We decided to stop over in Kuala Lumpur on our way to Thailand. Our flight departed from Colombo at 23:45 and we arrived in KL at 5:30 am (half an hour ahead of schedule), and when you factor in the 2.5 hour time difference, that makes for a very short night on the plane! We would much rather have been late so we could snooze a bit longer… but no.
So we arrived in the darkness of early morning, half asleep. First shock: KL airport (a large SE Asian hub) was very well organised. No long queues, everything was well indicated, and after no more than 30 minutes we found ourselves on the luxury (compared to Sri Lankan trains) express train towards downtown KL. Exactly 33 minutes later, we debarked at the Sentral station, located in a huge shopping mall. Our hotel was located in an adjacent shopping mall (there are no shortage of malls here!), a few minutes walk away. Second shock: the malls were modern and spotless, with all the high end western brands you can imagine, you could literally be anywhere from London to NYC. After playing yo-yo on the escalators, we eventually found our hotel, but it wasn’t even 7 am yet! Too early to check in, but at least we could dump our bags and go exploring.
After a quick breakfast in an Indian cafe around the corner, we decided to take the LRT train to see the famous Petronas Towers. Once we had figured out how to get into the station (there are several lines that don’t all communicate), it was easy to navigate our way around. Here we had our third shock of the day: it was rush hour on the trains, and the crowds were patiently waiting in nice orderly lines for the next train to arrive. After India and Sri Lanka, where the word “queue” doesn’t exist (and we had to use our cases and sometimes even the kids to avoid queue-jumpers), we were completely flabbergasted.
Eventually, we got to our station and managed to get off without leaving a kid on the train. We made our way through yet another shopping mall and finally there we were in front of the impressive Petronas twin towers. What impressed the kids even more though, was the gigantic, repeat GIGANTIC playground located in the park next to the towers. We had never seen so many play modules in one place before. Even more impressive was the fact that the place was deserted, even though you could fit 5 schools the size of Greg & Nina’s into the play area no problem. The kids were having a ball playing in there while Gary & I battled to stay awake on a park bench. Pretty soon, though it began to get too hot to stay outside, so we took refuge in (you guessed it!) a shopping mall. After a quick rejuvenation stop (double cappuccino for us, and a visit to Toy’s R us for the kids), everyone was feeling more awake and ready to carry on visiting.
Next, we decided to walk back to the hotel through the old town and Chinatown. Despite the existence of sidewalks (another nice change after India and Sri Lanka), it’s not that easy to navigate your way around KL on foot. There are a bunch of multi-lane highways, canals, and train lines to cross over, without always having a pedestrian crossing. We learned our lesson the hard way – it’s much, much easier to take the LRT than to walk any distance! We did manage to get to our mall on foot, but we were truly fed up by then. We had promised the kids that we would go to Burger King for lunch, so off we went (we had to abandon this idea at Colombo airport as they were charging US$15 for a hamburger only!) and all four of us had burgers and fries for only US $10 total, a much more digestible price!
After lunch, we wandered around the shops for a while, but by this time we were worn out, so we headed to our hotel to check in and have a nap. Later on we felt reinvigorated and we went out again in search of a bit to eat. We wanted to try typical Malay cuisine since we had eaten dosas for breakfast. Unfortunately for us, we were smack bang in the middle of little India, and Malay cuisine was impossible to find, so we had to settle for… you guessed it! dosas again, except for Gary, who had curry and rice served on a banana leaf. The Malay cuisine will have to wait for our next visit.
After dinner, we got back on the LRT and returned to the towers to see the water and light show in the park. The show was choreographed to the music of Celine Dion, and we could almost believe that we were in Vegas!
And so, our day in KL came to an end. The next morning, we had a quick breakfast in one of the million cafes in the mall, and got back on the super express train to the airport. We enjoyed our short stop in KL, and that;s just as well since we will be returning there in a few weeks time on our way down to Bali!
A Light Year Family 