Exploring KL for the day

Monday, 23 July 2012

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. We heard the breakfast is supposed to be pretty good at our hotel, so we decided to all go and check it out. We had to say Alan was our guest and paid for one. It was well worth it. Alan and Anders went for the classic American breakfast with freshly made omelettes with sausages and toast. I went for he Chinese noodles and congee. Everything was mini size, so I got to taste it all. Even the fish balls and fried dough were mini size. The fish balls were really good. Anders was also very satisfied with the sweet tasty watermelon. This is a whole new sensation for him because he used to think watermelon was boring because it tasted like water. What he didn't know was only watermelon in Norway taste like water.

To maximize the five star experience, we went to swim and relaxed by the pool before heading into town. We also had to wait for our wash to be done. They had a self service washing machine here for $7 a load. Alan and I spent the time figuring out what to do the next few days, while anders finally finished his blog post. We all took a dip every now and then. This rooftop pool is really amazing. It had beds alongside the glass that overlooks the city.

Around 2pm, we got our act together and headed out to the city. We stopped by Starbucks for a caffeine fixed. Anders and I ordered a green tea red bean frap to share. So cool that Starbucks had products that accommodated to the local taste. I like i, but Anders didn't like it so much.

We decided to go to lake gardens to check out the bird park and the surrounding attractions after booking a tour for the next day. The plan was to take public transport to the NKS tour office located at the Hotel Mandarin Pacific in Chinatown. 10mins into our walk, I realized I forgot my contacts! This is an issue as I wouldn't be able to see the birds at the bird park, so we had to go back. We then ventured out to grab a budget taxi. In KL, there are premium taxis (blue) and budget taxis (red, orange). Premium is a bit bigger and a bit friendlier but cost twice as much as a small smelly rude budget taxi. We also note that we never had problems with budget taxis. In fact, most were very helpful

For 10 rmb, we got to the tour office to book our trip to Taman Negara, a 130 million years old rainforest. Alan and I decided it would be a good stopover prior to a 7 night stay at the Perhentian Island.

The ladies at NKS were really helpful and informative. We ended up booking the free and easy 3 days 2 night package for 225 rmb each. This included the bus from KL to Kuala Tembeling Jetty, boat ride from there to Kuakq Tahan (Taman Negara), two nights at a budget dorm room, and bus to Kuala Betsu Jetty. We were tiny skeptical about the low budget dorm room that cost $3 a night. We were definitely being true backpackers.

Next stop was a walk through chinatown and lunch. Chinatown was basically lots of merchants selling things on the street, nothing useful or great. We did go to Peter Hoe craft shop by the central market. It was a really nice craft shop displaying nice oriental lanterns, bed covers and other cleaver accessories. It was pricey and we had no room in our backpack to accommodate any purchases. We then took a quick stop for some lunch at a street vendor selling chicken and rice for 6rmb ($2). This was Anders' first street food experience. He worried over his stomach, but it all settled well. He even went for a second plate. I used some of the lunch time doing a call for one of my projects with Russ.

Afterwards we went to Merdeka Square, the place where Malaysia's independence was proclaimed at midnight on 31 August 1957. It supposedly hosts the world tallest freestanding flagpole at 100m tall. Surrounding this square are some really pretty colonial buildings.

By the time we completed our walk, it was already 5pm, so not much time to do the bird park at the Lake Gardens. It closed at 6pm. We decided it would be good to check out the Lake Gardens anyhow. We got a metered taxi (red) to drive us there. Alan saw on Trip Advisor the war memorial was a good place to start, so he tried to explain it to the driver. The driver did not understand him, but Alan proceeded to say the same thing over and over in English slower and louder. Eventually I tried with Cantonese and the driver understood, stopped the car and said we were here. We had to walk across four lanes with no traffic light before we got there. A bit nerve wrecking.

Alan had a list / path of places we should check out, so he was the tour guide for afternoon. He did a pretty good job walking us to the memorial, the lake, Islamic Art Museum (closed on Mondays), Masjid Negara (contemporary style mosque with straight lines), and KL train station. It was a pleasant walk, despite it being above 30 degrees and 80% humidity. I also got eaten alive by mosquitoes during our journey. My whole back had symmetrical dots on each side!

Anders wanted to check out the sunset at the observation deck of the KL tower. We read that it cost 38rmb to go up, so we headed there around 7pm via subway. The tower is also just across from our hotel, very convenient. There's a shuttle bus that goes up and down it ever 15mins. Alan wanted to climb it, but Anders and I refused. We wanted to sit on our lazy asses up there. To our disappointment, but not shocked, lonely planet was wrong about the pricing (again). It was more expensive than expected, so we decided to give it a miss and go to our hotel bar instead. We changed in our room first, did some minor admin things like fixing the guesthouse at the Perhentian Islands, before heading to the bar. It was happy hour, so two for one. We had some good drinks and a quick photo session before heading out to KLCC. Right as we left, I'd asked the staff working there for a dinner recommendation and she wrote a name in card for me.

At KLCC, Alan went for a haircut, while Anders and I went searching for pants to hike in the jungle. We heard there were lychees, so it was advisable to wear pants. Anders found some on sale, and I decided to go with tight running pants. I didn't want to buy anything that I wasn't going to use again. By 10pm, when the mall closed, we were done with all we had to do.

With Alan's new look, we went to the place our hotel girl recommended. We didn't know what to expect, but it turned out to be an Indian food stall. We ordered tons of food. It was all in all good value for the price. For $15, we had tons of dishes and left overs. Bwe even had roti that was filled with onions and eggs inside and one with chicken. The only disappointment for the boys were the lack of alcohol. It was good fun.

Prior to cozy-ing it up in our king size bed, we headed to 7-eleven for some snacks for the bus ride (I bought salty plums) and an ATM to stack up for cash the next ten days. Anders had 5000rmb strapped in his money belt. He was a bit nervous and uncomfortable that his pants looked like he had a big package. We need to stack up on cash because the forest and islands have no ATMs.