Apr 5, 2016 - Penang to Kuala Lumpur

April 5, 2016, Penang to Kuala Lumpur. Steve is at the hotel with the minivan at 8:30 am sharp to bring us to the bus terminal. At the terminal we squeeze our big bags into the storage space under the bus and settle into very comfortable seats. The bus is air conditioned with bright purple and yellow coloured curtains on the windows - to keep out the sunshine. The bus is not a punishment and we leave promptly at 9:30 am. The bus is our "space" for the next five and a half hours. We have one pee break in the middle of the trip. Again it has...

Mar 4, 2016 - Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur, or KL as everyone calls it, is the capital of Malaysia with about 2 million people. Like Singapore it has a mixture of Colonial, Malay & Chinese buildings and modern architecture. In the mid 19th century KL was a river port town, for tin mining that was done further inland. It did not achieve 'city status' until 1972, after Malaysian independence, though had been the 'capital' of Malaya States since 1890's. Nowdays it is probably most famous for the Petronas Twin Towers which were the world's tallest buildings from 1998 till...

Mar 1, 2016 - Fly to Kuala Lumpur

3/1 Since we leave today we just hang in the room. Bon cut her hair, Mare & I watched news and played cards. At noon I went to the desk to ck. out and the manager said because there was a late ck in, we could stay in our room all afternoon!! Since our flight doesn't leave until almost 9 we thank him for his generosity...no charge for extra time. We went out to eat and back by 1:30 - more T.V. and cards, Bon doing her device thing. We leave from our nice A.C. room at 4 and head/walk to airport ferry (see photos). Ferry left at 4:30...every...

Feb 14, 2016 - KL - Day 2

We headed down to the coach station office at the local mall at 10am but they refused to change our departure location or refund the ticket even though they had seats available on their coach. In view of the local advice about traffic problems in KL we bit the bullet & bought two new tickets for the local departure coach. Then it was off to see another Lion Dance & get some lunch. Then it was time for a rest for some. Back at Joan's Viv & Joan relaxed while I went off the hill in a nearby park to log a geocache. Wrong time of the day really...

Feb 13, 2016 - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Spent the day with Joan. It is the middle of the Chinese New Year holiday & we went to see a traditional Lion Dance being performed at the apartments where she works. Fiona came too together with her 8 year old son Hayden. Lots of noise as the two Lions cavorted round blessing the complex. Very colourful & great fun especially when the Fife crackers blasted off. After lunch we went to Fiona's apartment block & spent the afternoon at the swimming pool with Fiona, Hayden & Hayley. Lovely relaxing afternoon finished off with a massage in the...

Nov 17, 2015 - Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur 17 November 2015 What can I say. KL is a shopper’s paradise. Went to the British India flagship store after we arrived and bought out the place. Don’t bother coming here – everything is gone. I even got Pat Henderson to buy something. We are staying in a “backpacker” hotel which reminded each of us of the hotel in Best Marigold Hotel. Run by bobble-headed friendly Indians – it is clean and once I learned to close the door to the bathroom, even the air conditioning seems to work properly. But the internet is slow as hell. It...

Nov 3, 2015 - Blingit ringgit

Malaysia is the antithesis of India. We were momentarily kind of culture shocked on arrival into Kuala Lumpur. Lights, bling, towers of shops selling totalling unaffordable objects. Entire shopping malls, multi storeyed complexes selling anything IT related. We look out across the park from our hotel to the Petronas Towers, some 85 storeys high. Far too high to contemplate a visit. Plenty of walking in covered walkways. We visited the Pavilion shopping complex, where the food mall was the biggest I have ever seen. Anyway, thank you everyone...

Sep 20, 2015 - Stooging about

After a reasonable fight down fro Dubai, the weather looked decidedly unpleasant as we approached KL. big thunder heads, a lot of black , some lightning, and turbulence. We circled around for maybe 30 mins before the pilot started his descent. j was watching the view from the front camera on the plane. As we got lower, maybe a couple of hundred feet , he could only see cloud. And as we got lower, that became darker and greyer, and you could see nothing! The pilot gave full throttle and aborted the landing. After 15 mins we regained our...

May 31, 2015 - Last Day in KL and Petronas Towers

Nice early start waking around 7.30am after a very good night’s sleep by both of us. Neither of us hungry still after only a bag crisps last night instead of dinner. Rang through to girls and neither Vanessa nor Eloise hungry but Meg was going down to breakfast. We arranged to meet downstairs at 9.30 to catch a cab over to Petronas Twin Towers. Arrived at the Towers well in time for our group to go up at 10.00am. Teena a little dubious as she is not comfortable with heights. Assured her only a few floors higher than the Grand Hyatt where we...

May 30, 2015 - Being a Tourist around KL

Breakfast this morning at 9 with Megan, Eloise and Vanessa down in the hotel. An amazing array of foods from western, asian and middle eastern to choose from. Had to pick Teena's jaw back up off the floor several times. Parted way after brekkie letting the girls go off and do their own thing while we take on the role of dinky di tourists Taxi over the Central Market, which is an indoor gentrified version of an asian market but the airconditioning was good even at 10.30 in the morning. Quick look through there before did some map...

May 29, 2015 - Good Morning Kuala Lumpur!!!!!!

5.15 am and all was not well!!!! Two very tired and stiff ladies attempted to unfold ourselves from our plane seats after a sumptuous breakfast of powdered egg omelette (which return to haunt travellers 6- 12 hours later with outbreaks of wind) chicken sausage, hash browns and tomato along with the usual croissant, fresh fruit salad, yoghurt and what we were assured was tea!!!! Not sure on that last one though folks. Joined the usual cattle stampede to get off the plane and made our way by airport train to immigration to donate a set of...

Apr 27, 2015 - Kuala Lumpur

One of the major tourist destinations here in KL are the Batu Caves. As they’re so popular, I decided to wait until after the weekend which I think turned out to be a very good move. They were surprisingly easy to get to as one of the local commuter lines goes there. I caught my friendly monorail to KL Sentral station, bought a return ticket to Batu Caves for 4 Ringitt ($1.54) & a train arrived just as I found the right platform. The main cave is free but as I was walking towards it, I noticed another interesting-looking cave which had an...