Summer adventures to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur – Adventures in KL

Travel Plus: Adventures in KL
Summer adventures to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur

Contents

• Seriously – Take a holiday!
• Morning Manoeuvres in the dark, Terminal 5 and Galleries South
• BA776 London Heathrow to Stockholm Arlanda (Club Europe)
• Exploring Stockholm on the cheap (Travel Plus!) 
• Back to Arlanda, Stockholm Arlanda Lounge
• QR168 Stockholm Arlanda to Doha (Hamad International Airport) – (Business Class)
• Six Hours in at Al Mourjan Doha’s Lounge
• QR944 Doha – Singapore Changi International (Business Class)
• Intercontinental Singapore
• Exploring Singapore by boat
  
• From the Top of the Marina Sands
• Back to Changi T2, SATS Lounge 
• MH624 Singapore to Kuala Lumpur International Airport
• Into KL, Holiday Inn Express KLCC, Kuala Lumpur
• Adventures in KL
• KL Tower (or yes, Kevin is in yet another tall building)
• Back to KLIA
• MH611 Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Singapore Changi
• Exploring Singapore again with a tweep
• Back to Premium, dnata lounge, Singapore T3
• QR947 Singapore Changi to Doha (Business Class)
• A Dash through Doha…
• QR169 Doha – Stockholm Arlanda (Business Class)
• From Premium to Economy featuring the Aurora Lounge
• BA777 Stockholm Arlanda to London Heathrow
• To have flown, To Wait…
• I need another break…

With me refreshed, and breakfast in my stomach, its time to explore Kuala Lumpur. For this, I’m using my Touch and Go card (with KLIA Eskress tickets on it).

I started off with that Monorail again (there’s an article in this somewhere, before transferring to the KL Rapid to head toward Chinatown.

Urban Kuala Lumpur… and the KL Tower. We’ll come back to that much later. Say in the next segment of this trip report… 

A short walk, and you can start telling the Chinese influence quickly.

A turn, and I was in Petaling Street – the heart of Chinatown. And as usual, in places like this – keep your wits about you, your bag close – and your eye open.

 

Soy milk shop was doing a roaring trade.

Business is business.

As I was here during the day, traffic was more subdued than in the evening.

There was of course, a lot of street food.

   

 

That’s how you cook chestnuts

And of course, this area is good for tourist tat. Not that I brought much from here 😉

and the joy of daily life.

My attempt at a Kai Wong style photo. 60% there – but I need an old lady pushing a trolley for the proper Hong Kong effect.

It’s amazing what you can stick on a back of a bike…

I’ve found my ideal bike since I have a crap sense of balance. A Four-wheeler bike. Don’t think I could strap a server on it though.

Sadly, it seems there were others around – namely the joy of beg-packers, with someone who was clearly western trying to blend in and playing an instrument… along with an Instragram link. Guess what – I’m not giving him any publicity. If I travel, I try to stick a planned budget and have a back-up plan to get out.

To me, beg-packers give a poor impression travellers who should know better, but are almost preying on other tourists or locals to fund their trip.

And that’s just wrong.

I headed onward – this time onto the Central Market. Whilst aimed a lot more at tourists than locals, it’s pleasant to walk around. And also… there’s air conditioning.

Aircon is important people.

The outdoor market.

Coconut anyone?

I swear I’ve seen this coffee brand somewhere before…. or something resembling it…

Fruits…

Let’s wander inside. There’s a lot of arts and crafts shops… as well as those who will sell any sort of tat.

Famous titbits. 

Kitty Chan wants in. 

      
Wait… am I in Malaysia or Japan?

Passing onward the Central Market, I headed to the tallest flagpole in Malaysia – where the Union Flag of the United Kingdom last flew, and where the Malaysian flag was first raised.

And this proved to be fun as the SEA Games 17 were having a rehearsal in the area.

 

Nothing like going around scaffolding…

Tall flag pole – check

Panggung Bandaraya City Theatre

Masjid Jamek Sultan Abdul Samad Mosque

After exploring the area for a bit – I decided to head to the main shopping area… primarily as I was getting nibbily. And as much as I like street food, food courts are always good too. And they’re air-conditioned.

What did I say about aircon people? It’s important.

I headed back to the Rapid KL – and after going the wrong direction, I was back on the Monorail… going the wrong direction.

I don’t know what was going on with my brain, but oh well…

Although I passed the Masjid Jamek Sultan Abdul Samad Mosque…

And a Hindu temple…

Eventually I ended up in Bukit Bintang, and wandered around gazing at the retail.

There was a lot of celebration of the SEA Games too.

As well as random blue screens of death.

Oops. 

In places like Malaysia, Singapore or anywhere that is remotely hot in the world with high humidity – there’s one thing to have nearby – and that’s a bottle of water. Thankfully, bottles of water are cheap – and when there is a 7/11 to use and shop from – it’s time to get a bottle of water.

I won’t lie – by the time I left the 7/11, this bottle was 3/4 empty.

Ending up indoors, I wandered… and found a food court – where food was cheap. And I mean cheap. There was a hot plate place that looked interesting – so I chose that.

I went for a dry chilli chicken hot plate – with an egg on top. I got a pretty big meal for that.

Seriously – that was a big plate 

So in the UK – if I could find this, this is easy a £7-£10 dish. How much was it here?

9.90 Malaysian Ringgit.

So what does 9.90 Malaysian Ringgit convert into? At the time of writing:

• GBP £1.75
• EUR €1.98
• USD $2.34

In terms of dining cheaply, you can’t go wrong.

My travels continued to take me onward – this time I skipped taking the Monorail any further around KL and switched to the free buses operated by GoKL. Just look for a pink bus. At Bukit Bintang, the Green line was of interest – as it took me towards the Petronas Towers.

And this was a scouting mission as I was thinking of coming back here later.

The Petronas towers

However, my plan A was knocked back when I returned later – as the observation deck was shut the one day I was there. Commence swearwords, and plan B.

I tracked back to the hotel to get a fresh t-shirt on, and head out to my next stop – the KL Tower.

Overall: Exploring KL is easy if you’ve got a Touch’n’go card – or use the GoKL buses – and I covered some distance with these with the Monorail, RapidKL and the GoKL buses. A copy of Google Maps, some data and a sense of wonder also help too.

Next: I go up the KL tower – because…there’s a tower!

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