20 Hours in Kuala Lumpur!

Just a slight moment ago, my last 48 hours had been nothing but walking, walking and walking - till drop -. Started the day two days ago with visiting Lucky Plaza to change SGD into MYR and lunch, then continued the trip to Vivo City and sightseeing (which in the end costed 60 SGD for a new Sandal, how evil!).

Then back home, packing everything and from now on the chain of killing my own feet continued. I met Meke at Lavender MRT, got on the Bus in Golden Mile at 10.00 PM. After an unexpectedly fast trip to KL, we, me and Meke, got dumped in Pudu Raya Bus Station at 3 AM; May 18, 2008. I can tell you that the area at night is pretty scary (much like Jakarta), full of taxi drivers waiting for passengers, night tresspassers, and some possibly thungs.

With nothing to do, we decided to wait for dawn in the KFC within vicinity. Meke ordered BBQ something and then we waited and met this Filipino (Manila) girl who had no idea how to activate her Singtel for International Roaming, named Theresa (maybe you’ll read this ) because I was playing with my new Singtel’s instruction paper. After two and half an hour of nothingness, we decided to leave. We bid farewell to Theresa who managed to inform her boyfriend in Cyberjaya and at the moment waiting for him to fetch her, then we strolled to the nearest LRT station.

After some moments of confusion, a bit nightmarish event (Pretty sure that the man wanted to get something from us), we managed to get to the LRT station and our “real” trip began. After stopping a moment in the scary darkness to get the picture of Jamek Mosque at night since we needed to change train, we directly travel towards KLCC.

Then in a moment on 6AM, we were there already, to witness the majestic 88 floors (452 meters) Petronas Twin Towers, the current 2nd tallest building in the world and still the highest double deckers ever built on earth. After taking some morning pictures in the backyard of the Twin Towers, we ran to queue for the chance to be able to got on the skybridge of the Twin Towers. It was an unbelievably long queue. We were there at 7 AM, and the queue had been very long though the ticket counter would only be open starting at 8.30 AM and while you actually could got on starting on 9 AM. While people rushing in like rivers, finally we got our ticket and were allowed to come inside.

After a moment of little show, we were finally brought to the skybridge which were the only thing that interconnected the two towers, located 170 M above sea level. Actually the wait wasn’t that worthy for the 10 minutes stay in the skybridge, since we were not brought to the roof top (I had been in the 49th floor of BNI 46 Building in Jakarta). But still, the feeling of being in one of the most magnificent modern structures was what brought so many people in.

We planned to take pictures from the front of the KLCC which also featured two beautiful fountains, but unfortunately rain fell very hard just as soon as we got into the ground level. With nothing to do in the wait, we decided to had our lunch early in 10 AM in the foodcourt of Suria KLCC, a mall between the Twin Towers. The food was unbelievably cheap (even cheaper than the foodcourt of the malls in Jakarta). We only had to pay for 25 MYR for two super big portion of rice, 5 Glasses of Drink (Milo, Teh Tarik), and one Roti Canai, very nice indeed!

The rain finally stopped just when we’re done with our lunch. We took lots of pictures in front of the KLCC, and then continued our trip with bus afterwards. We visited lots of places in 5 hours mostly by walking: Chinatown, Jamek Mosque, Sultan Abdul Samat Building, Dataran Merdeka, National Library, Pasar Seni, National Mosque, Taman Tasek Perdana, National Planetarium and Space Center, and some other places that I’ve forgotten. Fortunately, we had the chance to see tons of corners of Kuala Lumpur.

Around 5 PM, we’re done with our target and took a Bus to get us to our final destination, the Orchard of Kuala Lumpur : Bukit Bintang. We got off in between of Pavilion and Starhill shopping center (JW Mariott) and met this nice yet scary and suspicious grandma which I still think that she intended harm on two of us (my very nightmare of Kuala Lumpur). But let’s just skipped this story for now. We had our - very inexpensive - dinner in the foodhall of Lot10, a not so big yet beautiful mall in the tip of Bintang Walk. After, we went inside the Starhill for sightseeing, then later we shopped for things in Pavilion (a new big mall which I consider quite nice).

When we got outside of Pavilion, it was already 9 PM and nearly the end of our trip. We intended to go to our Bus station but in the end got caught of the beauty of nightview of Bukit Bintang. It was indeed a Bukit Bintang - a star hill - which there were so many beautiful blue lights at night in the street. Since it’s Sunday it’s also very full of people, cars, bars, and everything. Love it so much. I think it’s even nicer than Orchard. I wanted to try entering the Planet Hollywood in the Bukit Bintang, but we had no more time.

After some (big) confusions on the location of the Bus station, in 11 PM we departed from in front of the Times Square (a very big mall as well but had no chance to get inside). It’s the end of our 20 hours in KL though the days lack badly of sleep, and full of walking had not ended yet as our journey home to Singapore is still up ahead. Astalavista KL!

Some things to note :
- The food and drinks in Malaysia (since I’ve been in Kuching as well) basically is very cheap. But foodcourt in Suria KLCC is still far cheaper compared the Food Republic Pavilion which is more expensive.
- The LRT, Komuter, Monorails in KL, buses, unlike Singapore, are badly interconnected and could create confusions, make lots of inquiries before getting on. They are not from one vendor like in Singapore so sometimes you have to leave a station, walk a bit (sometimes not a bit), to move to another station. The best is RapidKL IMO, since the stations, the LRTs, and buses are the one which look like those in Singapore.
- KL is definitely not that safe, but it’s still far neater than Jakarta. Still, be very careful there!
- We had our trip entirely without taking Taxis, but by walking, getting on buses, or LRTs. The public transportation is definitely not the best, but it’s still pretty good. The pavements are still pedestrians friendly (though sometimes some motorcycles get on it).