I Love KL!

Nov 12th

The alarm went off just after 4 this morning, it was rough since we only had gotten about 3 hours of sleep. We threw our things in our bags and were putting on our backpacks when there was a knock at the door. Icha and Meza had come to say goodbye and make sure that we got off to the airport safely. They really are the best! We were so lucky to have had them for this leg of the trip- they really made it great for us! We checked out of the hotel and said our goodbyes and were off. I was so sad to be leaving Bali!

The whole airport process was so annoying for several reasons. I had a horrible sunburn so it was uncomfortable to wear/carry my backpack, it was so early, and it was 100 degrees and my body was covered from head to toe in aloe which was sticky and slimy. That being said  I was very glad to be on the plane where I fell asleep for most of our 3 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur.

When we got to Kuala Lumpur it was about 9:30am by the time we cleared customs. We decided that since we were both sun burnt and were unsure about the public transportation that we should splurge on a taxi. It was an hour and twenty minute ride from the airport and I was glad we were in the air conditioned car where I could continue to nap. We got to the hostel around 11am, an hour before check in. The lady at the front desk let us put our bags down and hang out in the common area. Jess and I prepaid our luggage fee which will save us some money on our flight to Thailand and I was able to call home and talk to both of my parents since it was Veterans Day. At noon we checked into our room, which is very small but we don’t share it with anyone which is wonderful!

We decided to get some site seeing in so we headed to Petronas Twin Towers, the 451.9 meter tall buildings, the world‘s tallest freestanding twin towers.(Used to be the world’s tallest towers until 2004 when one was built in Taipei.) In the basement of the towers there is a huge mall. I loved that all over the mall and city they sold bags and t-shirts that said “I heart KL”- I thought it was cool that it was my initials, I was tempted to buy one, but decided that my backpack was already heavy enough and if I don’t watch what I buy I’m going to start having to pay extra for the airport baggage fee.  We stopped and grabbed some lunch then were off to see the city! Our first stop was of course the towers themselves. There is a sky bridge on the 41st floor that is free to the public to check out (with a ticket), the bridge connects the two towers. When we got to the ticket counter we were told that the tickets for the day were sold out! We were so bummed. We were informed that the tickets usually sell out by 9 or 10 am and we’d have to come back tomorrow morning at 8am to try again. We were disappointed but we went outside and took some pictures of the towers instead. The architecture of the buildings is festinating, its made of all stainless steel and glass and shines.

 

From there We walked to the KL Tower, We studied the architecture but decided that it wasn’t worth the $10 to go to the top. At this point of the trip we’ve gotten more aerial views of major cities than we can count. We decided the $10 would be better spent elsewhere and were off to do some more exploring. We went to Merdeka Square (Independence Square) which is a big field used for cricket games and ceremonies. The Sultan Abdul Samad building is across the street from the park. It was built for the Sultan at the time and I felt like I was in Saudi Arabia just by looking at it! The Jamek Mosque is right near the square too, we saw it but didn’t go inside. Many of the Mosques don’t allow non-Muslims to enter, and most that do have designated times that tourists can visit. At this point it started to downpour and since we didn’t have rain coats or umbrellas with us, we decided to head back to the hostel.

Kuala Lumpur is not as big of a city as I thought,  we could easy to walk everywhere we needed to go. On the way back to the hostel we stopped at Central Market. This is a building that sells many Malaysia crafts, clothing, and gifts as well as the usual knock-off designer bags etc. We walked around for a bit and we were very excited when we found a fish spa! We had heard about fish spas on Oprah and had seen them all over Asia but they were quite expensive. At the Central Market we could soak our feet for 10 minutes and it only cost us 5 ringgit ($1.50). The fish are called ‘doctor fish’, and they eat the dead skin off of peoples feet. They are toothless so it didn’t hurt- but some of the fish really tickled!

 

At the hostel we showered and changed and got ready for our first night out in a non-Muslim country. We were surprised that in Indonesia we struggled to find places that sold alcohol since most Muslims don’t drink the restaurants only seemed to have “mock-tails.” We ventured out in the rain to find a place for dinner and drinks. Kuala Lumpur isn’t a very lively city, but we found a good place to eat dinner and hang out for a while. We were both tired and decided to head back towards the hostel. Our hostel is connected with a reggae bar, so we thought that it might be a bit more lively with people our age. We also had a voucher for discounted drinks so we each got one and hoped to find some interesting people to talk with but only found creepy old men. We called it an early night because we were both exhausted from getting up at 4am that morning.

Bye for now!
Love,
Katie