29 November, Berjaya Hotel, Times Square, Kuala Lumpur
This trip was to celebrate our 40th wedding
anniversary and the last two nights are our special treat. Rather than the
usual 2 star to 3 star hotels, we are in the centre of downtown KL in a 5 star.
A nice luxury for a couple of nights. And luxury it is. The bathroom is bigger
than many hotels we have stayed in. Seriously!
Our last night in Langkawi was spoilt to some degree by the
couple in the room next door. Last night they had played music on full volume
early in the evening, yelled and screamed at visitors to their room, then
started up again at 1:00am for an hour. We let it go, but when they started up
again this afternoon we told the front desk and Security were sent to ask them
to turn it down. There was a bit of yelling and when Security left, the guy
tried to get into our room via the adjoining door. We naturally made a fairly
loud objection to this and to their credit, Security quickly returned and we
demanded, and were given, another room, away from the crazies!
After a great night’s sleep, we made our way to the airport
at a very civilized hour and, after a bit of a delay, headed off to KL.
We really like Langkawi - it didn’t feel crowded or overly
touristy. The beach wasn’t crowded, the traffic sedate and the lifestyle very
laid-back. Duty free shopping is touted as the big attraction on Langkawi, but
we felt, with the exception of alcohol, prices in the duty free shops were no
better than at home. Eating options were many, varied and reasonably priced at
around $25-$30 for a meal for two, including a couple of beers. Best of all,
there was a lot to see and do on the island.
1 December, KLIA2 awaiting Flt D7 206
Our 40th wedding anniversary was yesterday. We
had booked ourselves a 10:15am tour of the Petronas Towers as part of our
celebration, thinking that even with a leisurely breakfast at our central city
hotel, the Berjaya Times Square, we would have plenty of time to jump on the
monorail and make it in time to collect our tickets at the prescribed time of
9:45. Just back from a trip through China and Europe, we were used to trains
arriving every few minutes. Well, not on Sunday in KL! Panic set in when we
noted the 25 minutes wait time for the next monorail train, and we had to then make
a connection to the light rail line to get to the Towers. Ditching the trains,
we grabbed a cab and made it in the nick of time.
It was an unusually clear and sunny day, so we were rewarded
with some spectacular views of the KL skyline.
KL doesn’t have a lot of things to hold our interest and
what there is we have seen on previous visits, so we were done and dusted by
midday. The fantastic hotel pool called, but an early storm put paid to that so
we took in a movie.
Dinner the last couple of nights of our stay was Chinese. We
are not great lovers of Indian or Malay cuisine, although there are a few Malay
dishes that are ok. But we do draw the line at eating them for breakfast!
With almost a full day to fill before we headed to the airport
for our 9:40pm flight, Paul suddenly “discovered” a model train shop way out in
the suburbs of KL in Subang Jaya. A trip out to places very rarely visited by
tourists is always fun and sometimes a challenge. No problem today though. The
amount of English spoken in Malaysia always makes getting about, even in out of
the way places, very easy.
So here we are again in KL Airport, with many hours to fill,
waiting for our flight. Bars are fairly well non-existent here so we have to do
with extremely expensive beer from a Dome chain café. All will soon be well
though, we are travelling Business Class back to Australia with fully reclining
seats!
3 December (Home)
Although we simply can’t afford to fly business class, it is
a VERY tempting option. Our 8 hour flight home was made up of a meal an hour or
so after take-off, a restful sleep on the fully reclining seats and then, after
what seemed just an hour or so, the pilot’s announcement that we would soon be
landing in Coolangatta woke us up! Backpacks on, first to the Immigration
gates, through the green Customs chute and we were at our car within 15 minutes
of hitting the tarmac.