Around & out of KL Sentral

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I checked out of the Irsia B&B guesthouse (Tripadvisor review here) and headed straight across town with my pack to the KL Sentral station to deposit it in the luggage lockers. Having got that out of the way, I had plenty of time on my hands before the train to Butterworth was due to leave at 10pm so set off to explore the area close to the station known as Brickfields. This is an area with a strong Indian and Tamil presence - indeed, somewhat confusingly, it is one of two parts of KL often referred to as "Little India" (the other is around Masjid Jamek). It's a dazzlingly colourful area, and if Sri Devi restaurant is anything to go by the food is excellent too.

After paying a visit to Merdeka ('Independence') Square I spent the later part of the afternoon wandering in the Lake Gardens park area. This is where the butterfly and bird parks are, but entry was pricey and I was conscious of budget after having spent quite a bit in the first few days shopping and buying the train ticket, so I gave these a miss and stopped for a while at the Heritage Gardens instead before walking back down the hill and (after being quoted RM15(!) by a taxi driver to get back to KL Sentral), took the KL Komuter train instead. I was pleased I did that because if I hadn't I'd never have seen the pink designated 'ladies coach' for myself - photos of this are beneath my previous post.

The area near the station is close to the Malaysia Association for the Blind, and correspondingly there is a substantial visually impaired community in the area. The shop shown in the photo sells all kinds of assistance gadgets such as talking clocks, and I had an interesting chat with the proprietor there who explained that they sourced some of the gadgets through contact with the RNIB in the UK, however as they are mostly made in China the cost price is lower here in Malaysia. Also in this area are several 'blind massage' centres run and staffed by the visually impaired.

After a decent meal of 'mutton' rendang at Gandhi's vegetarian restaurant I got a bit lost because the restaurant was in a different place to that shown on the map in my guidebook - either it had moved since 2006, or there was a misprint in the book. Once again I was glad I bought a compass at the market in Chinatown a couple of days ago, I have definitely got my money's worth from that already. As I was making my way back to the station I stumbled across a coin-op (self-service) launderette on Jalan Padang Belia - a rare find in Malaysia. Alas it was too late to actually use it, with less than an hour to go before I needed to be at the station for my train to Butterworth.

The train: Well, it left on time (which is more than could be said for the one to Singapore, which was cancelled due to flooding to the south) and the seats were wide and had plenty of leg-room. Thing is, it was a night train leaving at 22:00 and due to arrive at Butterworth at 6am and having paid RM67 for the ticket, which had 'premier' written on it, I was expecting to be in a sleeping car! In addition to this, the strip-lights on the ceiling of the carriage were on the whole time (unlike the plane) so I ended up putting a flannel I had in my bag over my eyes when attempting to sleep. Finally, as we started to approach Butterworth with around 45 minuts to go, loud announcements of the stations we were going to stop at were played over the speakers.

There's a bit of a walk from the train station to the ferry terminal, and some coin-operated turnstiles. Its only RM1.20 but I guess people don't have change because there's a guy sitting behind a window just before this point whose job it is to change notes to coins so people can get through the turnstile! The ferry ride was straightforward, then I had quite a lot of time to kill before I would be able to check into my accommodation...

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Comments

[Mark I]

Good to see how your travels are going
Keep up with the blog updates - good to read. A bit of advice - if you come across any building sites, have a quick look and see if you can get any pictures of anything with the Bahasa word for 'Cement' on it. You'll see what I mean!! Mark

[raj]

South Indian Food
the taste is authentic south indian food and good service and clean