Having taken the most empty plane we've both ever been on, we arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport number 1. Kuala Lumpur is a pretty incredible city and it's growing faster and faster. It's two airports that are side by side are growing at the same rate, and what used to be a humble little airport, to our surprise, was now two mega buildings connected by a train line, with massive duty free, entertainment, facilities etc. A lot of progress since the last time I was here.
After working our way through the giant airport. Mimi getting her 72 hour visa exemption as she was "flying home to China", we looked at taking the train to the city. Kuala Lumpur has the same stupid problem that Sydney has, that if you have literally two or more people, it is cheaper to take a taxi from the airport to the city thanks to ridiculous prices of the airport train station.
We only had 3 nights in KL until Mimi had to take her flight to China so that she could get a visa there to come back, and so we just spent the days looking around the city.
We stayed in Chinatown and ate lots and lots of really good food for what we thought were really good prices (I would learn that food in KL is actually expensive compared to the rest of Malaysia). We hopped on and off the free bus routes, looking at the different sites the inner city had to see. Highlights were the huge central train station with enormous shopping mall attached. The even more enormous shopping malls in the richer Bintang area. The botanic garden that was stupidly hot to walk through but unbelievably empty given the location in the inner city. Good way to spend time is finding old historical spots from early settler days or finding “bargains” of completely legitimate items in the tourist markets.
On the morning of Mimi's flight, we both got up early and took a taxi to the central train station - the trains weren't running that early for us to take one from our accommodation. There Mimi took a bus to the airport, we had learnt about the existence of this bus after we took the taxi a few days before, and it was a hell of a lot cheaper. After Mimi was gone, I waited at the station for the trains to start up, and took the first one back to our accommodation.
Having no idea where to go or what to do, I packed up and then took the train to the southern bus station. From there I took a bus to Malacca or Melaka, depending on who's spelling you want to use. Mimi had been to Malacca many years before so I figured I might as well see it on my own. KL being the mega city that it is, the line up to buy a ticket was unbelievable and the traffic on the way to the next nearby city made the journey far longer than it should've been.
Kuala Lumpur is an interesting city. After spending a long time in more rural areas of Indonesia, this modern city gave us slight culture shock. The public transport, the food options, the accommodation options, the public entertainment. If I had to live in a city, I wouldn't mind it being KL.
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