Easing into Things

As with a lot of journeys, our trip kicked off at an entirely unreasonable hour. At 4:45am our taxi arrived. We knew that because we heard him scraping the back end of his taxi off by trying to reverse up the driveway. We appreciated his efforts, but we're not sure the neighbours did, since it was still 2 hours before sunrise on a Sunday morning. If this didn't wake them up then we're certain that our departure did. The steepness of the driveway, which caused his issues on arrival, now prevented his tyres getting any traction on the way out. After leaving the majority of his tread on our landlord's pretty concrete driveway (to the point where you could smell the burning rubber) he eventually managed upon an angle that allowed him to extricate us, after leaving any of his remaining rear bumper bar behind. With a start like this, we knew this was going to be another adventure!

But we weren't exactly slumming it in the beginning, despite not having access to the Qantas Club (due to flying Malaysian Airlines). I had a plan/scam to wave my Airport Security card to try and get us priority access through customs/immigration, but then Mel did some internet research that saved me embarrassing myself. She babysits a Platinum Amex, and it turns out that this gained us both priority immigration as well as access to the Amex Lounge. Thanks P&J!!

The flight was pretty painless, and we watched some heavily censored movies in between catching a few cool glimpses of some Indonesian islands on the way over. The first thing that we noticed when we approached the airport in KL were the endless fields of palm trees around the airport. As far as the eye could see were mile upon mile of palm plantations. I'd heard that these kinds of plantations were becoming a major cause of deforestation in South-east Asia, but witnessing them first-hand was startling. Once we landed it was a very efficient train ride into the city, where we switched onto the Light Rail to get to our hotel. It was all very quick and easy.

And we weren't exactly slumming it with our accommodation, either. My mate Tony, at Helloworld Travel, had booked us into the Double Tree by Hilton, who gave us a complimentary upgrade to a Deluxe King room. Yet it turned out that the restaurant was the real party piece. When we presented for breakfast in the morning we had to be given a tour by the staff! This is because the restaurant occupied the entire floor, and included four separate buffets scattered throughout. The offering include cuisine from Malaysia, India, China and the West. We gorged ourselves like common tourists, to the point where any more food might have jeopardised our chances of walking out under our own steam.

After a quick rest to allow the food coma to subside, we ventured out to explore Kuala Lumpur. Unsurprisingly, the Hilton was clearly in the affluent part of town, so it was only a short walk to reach the City Park, which then led us on to the Petronas Towers. These are probably the key tourist drawcard in the city (unless you're a shopaholic). With an exterior comprising of 33,000 stainless steel and 55,000 glass panels they are certainly an impressive sight. Each tower is 88 storeys tall and they reach 452m into the sky, making them the world's tallest buildings when they were constructed. They held this title until 2004 and now hold equal 14th (with each other) among the rank of World Tallest Structures, and 7th for tallest buildings (as at 2015). The double-storey skybridge connecting the two structures is 170m above the street (shopping mall) below, and isn't fixed to either tower, allowing them to sway several feet in high winds!

KL was pleasant enough, but not that different to most other big cities: full of shiny shopping malls, skyscrapers and freeways. One noticeable exception were the housing precincts. It seemed that random precincts of high density housing had popped up at apparently random locations spread around the city. But, KL served it's purpose, allowing us to acclimatise and relax before heading onwards to the island of Borneo! Czytaj więcej