Germain, a Brazilian-French friend, Leo from Spain and I headed to KL at 7:30am by luxury coach. We only had one-way tickets, since buying return tickets in Malaysia is less than half price. The bus was extremely comfortable, with massaging chairs, personal TVs and meals. 5.5 hours later, we arrived in KL. We were hoping to walk from the bus station to the hotel, but the attendant on the bus misinformed us about our arrival location. We purchased some return tickets after making sure that we would leave from the same bus station, since we thought we were next to our hotel.
After some initial confusion, we figured out where we were and took the elevated train to Chinatown, where I had booked a hotel online. We finally got to our hotel, and checked-in to our clean but window-less room. We dropped the bags and headed right back out for lunch at a doubtful hawker center. After a tasteless lunch, we headed for the famous Petronas towers, second highest buildings (and “highest twin buildings” in the world) Our guide-book was very clear that you have to line up at 8:30 in the morning to get same-day tickets. We showed up around 4:30pm and there were several “sold out” signs discouraging you from walking up to the counter and harassing the staff. I did just that and played the Canadian card. Sure enough, we were in the elevator on the way up to the sky bridge less than 5 minutes later. The sky bridge is located on the 40th floor, less than a third of the height of the towers. The view is still quite impressive. After a few moments, we came back down for a much needed drink overlooking the large park neighbouring the towers. We then headed to the KL Tower, a very tall TV tower located on a hill, and almost as high as the towers. From there, the view was incredible. Well worth the 20 ringett admission price.
There was another group of better-endowed INSEAD students who flew into KL that weekend, and we were supposed to meet them at Lot 10, an upscale mall. We were there a bit early and decided to pretend to be interested in buying massage chairs… We spent a good 20 minutes on these nifty seats, and they were truly fantastic. With the tuition INSEAD charges its students, every participant should get one of these. The other group changed the meeting place and we finally returned to Petronas towers to have traditional Malay dinner with them. After dinner, we admired the towers for a while. They are even more impressive in the dark. Truly spectacular. They look like a futuristic space station. We then went out to a club called Mange Tout for some drinking, dancing, and all-around enjoying life. We walked back to our hotel around 3am. We walked around 20km that day, not using any kind of transportation since we first checked into the hotel
After discovering the hard way that the hotel walls were paper-thin, we packed up and went for a couple of walking tours of the city, thanks to my Lonely Planet guide. Breakfast consisted of a weird calamari curry with rice. I was so doubtful about it that I considered making myself vomit so I wouldn’t be sick on the bus later that day. It went down fine, fortunately. We visited the Independence place, the train station (built by the English in 1911), the central market, the National Mosque, the butterfly park etc etc etc.
We had a late lunch at the Old China Café, bought 2 litres of Rum (about a quarter of the price of Singapore) and headed back to the small bus station. We must have walked around 20km on Sunday as well. Once we got there, the guy told us to get in his van, as we “had missed the bus” (which never existed) and took us to the main bus station (the one next to our hotel). We finally boarded a much more basic bus, and figured out that we had overpaid our tickets by $5. (on a $15 ticket) Oh well, at least we were on our way back to Singapore. I couldn’t manage to fall asleep on the bus, so I tried to rum and coke myself to sleep, but it didn’t work out. We reached Singy around 1am, and I was in bed by 1:30. Total weekend budget: CAN$100 everything included!
KL is a fairly concentrated city, with little more to see, so I doubt if I will go back there as a tourist. The inter-period break is coming up right after the exams, and I am considering various options, such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Bali (Indonesia, you know, where the bombings took place last week…) Phuket, Bangkok. So much to see, so little time. (and so cheap, too!)
Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment