Our alarms were blaring just before 6 o'clock. Not that we needed them. During the night it had rained so hard it had woken us both and we had really struggled to get back to sleep, so despite our tiredness we were up and ready in no time. We skipped breakfast, mainly because we'd been told it doesn't start until 8 o'clock so we had bought provisions for our train ride instead. We walked to the ferry port, hoping that the early hour and darkness would keep us cool. Yeah right, we sweated as much as we would have at midday in direct sunlight. We had a brief wait while the ferry came but we couldn't complain as it was a free journey. We piled on with the commuting locals and others who just seemed to be making the ride for a bit of fun, and found ourselves a seat near the front. 10 minutes laters, we had disembarked and were waiting in Butterworth station for our train to start boarding. Bearing in mind it was heading to Kuala Lumpur and then on to Johor Bahru, which is a city close to the border with Singapore, the train was surprisingly quiet. For the first couple of hours we got our heads down and caught up on some sleep. The rest was simply eating our lunch of Pringles and cookies and watching the leafy, tropical countryside of Malaysia fly by the window. With half an hour left to go, we hit the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur and we took to staring out the window in the hope we would catch a glimpse of the famous Petronas Towers. Just before we got to our stop, there they were in the distance. Or atleast, we think it was them, we'd have to compare when we see them up lose tomorrow. With terrorist incidents in Bangkok and Jakarta recently, Kuala Lumpur is on high alert and apparently someone was even arrested on public transport a few days before we arrived on the way to blow themselves up. We had expected it to be an intense atmosphere and crawling with police, but we didn't see any and there seemed to be a relaxed atmosphere. We made the change from our train to the subway and had reached our destination in no more than 5 minutes. After that, it was a short walk, past McDonalds and Burger King (choices, choices!!) to our accommodation. Back Home hostel is the top rated speciality accommodation in Kuala Lumpur so we were expecting good things, I'll pass judgement further on during our stay though. We got into our room and tried the wifi. It was a huge relief to finally be able to get out first lot of photos uploaded in about a month, so fingers crossed the blogs will be up to date in no time. We were still exhausted, so reluctantly let ourselves sleep for a few hours before dinner time. After a quick look on trippy, there seemed slim pickings in our area but we picked out a curry house for our first evening. It was only one street away from where we were staying so it was easy to find and it was pretty much empty when we arrived. We ordered a Tikka Masala and a Korma (so experimental in our food choices) and they were on our table in a flash. We were both surprised when they turned out to be quite spicy though, as they aren't really known for that back home. I had to finish Charlotte's off but we were both full. We headed back to the hostel and caught up with some photos and blog writing before heading to bed, ready for our first full day in Kuala Lumpur.
Wednesday
As I mentioned, we had planned to go to the Petronas Towers today but after some consultation with our map over breakfast, we decided to postpone that until the next day. Instead, after making the most of the complimentary toast and cereal, we headed in the direction of Kuala Lumpur's botanical gardens. On the way we made a quick stop at the central market. We will visit properly later on in our stay but this was just to use the toilets and see if we could find a better map at the tourist info point located inside. It turned out we couldn't, they had exactly the same one our hostel had provided us with, so we just had to stick with that one. We headed out and tried to find a half decent route towards the botanical gardens. It was slightly unorthodox, crossing slightly main roads where we probably shouldn't have been crossing but we were on the right track. We passed Kuala Lumpur station (not to be confused with Kuala Lumpur Sentral station), which looks like a mixture of Brighton Pavillion and a Ventian prison. We took a quick photo and moved on past the National Mosque. Finally, we found some signposts telling us the way, so we followed them rather than concern ourselves with the map. After passing the National Museum and taking some photos of a few old locomotives just outside, we found the entrance to the botanical gardens. On our map the area was huge but when we first entered it seemed rather unassuming but we carried on regardless. We were greeted by lush lawns and a medium sized lake with a few fountains lining the centre. After skirting the side of the lake, our path was blocked by a rather large lizard sunning itself in the middle of the pathway. It seemed more scared of us though, as we approached it quickly scarpered off the path and regarded us from the side of the lake as we passed by. We followed the signs for the playground, which was at the opposite end to where we had entered so we could work back on ourselves. After a brief go on the swings and the seesaw (any excuse!) we started back and came across the sunken garden first. True to its name it was sunken and had a star shaped fountain in the middle. After that we visited the palm area, edible plants and had a short escape from the sun in a bamboo tree house. The topiary garden was up next but they seemed to only be able to cut the trees into the shapes of mushrooms, which was a little disappointing. The Indian Laurel Fig tree just next door was really quite impressive though, with its latticed trunk. Our final visit was a walk through the deer garden, although most of them were sensibly tucked away in the shade, which is something we should have thought about doing sooner. After our walk though, we headed in the direction of the exit and tried to decipher our map to get a route back into the city. Eventually, after braving a dark, narrow road tunnel and shimmying our way round road works we got back to some normal civilisation. We had a look at our map and realised we'd made it to a place called Dataran Merdeks or Independance Square. We decided to leave visiting for a while and walked instead to a 7/11, where we refuelled on tortilla wraps, chocolate and ice cream. After our pit stop, we walked back up and had a look around the square. We admired the large flag pole bearing the flag of Malaysia, crested some steps and were rather surprised to see a cricket ground spread out infront of us. Not something we are expecting to see in Kuala Lumpur, later found out it is the Royal Selangor Club. After taking some photos, we both decided we'd been out in the sun far too long and headed back to the hostel. We spent the afternoon, as ever, doing photos and catching up on this blog. With no kitchen in the hostel, it was out for dinner once more. We decided to let the hostel do the work for us this time and they recommended a different curry place in the same road as we had eaten the night before. The atmosphere was more like a diner than a restaurant but the food was good, portions were generous and it was very cheap. Still slightly on the spicy side for Charlotte but she tried. We were determine to hunt down some Malay food for dinner the next day though.
Thursday
After putting it off the previous day, we had decided today we would make seeing the Petronas Towers our priority. We were in no rush to get out so we had a late breakfast, making the most of our first pieces of good fresh fruit for almost 2 months. At about half 10 we were out and walking. We quickly stopped off at the corner shop to pick up some water before turning and heading in the right direction. It was only supposed to be a short half an hour walk, so we opted for that instead of the quicker but more expensive metro ride. Somehow, despite being able to see the towers the entire time, we did mange to get ourselves slightly lost. After consulting our map and using our instinct, we made our way through the forecourts of the Traders Hotel and the Exxon Mobil building, past all the suits trying to look busy and entered KLCC park. We thought we had come the wrong way round them but this was exactly where we wanted to be. The park is an anomaly in an otherwise crowded, noisy and built up area of the city. When we arrived, despite the work going on in a playground, the park was nice and peaceful and we found a quiet stop with a good view of the towers. We toyed with the idea of going up them but with Charlotte not liking heights and things like that being unnecessarily expensive, we decided to just admire them from the outside instead. We took some photos of each other and tried in vain to get a decent one of the both of us using the selfie stick. Frustrated, we gave up for a bit and carried on walking round the park until we found yet another quiet area for a photograph. This time we succeeded, which meant we could give up on the endless photography and enjoy the park and the towers. The park was great, a real treat to wander round, enjoy the shade of the trees, watch the fountains and chuckle at the lengths people go in order to take a photograph. As we walked past, there was one man lying flat on his side in an attempt to get a snap of his family. If they moved back to where we started, they wouldn't have of that sort of trouble.
The day before we had enquired at our reception as to where we could find traditional Malay food, instead of the endless Indian and Chinese places scattered around our hotel. They showed us an area near a metro station in the north of the city called Kampong Baru. Being only one stop away at the time we thought we'd try to walk it but that only took us in a circle through an incredibly large cemetery. So we hunted down the metro instead. When we disembarked the metro the station seemed modern enough but one left turn and it was like being back in Cambodia. Uneven road with small hut like houses, Kuala Lumpur seemed a million miles away. A 180 degree turn of the neck though and there were the Petronas Tower bearing down on us still. Stupidly, we had left the card the restaurant names were written on back at the hostel, so this was just a look around and we decided to return when we knew where we were going. We passed a few satay stalls which looked pretty tasty but Charlotte looked rather sceptical, fearing they may be spicy. We turned around and headed back to the station, intending to return one evening over the weekend. We hopped back on the metro and returned to our hostel area. Rather than suffer through a spicy dinner tonight, we opted for Burger King (cheating, we know!). That was that for the day and we retired to our hostel to sort out some photos and blogs (when don't we do that in our spare time!).
Friday
Today we had earmarked the town of Melaka as a possible day trip but after a bit of research, the rather long coach journey didn't seem worth it for a place that would end up being quite similar to George Town. Instead we decided to go for the Hop On Hop Off bus tour that takes you in a circuit of the city. We had done them in Barcelona, Vienna and Budapest previously and this was by far the cheapest we paid, so it seemed like a good deal. It helped that we could get them cheaper from our hostel reception too! We headed out to the Central Market after breakfast, in order to pick up the bus. Thankfully, it was only a 15 minute wait before one crawled round the corner in the slow going Kuala Lumpur traffic. We climbed on and ascended the stairs to the open top portion, where, despite the heat, the movement of the coach cooled us down nicely. We realised almost straight away that this was a mistake though. We struggled to hear the information from the loudspeakers due to a lady a couple of seats infront of us speaking incredibly loud to a couple sitting across from her. Stubborn as ever though, we stuck with it and bit our tongues. We passed the Sentral Station, which may sound boring but provided us with probably the most interesting bit of info in the whole route. Apparently, it is the only train station in the world that has its own airport code and you can check in and drop your baggage at the train station and then hop on a train to the airport. That sounded pretty nifty to us. The next stop was the national museum which we had already passed on a previous day but we got off at the next one, for a glimpse at the national palace. The stop was long enough to allow us to jump off, take a snap and then jump back on. On our way to the next stop, while waiting at a traffic light, there was a loud crash and everyone gasped and stood up on the bus. As we rounded the corner we could see a motorbike driver had been knocked off of her bike. It seemed a little disrespectful that everyone stood and stared but maybe that can't be helped, the smirking however was completely out of order. We left the poor lady behind and past parts we had already been to, so for the next hour or so we just rode the bus around town, taking in the information and enjoying the view. The loud lady had long since departed when he hopped off just past the Petronas Towers. Our destination was Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre where the Aquaria KLCC is located. It is a large Oceanarium located below the convention centre. We had spotted this on the top things to do and as our hostel was selling discounted tickets, we decided to combine this with the bus ticket. It was interesting but maybe slightly smaller than we had been expecting, I'll let the photos do the talking on this one. Before our trip to the Oceanarium we stopped by the food court and picked up some Asian food for Charlotte which wasn't spicy (woo hoo!!). We left the convention centre to be greeted by pouring rain, thunder and lightning. We had seen this was predicted, which was another reason why we went for an inside excursions for the afternoon. Being so close to the cinema we had been to the day before we considered our options. Whether to go and watch another film while the rain fizzled out or to hop back on the bus, head home via the central market and complete the remaining places we wanted to visit for the next morning. We plumped for the latter, knowing that we still had photos and blog writing to do. After a fairly long wait, the bus pulled up and we made our way upstairs to the top deck. That, again, was a huge mistake. Who should be there again but Mrs.Loud still deep in conversation with the same couple than before. We tried to block her out and were pretty happy when she departed at Chinatown. Ours was the next stop though and we got off, relieved to see the rain had slowed to a gentle spit. We made for the central market and wandered up and down its aisles not really with the intention of buying anything though. That soon changed when we found individual pin badges at one of the stalls. After some tearing open of the ladies packs we managed to get 2 matching ones and decided to head back to the hostel before dinner time. We did some catching up of admin before we headed to dinner, which I'm ashamed to say was fast food for the second night running. Subway got our business this time, as we attempted to avoid spicy food.
James and Charlotte
James and Charlotte
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