Kuala Lumpur baby!

Bus Kuala Lumpur – Cameron highlands 4/7-2011

So our 4-weeks travel has begun, we have left our paradise Bali and flown to Kuala Lumpur (KL). We could stay in Tim’s (Rino’s nephew, who’s doing internship in KL) penthouse close to the centre of KL. One problem: Tims description was too little to get through the security and they didn’t want to let us in. So there we were standing, somewhere in KL around 1am and Tim didn’t pick up his phone. Luckily the Lonely Planet always brings help in these situations and after a few phone calls we had a room in a hostel in the centre of the city. After we had arrived in the hostel we were looking to find our first Subway sandwich, but unfortunately the one nearby was closed and we had to eat Malay food, which was no punishment at all off course:-)

The next morning was our 2nd anniversary; before we could celebrate we had to succeed in a mission: We needed a new camera, since our camera broke on Bali and we now are using Anneloes’ small camera. We also needed a mosquito net, because we lost ours in a mysterious way during our “moving” from Bali. We were also able to reach Tim, he gave us more clear instructions and we were finally able to enter his penthouse on the 28th floor. WOW, what a magnificent view, unbelievable!!!

Some research about KL explained that it has a tremendous amount of large shopping malls. Well, that was totally correct! There were even more shopping malls than in Singapore and they were also bigger, even for Iris this was too much, we almost didn’t find our way out a few times ;-) The first item on our list was therefore very easy, we soon found an electronic shopping mall and we are now the happy owners of a Canon G12 and a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT3. Why 2 cameras? Well, the Panasonic is an underwater camera and since our previous camera got broken due to the underwater case, we don’t trust those anymore.
The mosquito net was a lot more difficult to find, we tried so many shopping malls, but none of them had outdoor shops. After a 4/5-hour search we finally found one, which we immediately bought of course. So, around 6 o’clock we could finally start celebrating our anniversary. After a couple of beers in different bars, we headed up to Bijan restaurant, the number 1 out of 779 restaurants in KL on Tripadvisor. Iris her mother congratulated us with our anniversary and wanted to pay for our diner as a gift :-) Thanks! The dinner was authentic Malay food, we enjoyed lam and Red Snapper. We by the way love the Malay style dinner; you both always get a plate and the food in the middle. In this way you can easily try both the dishes. We had a great evening and were totally stuffed from the lovely food! We went back home to sleep after a long day :-)

Close to Tim’s penthouse there is a monorail station, something different compared to subways or trams, which you see in most big cities, it became our main way to get around the city. After a lovely breakfast the next day in Bukit Bintang we headed up to the KL tower. With a viewing deck on 276 meter one of the highest points you can get as a tourist. Unfortunately it was a bit smoggy and therefore we could not see that far, but still it was a great view and we could see Tim’s penthouse. Next was the National museum to sniff some culture and history of Malaysia. Iris really liked it, but for Rino it was a bit too much reading in a too much air-conditioned area. After a bit disappointing walk through little India we took a Malay meal in a food court and a foot reflex for some extra energy :-). We ended the day in Chinatown for some more sightseeing and diner. Chinatown was really worth the walk and we enjoyed all the stalls and the hectic of a typical Chinatown. There were so many footstalls and we actually wanted to have a bit at all of them ;-).

After our diner we went back to sleep, since we were tired of all the walking and needed to get up early the next day for the bus to Cameron highlands. At this moment we are in the bus, the buses here are so luxurious for a cheap price, no complains! Just a second ago there was a Saudi Arabian family entering the bus, before Rino could think he had the cutest 3-month-old baby girl in his lap. The father parked her there (without saying anything) while finding a seat and getting everything set. It was a funny situation :-)

We enjoyed KL and seeing a big city again, but 2 days was more than enough. We want to see more of Malaysia and look forward to what is coming; we’ll keep you posted ;-)

Hugs and kisses