Kuala Lumpur Hotels
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Kuala Lumpur
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KL....
Sooo... after a delayed air asia flight I arrived at KL airport - but it wasnt the world class one that KL has, oh no... it was the shitty air asia budget one knows as LCCT (low cost carrier terminal), which uses the same runway, but is about 15 mins drive away. No matter tho, I was there and I paid bugger all to get there so I was happy. Getting to my hostel was one hell of a mission too tho! I arrived at 3.30ish in the arvo, and finally got to my hostel at 7.30! The bus went every place in KL before it went to Chow Kit, which was where my hostel was, and adding in the factor of peak hour traffic and the fact that KL airport is fricken ages away from KL. The joys of traveling huh?
The hostel I stayed in was called hostel cosmopolitan and was almost impossible to find. The bus was supposed to drop me off on the street corner outside the hostel, but didnt. Lucky for me I had a map of KL from the last time I was in KL and managed to wing it most of the way. They had night markets on the street the hostel was on too, so I couldnt find the street name and didnt know where the hell I was. After looking like a lost tourist for about 20 mins I managed to ask someone who spoke enough english for some directions. Turns out I was walking up and down the street it was on, and it was about 20 metres away - but it was on the 4th floor of a building and it had very poor singage. Once I was there though it was a very nice place to stay, and offered free beakky and internet.I settled in alright sorted my stuff out and then went walk abouts. There wasnt much to see in this part of town except from a few night markets and a malaysian man performing magic tricks. I didnt understand a word he was saying, but he was funny and his tricks were good!
For my first day in KL I checked out some caves called Batu Caves. These are some large caves that are also sacred and at a certain time of the year many people come here to pray.. It has a huge statue of a standing golden buddah out the front and there about 253 steps (or a number there abouts, as I cant quite remember the exact figure) to climb to get up to the caves. The caves were impressive, but like a lot of things in asia, not very well looked after. They were dirty, and smelt pretty bad. I didnt hang around for long as I had a lot I was trying to cram in to the day.
I caught the bus back to KL, where I caught the monorail to KL Sentral (KL Central station - they spell things funny here) where i was going to catch another bus to Genting Highlands which is a big entertainment spot on the top of a mountain. It contains an indoor theme park, and out door theme park, a casino and a big hotel. From memory it sits at something like 2,200 metres, but I could be making that up too.
The bus trip there was absolutely insane however!! There were so many occasions where I thought the bus was either going to run off the road, hit another on coming car, or roll over! The roads up the mountain was extremely windy with some crazy bends. I was just glad that most of it was uphill - this meant that he couldnt drive too fast!
Once I was there finding the main entrance was nothing close to easy, and I soon discovered a lot of the rides seemed to be not working. The cable car that takes you up to the top was under maintenence and "temporary closed" is what they said. I head this saying a lot. Also the MAIN reason I went is they have a ride there where you sky dive over a massive fan, and I was so looking forward to that, but no - "temporary closed". I checked out the out door theme park too, but most of the rides were temporary closed due to the rain which was on and off. I did however manage to get a ride on one called the flying coaster. Its a roller coaster where you lie on your stomach facing forwards while hanging from the coaster above, so it feels like you're flying. It was really fast, and did barrel rolls and all sorts! It was crazy, but heaps of fun!~ I also checked out this motion master thing, but the show was well below average. You wore 3d glasses so things could come out of the screen at you, but it didnt work that well. The show was kinda like watching a game preview for a 90's arcade shoot em up game where you go around shooting skeletons and monsters... not very impressive.
After walking around being disappointed by all the temporary closures and not being able to go on my sky dive ride I had enough and decided to go back to KL. I was just hoping that the driver on this trip was better than the last. I WAS WRONG! I didnt think it was possible, but he was WORSE! This was WAY scarier than any of the theme park rides, and i thought that i was going to die. Whats worse too is that it was raining, AND it was down hill, so he go as fast as he wanted. Suicide I tell you, but im alive to tell the story.
Back in KL I decided to check out Times square, which is a big flash shopping mall in KL. Big and flash it was too. It had a impressive entrance with huge pillars and a drive up sections for taxis and buses. The mall had lots of the major world brands in there too, along with almost every other conceivable shop you can think of... and.. oh... you know... a theme park~! The theme park takes up something like 9 floors and has a full blown roller coaster in it too! It was unreal! The shopping here was great too, and the best way I could probably explain is that everything is flash and modern, and the prices are roughly the same (give or take a bit) to prices in NZ or Aus, but... it in Ringgit, so if you are spending your Aussie dollars - as i was - then you can devide everything by 3! YUSSS! Ill have 66% off thanks. :) The shops have a lot on offer too, so you can always find something you like.
After Times Square mall it was about 10 at night, and I was nackard, so I went back to the hostel to get ready for my flight to Langkawi tomorrow. Judging by the mission it was to get from the airport I thought I should allow plenty of time to get there.
The next morning I slept in though and was late! I managed to get to KL Sentral to catch a more direct bus there this time, as I didnt want a repeat of what happened when I was in Sydney and miss my flight. Turns out I got there just as the bus was leaving, which was great... But the bus was full which was not to great. At this stage if i was going to catch the next bus I was going to miss my flight...hmmm... I can see where this is going. It was about this time a nice taxi driver persuaded me to catch his "teksi" there. It was a hell of a lot more expensive, (80 ringgit, which is like $23AU) but not that bad considering it was an hour trip going at like 140kms along the motorway~. In hindsight it was a good thing I caught the cab, as there was no way I was going to make it the airport in time other wise.
I went to check in my air asia flight, but this also turned out to be harder than I thought. As my original flight was canceled and they moved me to another flight 1 hr later (which I knew about and had planned for). but this flight check in had closed. Hmmm... this trip seems to have a repeating theme to it now. I keep missing flights. The guy was nice enough to put me on the next flight tho which was about 40 mins away so it all worked out in the end. Another thing that hurt was the excess baggage charges. Air Asia only allow 15kg on their domestic flights, and I was 9kg over. That translated to a 90 ringgit charge - my flight only cost something like 100 ringgit~! Go figure.
Anyway, Langkawi here I come... finally.
I havent taken many photos while in KL, mainly as I took att the touristy ones last time I was there. Incidently, I actually just noticed on my last trip went on bus from KL to singapore to catch my flight to brisbane, and this time I went by train from brisbane to gold coast to catch my flight to KL... so it was almost a reverse of last time. I really was going back to where I left off on my last trip!
Anyway.. of the photos I did take.. you should find them here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mrphillipthomas/20080401KualurLumpurBhatuCaves,
here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mrphillipthomas/20080401KualurLumpurGentingHighlands,
and here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mrphillipthomas/20080401KualurLumpur
Where I stayed:
Travelers Inn Guest House - Chinatown
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