Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Day 2

On our full day in Kuala Lumpur (KL), we didn't rush to get up. Since we went to the bird park the previous day instead of this morning, we re-ordered things a bit for today. Breakfast at the KL Hilton was incredible! Beyond incredible! It was literally the most amazing buffet I've ever seen. Not only did it have everything you'd expect at an American breakfast buffet (made to order eggs, turkey bacon, chicken sausage (they didn't serve pork at the hotel) potatoes, baked beans (a British breakfast item), cereals, yogurts, breads, pastries, pancakes, waffles, donuts, french toast, oatmeal, and the most beautiful and exotic fruit assortment including pineapple, mango, orange colored watermelon, white cantaloup, star fruit, dragon fruit, and passion fruit. A breakfast buffet like that sounds amazing, right? But...BUT...in addition to this scrumptious and enormous selection of American/English breakfast foods, they also had stations for other nationalities. They had a Japanese breakfast station with sushi, fish, rice, and salad. They had an Indian breakfast station with assorted curry dishes that Americans would typically associate with lunch/dinner, and then they also had a Thai/Malay station with more fish, picked vegetables, etc. I've never seen so many authentic international breakfast cuisines at one buffet. In my diary, I wrote, "I'm so excited we get to eat here again tomorrow morning."

After eating our fill, we took the KTM rapid transit system to the KLCC station for the Petronas Twin Towers (once the world's tallest building(s)). We got our tickets for the 10:30 group (we didn't reserve these in advance) and browsed the gift shop until our time.

Petronas Twin Towers Elevator - KL, Malaysia

The elevators first stopped at the 41st floor where we could cross the sky bridge. See the photo at the very bottom of this blog post and you can see how high the sky bridge is. Once we crossed the bridge to the other tower, we then took another elevator all the way up to the 86th floor.

View of KL, Malaysia from the Petronas Twin Towers sky bridge

I really thought KL was a very lovely city. Not very walkable, but lovely to look at from high buildings. After the towers, we took the train a few stops back, so we could visit a place called the Central Market. I was very excited to visit this place for 2 reasons. 1. I love shopping. 2. I love air conditioning. Haha! I love browsing markets and getting souvenirs from stands and more "authentic" type shops. The Central Market was inside and air conditioned, so I was very excited to spend some time and Malaysian Ringgit at this place.

Inside the Central Market - KL, Malaysia

I absolutely loved this place. It had 2 floor that consisted of so many different types of shops. For various people, we bought cinnamon coasters, an adorable stone cat that you put on the top of something and it looks like it's looking down, a handheld mirror, some chocolate, a Christmas ornament, some magnets, and some coconut cookies.

To keep the chocolate from melting, we took the train 1-2 stops back and returned to our hotel. Since it was already 1:30, we hung around in the executive lounge of the hotel until 2:30 when they served tea, and made that our lunch. Yes, the magnificent breakfast we ate earlier that morning kept us full until nearly 2:00.

Around 3:00, we took the inefficient monorail system to the Berjaya Times Square Mall. This multi-story shopping mecca was such a wonder. It even had a roller coaster in the middle of it.

Roller coaster inside the Times Square Mall - KL, Malaysia

Up and up and up! The many levels of the Times Square Mall - KL, Malaysia

Our purpose in visiting this place was yet another Escape Room Adventure. You have to remember. This was 2015. The Escape Room craze hadn't yet come to the United States, and it was such a novelty thing for us. We just found them to be so much fun! The one in Malaysia even had a hallway with motion sensor lasers like you would see in a Mission Impossible movie. We still needed all of our hints. Haha!

After walking around the mall, we returned to the hotel for Happy Hour, and ate dinner. It's pretty amazing how ridiculously we took advantage of the executive lounge in Malaysia. We didn't spend a dime on food that entire day. The food in the lounge was just soooooo good! Looking back, I'm a little sad that we didn't make more of an effort to find a Malay restaurant and indulge in the local cuisine, but at the same time, I still salivate when I think of the food in that Hilton lounge. Sadly, I didn't get very good pictures of it.

As the sun set, we went back to the area around the Petronas Towers to try and get a picture of them lit up. As we arrived, we caught the last few minutes of the fountain show. The one in Dubai is better, but I loved all of the different colors they used.

Petronas Twin Towers fountain show - KL, Malaysia

From the ground, it was nearly impossible to get a good picture of the towers. I had the same problem in Dubai when we visited the Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world). I had to get to a place that was far enough away and at a high enough elevation to really get the picture I wanted.

Prior to the trip, I read online that the Sky Bar at the Traders Hotel gave the best view of the towers. I also read that they had a rooftop pool up there that only hotel guests could use, but that anyone could go to the Sky Bar provided they had a reservation. Well, we didn't make a reservation, but I figured that there was no harm in going up there anyway.

My husband thought I was completely crazy and wanted no part of my antics. So while he stayed down in the cool, dark lobby, I ventured up to the top floor of this posh hotel. (Side note - as a result of this experience, perhaps I'm not quite so timid as I once thought. Read on, and you'll understand.)

I walked right up to the host and hostess standing at the entrance. They asked if I had a reservation, and I kindly explained to them that I simply wished to take a picture of the towers. Would they mind if I came in for just a few minutes? They were very friendly, and welcomed me in with a smile. What I soon discovered, however, is that round booths lined the windows, and that the only way to get the picture I wanted was to scoot to the back of one of those booths and lean over the back.

So, I walked along the aisle passing red, plush booth after red plush booth, looking for an empty one where I could quickly hop in, snap my photo, and then be on my way. I walked and walked and got all the way to the rooftop pool and didn't see any empty booths. The windows leading out to the pool were steamy and full of condensation, not terribly conducive to a good photograph.

As I walked back along the aisle of booths, I spotted a man sitting in one by himself. He sat all the way to one side, leaving the rest of the booth empty. I also happened to notice that he was talking on the phone. Not seeing any other options, I hopped into the booth with this stranger, snapped a handful of photos of the towers, flashed the man my dazzling smile, and dashed away before he could say a word. My photos weren't perfect. Most of them still had some sort of glare or backlight in them, but I'm very please that I was able to get the pictures that I wanted of the towers all lit up at night.

Petronas Towers at night from the Sky Bar at Traders Hotel

Then we returned to our apartment sized hotel and called it a day. Up relatively early the next day to catch our train that we took from Malaysia to Singapore. Only a few days left in this Southeast Asian trip. I hope you'll join me for the last few posts on our Singaporean adventure.

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Day 1

Got off to an early start on this Wednesday morning as we packed up and left Bangkok for the last time. We checked out of our hotel around 5AM and headed to the airport for our last Air Asia flight of the trip. The looming thunder clouds made us very nervous to embark on a budget airline, but our other flights so far had been ok. This flight also took off on time and landed slightly ahead of schedule.

Upon arrival, we changed our money to the Malaysian currency and then we took the KLIA Ekspres from the airport to the KL Sentral station and checked into the Hilton hotel. We pre-booked the KLIA Ekspres tickets and found it pretty easily from the Kuala Lumpur (KL) airport. This train is designed for airport travel, so they have plenty of luggage racks. They also sent me the barcode for our tickets via email, so I was able to save a picture and bring it up on my phone (I also had printed copies just in case).

We picked the Hilton Kuala Lumpur for 2 reasons. 1. It's within walking distance to KL Sentral which is the main hub for transportation anywhere in the city, and 2. we could use hilton points to stay there. Boy oh boy are we glad we did this. We got to the hotel around 10AM, but thanks to the Hilton Diamond status that J had at the time, the hotel upgraded us to a massive suite (with 2 bathrooms!) and let us check in early. We also got access to the executive lounge on the 33rd floor. The lounge was just as awesome (if not more so) than the lounge in the Bangkok Hilton. We went there several times throughout our short stay. From 2-4, they served cakes and finger sandwiches with tea, and from 6-8 they had canapés for cocktail hour. So yummy!

For sightseeing that day, we went on the commuter line out to the Batu Caves. This place is really neat, pretty easy to find/navigate, and I highly recommend it if you have the stamina to climb a lot of stairs. Hold onto your hats. Literally. The monkeys that are ALL OVER the place are notorious for taking loose items.

Approaching the entrance of the Batu Caves - KL, Malaysia

Entrance to the Batu Caves - KL, Malaysia

Monkey at the Batu Caves - KL, Malaysia

Batu Caves - KL, Malaysia

After the Batu Caves, we decided to try and find the Kuala Lumpur bird park. We planned on doing this the next day, but since we still had a fair amount of day left, and since the bird park wasn't really near anything else we planned on seeing the next day, we took advantage of the daylight. We took the train part of the way there, and then tried to walk the rest of the way. It wasn't terribly easy to find, and we got caught in a pretty big thunderstorm. The worst of the rain started right as we arrived, so we only got a little wet. The storm brought such welcome relief from the heat, but delayed us going into the bird park until about 5pm. The rain kept the other tourists away, so we had the entire bird park to ourselves pretty much. It was also a Wednesday, however, so there were no shows or demonstrations. We didn't mind, but if you're ever traveling with kids or want to make more of a day out of visiting the place, you may want to consider a weekend.

Bird Sanctuary - KL, Malaysia

Bird Sanctuary - KL, Malaysia

Bird Sanctuary - KL, Malaysia

Making friends at the bird sanctuary - KL, Malaysia

Bird Sanctuary - KL, Malaysia

We took a taxi back to the hotel rather than try to navigate on our own. Then we got showers, ate food in the hotel lounge, and walked through the KL Sentral mall. Like everywhere else we've been in Asia, their train stations also double as mini underground shopping/eating complexes. They're so awesome! It's like this entire underground world.

Interestingly, when we got to Bangkok, we thought that the country was very influenced by Japanese culture and traditions. Malaysia reminded us more of Dubai. Perhaps it's the Islamic influence on those two countries. Both Dubai and Malaysia are still very modern and cosmopolitan. They're definitely considered more liberal Islamic countries with significant western influence. Still, I found it more appropriate to dress more modestly in Malaysia than I did in Bangkok. (Though the Buddhist temples in Thailand didn't permit bare knees or shoulders either.) We also noticed that Kuala Lumpur has much more green space than most other cities. The haze in the picture below is unfortunate, but it still gives you a sense for just how green the city is. Similar to Dubai, KL is also not a very walkable city. But we found taxis to be relatively cheap, and more law-abiding than Bangkok, so they are a good alternative when the train doesn't get you where you need to go.

View from our hotel - KL, Malaysia

Our decision to go to the bird park today made us re-order some of our activities for the next day. But we enjoyed the stay in our giant suite and were in no hurry to get up early. I hope you'll join me for my next blog which features some classic Malaysian sites like the Petronas Towers, the Central Market, and the Berjaya Times Square Mall.

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler