TWIN TOWERS, DANCING FOUNTAINS, BANKS, MONKEYS, SWIMMING AND PERCY PIGS
HOMEWARD BOUND
After nearly eight weeks in Vietnam, and five and a half months of travelling, in total, I headed back to the UK for a couple of weeks.
It was great to be home for a little while, to be able to catch up with friends and family and, arguably, just as important, head to the Glastonbury festival.
After the two weeks, I was ready to get rolling again.
STOP OFF IN THAILAND
I flew out to Thailand, to meet back up with Holly, who was in Bangkok at the time.
We stayed there for one night together and then headed over to Koh Lanta and Krabi, to meet up with a couple of friends and have some relaxing beach time.
I didn’t feel it necessary to blog about the time in Thailand, as I’d been to some of these places before and spent most of my time here catching up on the Vietnam blog posts, before heading onto the next stop. Malaysia.
ARRIVAL IN KUALA LUMPUR
We flew from Krabi to Kuala Lumpur airport and it was one of the most stress free travel experiences of my life.
Krabi airport was incredible quiet, so we sped through bag drop and security.
It was a smooth, quick flight to Kuala Lumpur.
Once at Kuala Lumpur, this airport was really quiet also. Straight through passport control, no need for a visa and our baggage was with us within a couple of minutes. Dreams.
I picked up a local sim card, hailed an Uber and we made our way to our hotel – Big M Hotel; which was located right in the heart of the city and presumably got its name by way of association with the McDonalds next door.
The hotel was nothing special, but it gave us everything we needed for a couple of days here.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MALAYSIA
After checking into the hotel, we left to go and wander the streets of Kuala Lumpur and get a feel for life in Malaysia.
The first things to occur to me were:
- Everyone seemed to speak really good English
- The prices were higher than I’d experienced in the rest of Asia, especially booze. I’m sure this is in large part, due to the fact that Malaysia is predominantly a Muslim country
- There were pavements I could actually walk on
- I found it surprisingly hard to convert the currency back into the equivalent in sterling. It’s roughly 5.5 Ringgit to the Pound, but I seemed to find this so much harder than Dong, for example, where it was 30,000 to the Pound
- There were banking offices everywhere. The skyline was full of them
- The place seemed generally more affluent and westernised than anywhere else I’d visited so far
We took a walk initially towards the KLCC park, which is overlooked by the famous Petronas twin towers.
On the way I noticed the contrast of the huge banking corporation skyscrapers and the urban decay and graffiti.
THE PETRONAS TWIN TOWERS OF KUALA LUMPUR
We arrived at the KLCC park and were surprised by quite how modern and well presented it was.
There were lush gardens, a small public swimming pool and, at the base of the towers, there was a large shopping centre.
While walking through the gardens, you could clearly see the towers looming above.
A really impressive sight. Beautiful in their symmetry.
We walked to the base of the towers and took a look around the shopping centre.
This felt so familiar. It was like walking into Westfield, in London. All of the standard recognisable brands and shops, the majority of which were really high end.
There was even a Marks & Spencer’s here, so I couldn’t resist picking up a bag of Percy’s.
Leaving the shopping centre, we sat and had a couple of drinks at one of the restaurants outside the towers, overlooking the lake.
There were some impressive fountains in the lake. Apparently later in the evening, there are several fountain shows, synchronised to music, much like that of the Belaggio in Las Vegas.
We weren’t around later in the evening to watch them, but it was still nice to have a couple of drinks here, relaxing, watching the world go by and looking at the fountains.
Before moving on, I took a few more shots, looking up at the towers. I wish I’d had my wide angle lens for this, but managed to make do with my fixed 35mm.
SEEING MORE OF KUALA LUMPUR
On our second day in Kuala Lumpur, having seen the iconic sight of the Petronas towers, we took a walk around more of the city to take in what else it had to offer.
We’d decided to grab lunch in a place called Arabesque, which turned out to be a fantastic Turkish restaurant. Check it out, if you’re in town. Cheap, great eats.
On the way, we walked through Kasturi walk – a market street, selling clothes, shoes, electronic goods and fruit.
Next stop, China town.
Again, more street food and stalls selling all manner of goods.
MONKEYS
Later this day we headed towards one of the local parks and were surprised to see some urban monkeys!
I paused to take a couple of snaps on our way.
HISTORICAL BUILDINGS
Heading back in the direction of our hotel, we stopped in Merdeka Square, to view some of the historical buildings of Kuala Lumpur. The main building of which, was the Sultan Abdul Samad building. Built in 1897 and named after the reigning sultan of Selangor at the time.
This building in particular, was really impressive, but I imagine it was even more of a sight, before it was dwarfed by dozens of banking corporations! They really are trying to steal its thunder.
SWIMMING
On our final day in Kuala Lumpur – a blisteringly hot day – we were keen for some exercise and looked into where there were any public swimming pools in Kuala Lumpur. We found one at a place named PJ Palms Sports Centre and took an Uber over there.
It was a really plush place, with a 50m outdoor pool. We spent several hours here enjoying the pool, the sun and having a few drinks and a bite to eat, to round off our time in the Malaysian capital.
ONTO LANGKAWI
After three days in Kuala Lumpur we were ready to head off again. We were moving onto the island of Langkawi.
Read on for the blog post from this beautiful island.
