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  • Day 106

    Day 106: Back to KL

    September 29, 2016 in Malaysia ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    Time to leave Ipoh and the north of Malaysia. Our train to KL was at 1pm, and we'd arranged to meet the car hire man at the station around 12pm. After a hotel breakfast we were a little lost for ideas, but decided to re-visit the park we'd been to a few days earlier (with the man-made waterfall and so on).

    So into the car we got, and headed off. The park was a ghost town today, a sharp contrast to the busyness of our previous visit which was on a weekend. There were only a few people in the place as far as we could tell! Decided to spring the 6 ringgit for the boat fare to the far shore, where there was a large park with several attractions, sort of like a mini version of Sydney Park.

    We had a nice slow stroll around, enjoying the gardens, the flowers, and the look-outs. Discovered that there was a feeding zoo with deer, who looked very non-plussed by us, as well as a pair of emus (or maybe ostrich, I can't tell) who didn't look very healthy or happy. It looked like both of them had completely picked all the feathers off their hides around near their bums, and it looked awful. We didn't stick around long as it was depressing.

    Lots of garden staff around as well cleaning up, since it looked like a storm had blown through the previous night. We'd noticed some wind and rain, but this was something larger - branches down, leaves blown everywhere etc. We left them to it, and after an hour or so of wandering the park we headed for the exit. Back to town by 11am where we had an early lunch, ensuring that the popiah staff hadn't sold out yet - it hadn't!

    We shared three plates between us - maybe a little greedy but they aren't that big either. We made the station by 11:45 where we parked, found our rental car man (who didn't even look at the car or petrol levels, just grabbed the keys, shook my hand and left!), then settled in at the station to wait. Lots of people waiting for a different train including a usual group of shoving Chinese grannies, but when our train arrived hardly anyone got on! In a carriage that probably seated 50, I think it was just us and another couple nearby.

    Nothing really to report from the journey, just reading this time - up to 60% of War & Peace! Didn't really do much looking at the scenery, since this is the second time we've done this route by rail, and the nearby highway is one we've done a few times as well (we got a bus from KL to Penang via Ipoh in our 2015 Malaysia trip).

    Arriving at KL, it was quite easy to find our apartment as it's right near the station. Something different for us this time - we've booked an AirBnB, which is a sort of Uber for hotels. People use it to rent out spare rooms/units, meaning that you aren't staying in a hotel with all that that entails. We were staying in a moderately fancy 2-bedroom apartment, in an enormous complex of buildings. We're on level 22 of 38, and there's an identical building next door. Reading room and entertaining area on the roof, enormous pool, gym and sauna on level 7, plus a convenience store and a small cafe too. Not bad!

    Our hosts are a young French couple who have lived in Malaysia for six months - the apartment is enormous and has two bathrooms, so it shouldn't be a problem to share with them. After heading upstairs and having a brief chat, we headed out to explore the area while she went back to work. We're staying in Little India which has a few interesting shops and stuff, so we had a look around. But there was less to see than we expected, so we went back to the apartment building and jumped in the pool instead.

    After a nice long relaxing swim we went out for dinner. Right next door to us is the Nu Sentral mall, an enormous 10-level shopping centre that's connected to the KL Sentral station (which is where we'll be getting Grand Prix trains from too). We headed in and perused the fancier food options on the upper floors, eventually going with the Manhattan Fish Market where Shandos had a salmon & mash dish while I had fish & chips of course.
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