Malaysia: Another Journey Begins

WEBSITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION 😮....but please read on

It was a wonderful morning …….to head to the airport and leave the country, one of those dreary dark January days when the wind slanted the rain sideways and the sun seemed far away. The bus from Waterford to Dublin airport sloshed through puddles and the windscreen wipers worked overtime. All was well until we stopped in Dublin City Centre for what seemed an excessively long time …before the driver gave us the news that there was a problem with the bus’s engine cover and that he had called for a replacement coach.  This bus arrived after another thirty minutes to bring the dozen or so remaining passengers to the airport. We still had two hours before our flight departure and as we didn’t need to check in any luggage, we had plenty of time…others weren’t so lucky and dashed off the bus, hoping to make their flights..

The new rules at the airport on liquids are great – there’s no need to take any liquids out of hand luggage anymore,  with no restriction on the number of liquids in luggage as long as  the volume of each individual item is less than 2litres.  It certainly makes packing toiletries much more convenient and it should have made departure procedures much faster but there was a lot more checking of bags. My backpack had to go through the scanner twice, Caoimhin’s bag was manually checked and it looked like at least a third of the bags were manually checked. But I guess the system is still being fine-tuned.

Our Turkish Airlines flight took four and a half hours to reach Istanbul where it was also raining and about 5 degrees at 11pm, local time. We had about two hours to stretch our legs before our next section to Kuala Lumpur. This flight was completely full, hot and cramped with little legroom (not too much of an issue for me) but the food was excellent, getting both dinner and breakfast.

We touched down at about 5pm in KL, a huge modern airport which looked sleek and well-organised but was probably the most confusing place we had ever been in. Disembarking from the plane, we walked along a couple of corridors and found ourselves among an amphitheatre of luxury shops and several departure gates. Had we taken a wrong turning? Where was immigration? We continued, recognising some of the passengers from our flight, who looked also disorientated. After passing more retail units and restaurants,  a sign for Arrivals directed us towards a train platform which we needed to board to take us to immigration and a very mechanised ‘welcome.’

Immigration was automated…..a matter of scanning passports to be allowed to enter the country but like many of the international passengers, this scanning didn’t work for us because we hadn’t filled out the online Digital Arrival Card. There was a scramble to scan the QR code on a nearby pillar and start inputting our info in a dopey, jetlagged state. But after the data was uploaded, we got a green light when we rescanned our documents and walked through without getting an actual stamp on our passports.  We withdrew some Malaysian currency (ringots) at an airport ATM, activated our phone e-sims which we had previously purchased online (mine was a Revolut sim, bought through the Revolut banking app) and were ready to go. Travel just gets easier and easier.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) is about 43 kms south of the city but an efficient express train brought us into Kuala Lumpur Central Station in about 30 minutes for €10. There’s also a slower train and some buses. It was easy to buy tickets at the airport vending machine – there was an enormous sign in English, BUY TRAIN TICKETS HERE , it didn’t take cash and instructions were in both English and Malay. At Central Station, we got a tube for a couple of stops (using Google maps to tell us where to get off) before walking for about twenty minutes to our accommodation. It was 7.30 pm, 27C and our clothes were sticking to our backs. The city felt safe and clean and it was only beginning to get dark. Of course, we could have just got a taxi from the airport…..but that would have been too easy. The local version of Uber in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam is Grab which is a great app for booking taxis which are really affordable, by our Irish standards.

Kuala Lumpur is a city of skyscrapers. The Petronus Towers (twin towers) were the tallest buildings in the world until 2004. The Merdeka 118 is the second tallest building in the world at the moment only surpassed by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Our apartment was on the twenty-third floor of a building that had fifty-two floors with an infinity pool on the roof and stunning views over the city. (Pavilion Ceylon Hill Suites, Bukit Bintang). We could look out on the KL Tower building and many more tall buildings from our living room window.  This luxury was €44 per night in a quiet location but close to the famous night food markets. On our first night, we had just unpacked before discovering that although the lights worked, none of the sockets did, so at 11pm, we moved and sleepwalked to a different but identical apartment in the same building.

When we’re in a new city, we love the ‘free’ walking tours and the one we took in Kuala Lumpur was one of the best. Our Guide, Hasid, greeted us as Gaelige, and welcomed everyone in our group of nineteen in their native language, from Romanian to Spanish. He  could count to twenty in 120 different languages, a very impressive feat.

Kuala Lumpur is truly a melting pot with a seemingly harmonious blend of Malay, Indian and Chinese cultures with significant expat influences, particularly British and Portuguese.   Apart from the glittering skyscrapers, there were colourful temples, stunning mosques, a cricket clubhouse in the city centre that looked like it was transplanted from England.  Although Malay is the official language, English was widely spoken by everyone from street vendors to hotel staff.

We were told that the Night Food Markets in Kuala Lumpur were unmissable so we made our way there through lively streets,  lined with all sorts of bars where every hour was a happy hour. If we weren’t so hungry and still a bit jetlagged, we would certainly have availed of the ‘Buy one, get one free’ offers even if they were overpriced to begin with.  We had to run the gauntlet of the massage parlours, lined with insistent masseuses offering massages and pedicures for special prices.

Word was out that the night markets were not to be missed, because the narrow street of Jalan Alor was bursting with people  noise and competing music ( John Denver’s Country Roads was blasting from one stall, sounding just a little out of place ). Smoke billowed from stalls, chargrilling meat and fish. It was so crowded that it was only possible to do a slow shuffle along the middle of the street, We dipped out of the crowd to grab a table where we could watch the world go by and eat steamed sea bass and noodles.

Our time in Kula Lumpur was brief but as we will be flying home from here in six weeks’ time, we will have more time to explore. It’s a big city but quite easy to get around using public transport. Its friendly and vibrant with incredibly good food, even in bus stations and food stalls. We’re not fans of big cities but we liked KL much more than we thought we would.

The idea of a beach in January was very appealing so we booked a bus online to take us to Lumut, a little town north of Kuala Lumpur where we could catch a ferry to Pangkor Island. Malaysia has a  bewildering number of bus companies, many travelling the same routes but departing from different bus stations. (Kuala Lumpur has several bus stations).

The bus was late…we paced around the bus station hoping that we were in the right place. Many buses pulled in and each time we hoped it would be ours but we were disappointed until eventually our bus arrived. What a surprise, the seats were wide, comfortable and reclined almost completely and the air-con was cool, so cool that we almost needed a jacket. This was just as well because the scheduled four-hour journey turned into seven hours. There was some heavy traffic and roadworks but not enough to explain the huge delay.  Following our route on Google maps, we wondered if the driver had mistakenly taken the wrong route but we were just thankful that we arrived in Lumut  in time to get the last ferry to Pangkor.

Lets hope Pangkor Island is worth it.

Until next time, thanks for reading…. Caoimhin and I are in the process of setting up a new website – a work in progress and a steep learning curve😁xx