask if he should buy something and I would encourage him to do so. I think he spent upwards of $200 on pirates DVD's and video games, it'll be worth it if they all work properly.
So, here is where the wonderful KL experience goes down the shitter! As always we decide to be responsible and wake up extra early, we eat and head to the bus terminal. We tell the cashier that our flight leaves at noon for Manila, she tells us the bus arrives at the terminal at 10:30am, perfect 45 mins. to spare before we have to check in! Everything goes well, we get dropped off and the terminal and walk around looking for the Malaysia Airlines and after about 10 mins. of lugging our shit around we find out that we are at the wrong terminal. The only way to get to the correct one is to pay a taxi 3 times as much as we did for the bus ticket. We have no
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Night market during the day. choice we pay and have the guy speed to the correct terminal just to get there and find out they won't let us on the flight. This is the only flight to Manila this day and we were supposed to meet Bryan's dad there. We accept the reality and go downstairs to the Malaysian Airlines front desk to move our flight to the next day. The lady tells me that not only will they not transfer credit from the flight, the one for the following day is 4 times as much. I just stare at her for a minute, turn and walk away. We find a ticket at with Air Asia for about $200 US and seeing as we had no other options we decided to buy it. Typically this is not a process but seeing as I'm in Asia they make it as difficult as possible for you, then kick you while you're down. We try to book it online but because it's within 24 hours we have to go to the ticket counter. The ticket counter doesn't accept Amex even though they do online. So, Bryan goes to the ATM to pay in cash but doesn't have enough
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KL night markets, knock off purses as far as the eye could see. in the account because he had transferred money the day before but it takes 2 days to hit his account. So, he had to buy a calling card, call the credit card company, call his mom at 3am to wake her and get the necessary information to have his credit card linked to his bank account. This is a 4 hour ordeal and finally we get cash out to pay for the flights. It's about 1pm now and the flight doesn't leave until 7am the following morning. Also it leaves from the terminal that the bus driver dropped us off at originally. So, to sum everything up, because the lady at the ticket counter wanted to sell each of us a $7 ticket knowing full well we wouldn't make our flight, we lost about $300 US each and a full day of our trip.
The food selection was limited except for McDonald's and since I gave up fast food 2 years ago I was stuck eating at the local place. Usually this is fine because I like to try the local food but in this case it didn't work out too well. I ordered something called Nasi Lemak, I
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This was one of many stores full of pirated movies. can only assume the first part is pronounced like, Nazi because it was the worst thing I've ever eaten in my life and if you've been following the blog you know that I swallowed a beating snake heart in a glass of bloody vodka! I this food was chicken covered in dried fish paste, then dried pieces of fish on the side along with peanuts, rice and some mystery sauce which I believe also contained fish. None of the ingredients should have ever met on the same plate and a few should have never existed at all.
My next gripe about Malaysia, well at least the airport is that they advertise things that they know full well they don't have on a regular basis. For example, Gloria Jean Coffee advertised full meals on a 5ft tall sandwich board which they clearly made a conscious effort to place outside the door in clear view of all the passing passengers, when I walked in to inquire about it, I got a weird look and she pointed to the food menu on the wall that was all blacked out. It was like she had no idea where I would have come up
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Knock off watches. with such a strange request. I would blame it on the language barrier if there were not huge pictures of food under each title. Just to throw another example out there, the next morning after sleeping on a tile floor all night I there was a place in our terminal called “Cafe Espresso.” I couldn't help to get a little excited thinking to myself, maybe things are starting to look up. I go to order a coffee and I find out that “Cafe Espresso” only served instant coffee. Also, this high class cafe had one value meal they advertised, it was a coffee and a chocolate muffin. It was the only thing I could've stomached because the other options consisted of things such as a hot dog wrapped in a pastry with mayonnaise all over it. So, I order the value meal with the chocolate muffin she looked at me and said, “no have.” The part that boggles my mind is that someone got in their car, drove to a print shop, sat down and designed a sign for a value meal that he/she created, paid for the sign, drove it back to “Cafe Espresso,” bolted it to the wall
Kuala Lumpur
The worst meal I've ever had in my life!! all for what? Just to tell a customer who has been standing in line for 5 minutes, “no have!” Again, I just turned and walked away. In passing I looked in the cabinet for a place where the muffins were supposed to sit and not to my surprise, it didn't exist. It's not like they were out of them, they just didn't carry them. “Cafe Espresso” sucks!
So, lastly we were sitting down waiting for our plane to board and they never called for it, so I went to the desk, showed them my ticket and asked if the gate had been moved. They told me, they just hadn't called for it to board yet. So, I sat down and about 10 minutes later I they called a final boarding for my flight! How can you have a final when you don't have a first? We walk over, they rip our tickets and motion us onto the tarmac so we start walking and there are no people and no signs directing us anywhere so we walked around aimlessly for a while until we walked up and asked someone. He pointed us in the right direction and from that point
Kuala Lumpur
Fat guy on a little bike. on, everything went smoothly. I thought for sure after my last 24 hours that the plane was going down but to my surprise, it didn't.
I will definitely come back to Malaysia but not to KL, it's just a shopping Mecca whereas the rest of the country has lush jungles and great diving. Thanks KL for a great experience.....on to the Philippines!
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CK
non-member comment
What are horrible experience
First of all, let a Malaysian clarify some things about your horrible KL experience: 1) There are 2 terminals in KLIA - you found out about that a little bit too late. I guess when you approached the lady at the bus terminal, she assumed you knew that you wanted to head to the Low Cost Terminal, which by the way only has buses to and fro KL City. 2) While Air Asia's check in counter closes 45 minutes before departure, Malaysia Airlines probably closes earlier than that? Also, you might have bought a ticket which disallows credit transfer, especially if you bought it dead cheap... 3) Gosh, you hate Nasi Lemak? It's Malaysia's most popular breakfast! After Roti Canai (Prata) that is. If you don't like Nasi Lemak, I bet you wouldn't like Durians too =) 4) Final Call - I don't understand this as well. The same thing actually happened when I was transiting in Changi (Singapore). One minute the remark was 'Boarding', the next moment it was 'Last Call'! But when I ran to the Gate, it wasn't even opened! The next time you visit Malaysia, do consider visiting other places such as Penang, Malacca, or even Borneo (Kuching/Kota Kinabalu). Cheers!