International Leisure Traveller: Kuala Lumpur

Singapore to KL (Kuala Lumpur) – Travelling to KL from Singapore by bus is a bit tricky if you haven’t done your homework (I’m guilty as charged). I was virtually along for the ride as we had Collin’s mom with us. She knows all the ins and outs of this trip having done it many, many times before. If memory serves me right, it was a 15 minute drive to the Malaysian border, a walk to Singapore’s custom’s departure for a stamp, a walk to Malaysia’s customs entry for a stamp, a quick bus ride to the bus station and then we finally picked up a bus for the 5 hour drive to KL. Collin’s mom even checked out the bus in advance to make sure it would be to our liking. Now that’s service!

It was an uneventful bus ride to KL but interesting all the same.

Malaysia is covered in Palm Tree Plantations as far as the eye can see. I had no idea that the country is one of the world’s largest producers of palm oil (yes – my ignorance deserves a failing grade). Just check your health and beauty products or some of the foods you eat – a recurring ingredient is palm oil.

Arriving at the bus station in KL – it seemed to be chaotic. However, this is just a temporary station as the main station is being renovated. And if Singapore is hot, KL is even hotter. That blast of hot, humid air as we departed the bus was a real wake-up call (or possibly instant energy sapper). We really appreciated Collin’s brother –in-law, Yap, picking us up and driving us around in the comfort of air conditioning.

My initial thought was that KL would again be like Shanghai (another F on my report card). After being in Singapore, I changed my tune – I expected KL to be like Singapore. Not even close - KL is KL.

At present, the city lacks an effective transit system so the roads are continually clogged with traffic. Patience is the key word here, as we quickly discovered it often takes forever to get anywhere. With that in mind, we visited 2 sites nearby the bus terminal before heading to Collin’s sister and brother-in-law’s house.

First was the National Monument and War Memorial to pay tribute to the

soldiers who lost their lives defending the country. Then on to Muzium Negara (National Museum) for an interesting condensed history of the people and events of Malaysia (bringing my knowledge more up to speed). To my surprise, there is scant mention of the Chinese in Malaysia, even though they comprise about 26% of the population. Then it was time to head home – home being somewhere on the outskirts of KL. However, we did have one quick detour on the way – a stop at a Hawker Centre to pick up

dinner.

It’s even cheaper eats here than in Singapore so eating out is part of the regular routine. A bonus to our day – we did spy a few wild monkeys (untainted by human food handouts) crossing the road.

Our accommodation – Collin’s sister, Siew Ching quickly pointed out we

were staying in 6 star luxury. I have to agree with her as their house is a lovely 2 story spacious home with an enormous, modern kitchen. So yes – a very special thank you to Siew Ching, her husband, Yap (who literally taxied us everywhere), their 2 boys, Kah Sin (13) and Kah Wee (10) and Collin’s mom as we really appreciated their

warm and hospitality during our week with them. And that goes to Eddy, their pet

Iguana. Eddy lives at the front door and greets us each time we come home. Being cold blooded, I think he actually warmed up to us by our last day as he was nodding his head up and down when we called his name. (An aside – they have yet to determine Eddy’s gender).

As I mentioned earlier – the family lives somewhere on the outskirts of KL. I never did quite figure out where we were and could hardly follow the directions. As in Singapore ,the road system uses u-turns instead of left turns. So often you go past where you need to go, then pull a ‘u-ee’ head back in the direction you just came and somehow end up on a different road. I could only rely on the sun to know which direction we might be headed in. Singapore is much easier to navigate, being a relatively small island, so we usually travelled daily on one main highway going east/west.

Weekend with the family –

A van with a sun roof was rented to accommodate all 7 of us in one vehicle for sight-seeing. The 2 boys took full advantage of the sun roof, riding with their heads popped out whenever we were nearing home. (and unlike moi, they always knew where we were).

Royal Selangor Visitor Centre - Founded in Malaysia in 1885, they are the

largest pewter maker in the world.

The tour

through the centre was very interesting. We learned the composition of pewter (mostly tin), it’s interesting properties and how it is molded into various products. It was our first opportunity to take a picture of the ‘Tin Towers’ and Collin holding up his Shanghai Trophy (generously borrowed from Andy Murray).

Batu Caves - The most popular Hindu shrine outside of India. The caves have also

earned notoriety as an episode of the Amazing Race was filmed here. Our challenge, try and count the steps going up to see if we concurred with the race result (272 steps in total). Relatively simple as the steps are in blocks of 13, except for one.

I actually think the biggest challenge was the monkeys along the way. I got too close to one by accident, and received a baring of teeth and a real snarl. I jumped and bounded up the stairs, despite the heat.

We were rewarded after completing our descent with the cool of a fan blowing some mist and a few treats – ice cream bars and fresh coconut juice.

Petronas Towers, or twin towers as they are often referred to. We viewed the towers from the ground up, deferring our panoramic view of the city for the KL Tower.

KL Tower –

is one of the tallest free standing towers in the world. We

enjoyed the 360 degree views of the city. I asked Collin’s sister to point out the general direction of the suburb where she lives but honestly I still don’t

know which direction that was. Maybe the heat and humidity had finally infected my brain. The entrance ticket to the Tower also included our chance to ‘drive’ a Formula 1 racing car (video simulation), ride a pony,

(the boys and ‘grandma’ enjoyed that)

and visit the Animal Zone (mostly snakes, tarantulas and other spiders with a few other odds and sods of creatures such as a 2 headed turtle). The ‘Zone’ turned out to be extremely interesting as it was feeding day for the snakes. We could see a huge lump (a tasty chicken) in a giant snake,

and then watched as tiny mice were fed to smaller snakes and water snakes gobbled up a few fish. It was fascinating but ‘grossing me out’ at the same time. Aaah, the joys of mother nature.

Genting Highlands is a family resort located on a small mountain top, 1800 m above sea level, north of KL.

At this altitude, the weather is quite a bit cooler than KL, so much so that it was the only time I wore a light jacket. The resort is Malaysia’s attempt at Las Vegas with all sorts of games and activities for visitors of all ages, including casinos (for the not-so-young-at heart). We watched in amusement as the boys played a few arcade games for tickets, finally accumulating enough to ‘purchase’ 2 pens. Some of the kids were churning tickets out of the machines like it was going out of style – one girl had 1500.

I can’t imagine how much it cost her to play and if it was more than a reasonable cost for her eventual chosen prize. We had hoped for a cable car ride to reach the resort, but unfortunately it was out of service.

Chin Swei Temple – located part way up the mountain on the way to the Genting Highlands Resort. Collin, the boys and I climbed the steps to the top of the Pagoda f

or a very cloudy view of the surrounding area.

Then we enjoyed an inspiring walk, travelling from hell to heaven according to ancient Chinese traditions and beliefs. Given the descriptions, I made it to heaven.

Putrajaya as I have since learned, is a planned city south of KL

which serves as the federal administrative centre of Malaysia. The area was once the site of a mine and when abandoned, I’m sure quite the eyesore. The Malaysian government has since converted the former ugly landscape to a new and modern area which includes large parks and green spaces and buildings lining grand boulevards.

There is much to see here but we arrived late in the day so only had time for a few snippets. We had an outside look at Perdana Putra (the office complex of the Prime Minister of Malaysia), Putra Mosque (which was beautiful in the fading afternoon light) and Putrajaya Lake (a man-made lake stocked with fish).

A drive in the area took us along the boulevards and then over the Seri Waswasan Bridge before heading home.

We did have 3 days where we went to Ipoh and Penang (without the boys) (check out the Ipoh and Penang blogs) and otherwise spent time in KL visiting various members of Collin’s family, eating (check the food blog) and being entertained by the boys.