KL

From Bersapeuda bus station we found our way eventually to the Rapid KL LRT after initially trying to go into a different section for a different rail company (they are only 1 floor apart!). We were whisked into KL city centre in no time at all, arriving at Plaza Rayakat stop which was only a few minutes walk to our hostel. We walked out through the station, along a long back alley, through another bus terminal and eventually out onto the street. The short journey to our guesthouse took us past an interesting Hindu temple where no matter what time of day there were always a few older Hindu men sitting around outside of it. Whilst in KL we stayed at the Step Inn Guesthouse 2 which was nice enough. We had a private room and bathroom there for a reasonable price seen as we were in the capital city and in a fairly central location to access all the sights. There was a small communal kitchen where everyone scrapped to get the free bread and access to the one toaster for breakfast in the morning. We did not spend much time in the hostel as we were out seeing things but there was always the volunteer staff or hungover people lounging on the broken sofas in the front room watching a diverse range of movies from a Cody box.

When we arrived we knew that the rugby (England vs New Zealand final match of the test) was playing so we were hurriedly trying to find somewhere to watch it. After asking the girl on reception where we could find a bar to watch it and her coming up blank, Dave did a quick google for sports bars and we headed to the Changkat area where there is a whole street of bars/restaurants and pubs. It was only a 15minute walk away so we had not missed too much by the time we arrived in the area. The whole area was packed! Every bar/ pub was playing the rugby and all the ex-pats and tourists were out in full force. We managed to grab seats in a slightly nicer bar- Temptations and ended up ordering a jug of beer… oops (50RM), where we happily settled in to watch the match. Halfway through Jake, a lone traveller, pulled up the seat next to us so we watched the match together and spent some time talking to him, accompanied by more beer. As we had had a pretty expensive afternoon we headed for cheap food on Jalan Alor only a 10 minute walk away. This is known as one of the food streets in KL. Every night all the street restaurants open and have staff out with their menus trying to get you in as well as there being dozens of street food stalls. We chose a couple of salted duck egg pork dumplings for a dim sum cart to nibble on whilst we were deciding where to eat (1.20RM each). We chose one of the restaurants there as we could see they served Wanton Mee- a noodle dish with wantons and we had really enjoyed that dish in Penang. Although not as delicious as the street stall in Penang it was still very tasty and was exactly what we had wanted (6RM each). On our way back to the hostel we realised we had a pretty good view of KL tower from just down the street from the hostel and it looked impressive lit up. After relaxing for a bit at the hostel we stretched our legs by walking to and around the Masjid Jamek night market in Little India as it is only on on Saturdays. It was full of a variety of stalls- clothing, electronics, food and types of cakes (quite often you could buy whole ones). By this point we were exhausted so we caught the LRT back from Masjid Jamek to Plaza Raykat instead of walking the whole way.

After a quiet morning we headed out sightseeing at midday the following day. We walked through the Chinatown area to the Central Market which had a few stalls outside as well as indoor area full of beautiful souvenirs- textiles, artwork, woodwork and furniture, as well as some of the more standard tacky souvenirs. We made our way round the outside finding a great stall selling individual portions of fruit for actually a reasonable price. Munching on our melon we enjoyed looking at all the bits and pieces. Dave also tried a local sweet dish which was; steamed rice flour, pandan, palm sugar and coconut. From here we walked to Merdeka Square queuing up to get our picture with the I love KT sign, trying to get pictures of the really high flag tower and admiring the old colonial buildings surrounding the square. It was scorching hot so after spending a few minutes taking different pictures the heat was too intense and I hid in any shade I could find. Luckily on our walk to the botanical gardens we found a bit of shade as it ended up being a much further walk than we had hoped for. But it saved us on public transportation costs! Then in the botanical gardens we did a lot more walking making our way around some of the different areas of the gardens, lakes, fountains, different flower gardens even the deer park which had 1 deer in at the time due to the others all being in quarantine!! At the top of the park we went to the planetarium where we looked around their free space exhibition and were big kids doing all of the interactive elements clearly meant for children. Our legs were completely shattered by the end of this but we couldn’t see a train stop anywhere close. So after another reasonably long and difficult walk due to lack of pathways we eventually made it all hot and bothered to a monorail station where we could then change to another line to get back to our stop. We made it back to the hostel and had to just crash out for a few hours in the air con.

In the evening we headed to Chinatown, only a few minutes walk from us, to Petaling Street which is a famous nightly market there. A lot of it again though was just stuff whereas we were looking for food. We found a few restaurants and street vendors on the street parallel to it though. We ended up choosing a street restaurant which was an elderly couple that were serving up two or three dishes and put a couple of tables/ stools out the front. It smelt delicious though. We had some Hokkien Mee which was as good as it smelt. We wandered around the area a bit more before heading back for a relaxing night at the hostel recovering from all our walking still.

We decided to go on a day trip the next day to the heavily recommended Batu Caves. This was a nice easy day trip. We got the LRT to Masijid Jamek and then to KL Sentral. From here we got an actual train that stopped outside the Batu Caves for only 2.40 RM each. Our impression of it was that it was ok overall. It was very busy and we were there in quiet season. There were lots of gaudy large statues that were clearly new. The scenery and caves themselves were impressive or they would have been if they did not have lots of concrete, badly painted figures everywhere and builders in their building more and more “sights” not historical or unique to the caves. There are quite a few steps up to the temples and what is more annoying is that they are littered with bolshie large macaques stealing whatever they can- drinks, food, bags etc in the hopes of finding things they can eat and getting aggressive if you get too close. One even had a lipstick! So getting up there was an obstacle course in itself. We only entered the main cave itself which works on a donation basis. There are some other caves there with actual entrance fees but we had already seen quiet a few impressive caves by this point in our trip. We had not been wowed by Batu Caves and were both quite happy to leave after spending about 5 minutes actually in the cave itself. After boarding another train back to KL we walked around KL Sentral a bit before heading to Little India for lunch. We were expecting more of Little India- Brick Lane area after reading some good things but there wasn’t too much there. We did find a local restaurant though and had some nice Nasi Kandar to avoid the rain. We hopped back on the LRT (we didn’t fancy walking as much today) and went to the KLCC area so we could see the Petronas Towers and the KLCC park. The weather wasn’t the best so after getting some photos and getting a bit lost in the mall we made our way back to ours on the LRT. We picked up a few bits for a lighter dinner back at Jalan Alor in the evening buying a selction of dim sum, mixed meat satay skewers and sweet potatoes.

After a busy couple of days and lots of sightseeing we had seen most of the things we wanted to see in KL. Our last day there we got some fruit and a Malaysia magnet for the collection from the Central Market. We also had lunch at the food court in the top of the Central Market having some more Indian food before going back to the hostel to skype friends. In the afternoon we walked over to KL tower and explored Bukit Bintong area full of malls and shops. After walking back to our area we went for a nice brownie & ice tea at Etc café, another trip advisor special before having an early night.

It was an early start (5am) for leaving KL we walked down to the star shuttle bus stop outside mydin where we boarded the coach for the airport- KLIA1 (12 MYR booked in advance). It was about an hour journey and after another Macdonalds breakfast we boarded our 2 hour flight to Kuching in Borneo, hopeful of some wildlife adventures.

Alex