Days 39-50

Ahoy there! The captain and I have jointly created this blog entry about the latest stop on our journey - Kuala Lumpur. We stayed in the city for 12 nights and had an absolutely mint time! KL is one of the financial capitals of Asia and the capital city of Malaysia. It is still very much under development as a city too - we noticed that work is constantly being done to further improve the infrastructure of the place, and to make it even more accessible for tourists and the local people. 


The journey from Cameron Highlands was very straight forward. A really comfortable coach ride which got us to KL in around 3 hours. We were staying in Chow Kit in KL, and had already sussed out which sky train to get from where the coach dropped us off, to our hotel. During our time in the city we relied heavily on the public transport - its amazing, very cheap and efficient. There are 7 different train lines running all over the city, and we used them everyday. 

We had high expectations from our hotel which was called the Citrus Hotel. We'd paid around £30 a night (more than anywhere else so far) for a club floor room which had access to a club lounge with free drinks and snacks etc, and we were excited about being in one place for 12 nights so we could unpack or bags and settle in. Maybe it was because we'd built up the Citrus so much, or because we'd had a few boring damp days in Cameron Highlands, but when we got there we were thoroughly disappointed. The first room we got given was hanging. Proper dirty and snide. It had a well good view of the Petronas Twin Towers but that was about it. Neither the air-con or fridge worked properly either, and we felt extremely deflated by it all. We were absolutely starving too so we decided to get showered and changed and head out to find some food. During our first outing in KL we saw how mint the city was, and forgot all about our shit room for a few hours, but when we got back to the hotel we decided we didn't feel comfortable enough to let it slide, and told the hotel we weren't happy. Thankfully they moved us to a much bigger, brighter and cleaner room with Arctic air-con and a fridge that actually made things cold. Score. We really enjoyed the rest of our time at the Citrus and began to feel quite at home there by the end.



On our first full day in KL our top priority was to get the laptop fixed, so after sampling the Citrus buffet breakfast for the first time, we headed to Low Yat Plaza which is a mall that specialises in electrical goods, and managed to find a nice man who repaired our screen in around 30 mins for £60. Absolutely buzzin'. Afterwards, we stumbled across a brand new mall right near our hotel called the Quill, so we had a wander around there and treated ourselves to a Subway for lunch. One of the things that made us choose the Citrus was the outdoor pool which was the biggest and best we've had anywhere so far, so after we'd had enough of malls for the day we headed back and cooled down in the pool and had a swim. We felt a lot happier by the end of our first day, especially after finding an amazing Indian restaurant where we had one of the best curries we've ever had - we'd got the laptop back, got a mint hotel room and had some decent food. Sound. 

The next day (Friday) we took the train to the Batu caves which is basically a limestone hill that houses a series of caves and cave temples around 13km outside of the city centre. It takes its name from the Sungai Batu or Batu River, which flows past the hill. The cave is one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India, and is dedicated to Lord Murugan. It is the focal point of Hindu festival of Thaipusam in Malaysia and was a truly amazing place to see. I got a henna tattoo done there too which I loved and thought I'd got a bargain seeing as it was only £5 for one hand, but typically when we walked a bit further back towards the train sation we saw another lady doing it for £1 a hand - wounded. That night we went to TGI's! We decided to make the most of the fact that KL has so many Western food restaurants (like TGI's, Nandos, Outback Steakhouse, Chilis etc) because we hadn't been able to even get close to such food for nearly 2 months. We said we'd alternate between Western food and local food each night and it worked out really well - we ate like kings!

Saturday we did nothing all day except chill by the pool, as we'd planned to go out that night for some drinks and to see what the night life in Kuala Lumpur had to offer. We were impressed. We took an Uber to Changkat in Bukit Bintang which is one of the liveliest streets in the city for bars and restaurants. We'd sunk nearly a whole bottle of Malibu before we even went out, so after buying drinks in a couple of bars we were leathered and hungry. Drinking in Malaysia isn't cheap either, and we'd already gone way over budget for the day so we went and got a kebab from an Arabic hawker stall (which was unreal) and then headed back to the hotel for more drinks and drunken Skpyes with family. Sunday was spent hungover, again not doing much but enjoying the pool, and we ordered a Malaysian Domino's - it didn't have shit on the English version, apart from that it was £8 for 2 pizzas, garlic bread and a 2ltr bottle of drink.

The next day we went to Mid Valley Megamall which is a gigantic shopping centre and Shaun got himself a shiney new pair of Nikes. That evening we'd organised to go on a Foodie Tour which we were very excited about, however didn't really know what to expect. We were so pleasantly surprised and it was by far my favourite night so far in Malaysia. We had a lovely tour guide called Farah, a Chinese lady who spoke perfect English. She taught us (in a group of 8) about the culture of Malaysian food and how its made up and influenced by the population, which is made up of a mixture of Malaysian, Indian and Chinese people. We went to each a Malaysian, Indian and Chinese restaurant where Farah ordered local food and drinks for everyone to sample. It's safe to say we were stuffed by the end, because everything was so good that we couldn't hold back at all! Our favourite dishes were a peppery mutton soup (in Malaysia mutton is goat rather than sheep) at the Malaysian restaurant, and a roti canai at the Indian restaurant. A roti is a kind of pancake, and roti canai is the pancake served with vegetable dhal as a condiment that you dip the pancake in - bloody well nice. We learnt that traditionally it is a breakfast dish, so decided we'd definitely try and have it again one morning, in true Malay/Indian style. 

We went up the Petronas Twin Towers the next day which was a really great experience - they are bloody massive! First we went to the Sky Bridge which was on the 40(something)th floor, and then further up to the Observation Deck which is on the 86th floor and from where you can obviously see for friggin' miles. We got loads of pictures - thankfully before the battery died on the camera about three quarters of the way through the tour! Ha - always good to come prepared! We went to the cinema that evening to see the new Disney film In To The Woods, for which the trailer looked pretty mint. We were expecting a slightly dark and gloomy but harmless Disney film that was applicable to people of all ages. It actually turned out to be a load of old tosh - definitely meant for 5 year olds - all singing all dancing shite. We left before the end, but only to get more popcorn because it was only about £2 for a large haha! Every cloud...


The next day went to Sunway Lagoon theme park which was a really fun day. It was pretty quiet too so we didn't have to queue to get on any rides and the water slides were great for cooling down in the 35 degree heat! We'd been in KL for over a week by this point, and had kind of done all the things we wanted to do, so for the next few days we mainly just chilled, mooched and ate great food. We had roti canai for breakfast just round the corner from our hotel which only cost £2 for the both of us, and also had a drunken night at the hotel where we got told off for going in the pool after closing time, and went back and forth to the shop about 6 times to get more beer. The day after our drunken night was our last day in KL, on which we were sufficiently hungover, so we just lazed around, packed up our stuff and prepared to leave. The highlight of my day was getting cornered by a middle aged Iranian couple by the pool who asked me if they could have a picture taken with me - highly embarrassing, but I obliged so as not to seem rude, or get battered. We spent our last night in Nandos which was absolutely lovely, and got a reasonably early night before our next travel day. We're headed for Malacca next which is further down south. We're not sure what to expect but are getting closer and closer to Bali and Australia now which is highly exciting!