Kuala Lumpur Saturday 10th and KL Airport Hotel Sunday 11th September

Saturday 10th September.

Last day in KL so didn't venture to far from the hotel. Just took the mono rail two stops, got off and walked back through the malls.  The shopping centres are so big its all too confusing to take it all in. Didn't really have a lot of time to look around as we wanted to get back to the hotel for a couple swims. Just slowing down over these last few days as its been all go since we arrived here.

This view I only discovered today looking further around from the lounge. The bedroom had sheer curtains so never really looked behind them as we had enough to look out from the lounge.

So this is our full view left half from lounge and right side more from bedroom. This was taken from the bedroom window though the glass no opening windows.

Took off this morning about 9.30am. No point going earlier as shops don't open until 10.00am in the weekends. Above is the Brerjaya Time Square which is the 5th largest building in the world by floor area and the largest in KL. 7.5 Million sq ft. A major city landmark. 48 story twin tower complex. Each tower is 203 m high. Lots of retail stores, restaurants and entertainment outlets.

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Impossible to get anywhere near the whole building into the photo. Can only take it from across the street.It looks small but it goes in deep behind where you can't see. This photo is just part of the top half.

The front doors, everyone waiting for 10am opening.

Looking down to the entrance from upstairs. See the silver fish bottom centre.

This is him up close.

Jen,  Dad took this for you and says does this look familiar ?? And did you know that a giraffe has only 7 neck bones??

This is a Jandal Shop. If you look closely the display is all made up of Jandals. That's what I was telling you about Jen.

Mono Rail coming into the station (Raja Chulan) at the bottom of our road  Very handy.

Looking through inside

This is the shopping Pavilion KL the closest shops to our street. Just a short walk. We had a quick last walk through before we went back for a swim. 

  

On our way through the shops we went down to the basement where all the food outlets are. Just thought we would pick up a few goodies to go with our lunch back in the apartment.
Just had to say that this cost the equivalent to NZ3.00. Food is a good price here. We see things in the supermarket which are the same as we get at home for a lot less. All sorts, eggs bread, etc etc.. just about everything. soft drinks  that are made by the same companies that we get ours from. But. There is always a but...Alcohol is very expensive with their high taxes on alcohol .

Had to take one more photo of the tower at last nights sunset. Its being a big part of our lives for the last four nights with its flashing lights all changing colours into our apartment.


Sunday 11th September

We didn't check out of the E & O Residence until mid day today and got a taxi down to the           Sam Sama Hotel at KL International airport where we are having one night before we fly out tomorrow at 5.30pm. We booked into a premium room which we enjoyed all the benefits from when we stayed here a couple of years ago. A couple of weeks ago I got an e mail from the hotel explaining that the business lounge was under renovations therefore wouldn't have the use of it and would be having breakfast down in the main breakfast room. Taking a step back, in the premier rooms they are all on the same floor (top floor) and have their own private lounge where you can go for free cocktails and nibbles at 6.00pm. You also have your breakfast in this lounge away from all the noise of the rest of the hotel. It was so nice and quite, weren't going up and down lifts, everything was on the one floor. When I say you get free cocktails and nibbles, there is so much hot food its like having dinner so you don't have the expense of dinner. Another benefit of premium is that we could have a 3.00pm check out. I wasn't very happy about this 1. we booked six months ago and they didn't tell us this was going to happen and 2. I booked in advance to get the cheap deal and they have since brought their prices down due to the inconvenience. So we were ending up paying NZ$50 more than if you turned up today. When we checked in we were booked for a king room and was asked if we took two singles we could check in early otherwise would have to wait for our room. Anyway he could see I wasn't happy with the whole deal and we ended up with this huge one bedroom suite with a big king size bed.. I don't think that you should accept something that you haven't booked and paid for. 

Moving on we settled into our room a great place to relax before a long flight especially when we have to take three different flights home with two three hour stop overs.

Sasma Sama Hotel KL foyer.

Above and below the lounge. Where PT is standing there is a powder room, so we have two toilets,

Large bedroom with second TV

Massive bathroom

And the powder room.....

After settling in went down to the pool  and just relaxed for awhile. swam, and drank iced coffees, very pleasant. Notice we have another tower but this time its an airport control tower.

Nice area to relax before flying. Bev you will regonise this.

Well tomorrow the 12th is the end of our holiday when we leave Malaysia at 5.30pm arriving in Auckland mid afternoon on Tuesday 13th......

We have had a great experience exploring Malaysia  and the driving side of it was very good. Great wide motorways, nowhere as busy as home.  We started off in Petrajaya  a very modern area which was developed for the overflow of KL.We saw lots of different ways of life on the two different coasts, although we had a bit of mishap in the rain forest, it was a beautiful peaceful place. Enjoyed our time on Penang Island which was very touristy and all beach resorts, such a contrast to the East Coast where we hardly saw any of our kind.... Our time up in the Highlands was a lot of fun and so different and of course the slightly lower temperatures. Then back to Kuala Lumpur with the busy life of a big city.

Earlier I was talking about how cheap the food is here but must mention the price of petrol. MR1.70lt,= NZ$0.51. We traveled 1984km which isn't really a lot in the three weeks we had the car.

This rough bit of a map which I took a photo of is our route we drove around Malaysia. It all worked out well as far as the time we spent in each place and what we had planned to see and do. You will note that I have put two nights in the rain forest (middle of the map at the top) whereas we only had one night. The "lost" night we had was made up in Georgetown on Penang island.

We are now ready to get home and start our next part of our life. And of course hopefully lots more travelling to organise. So that's me signing off from another great holiday.

PT is now going to have the last say.

Gee thanks Jack. I'm not usually allowed to say to much but Jack has done a super job with planning of our trip with very few hiccups. The only driving hiccup was in Penang when I put a very minor scratch on our car but that was covered by the full insurance that we took out. Hertz didn't see any issues. (in fact they didn't even notice it!!) Also the Malaysian drivers do have a propensity to drive very close to your rear when they want to pass but we always allowed them to pass. The motor bikes and motor scooters are dangerous. They come from anywhere. Two passing you on both sides at once is quite common and dangerous. Traffic lights don't mean a lot to most motor bikes!! 

Some of the funny things that have happened  is that I have been to breakfast twice with my shirt on inside out!!! And Jackie on one occasion noticed that she had her shirt on inside out. Corrected, but then she noticed that she had put it back on back-to-front.  Oh well as we say  "Its getting difficult isn't it" 

Kualas Lumpur Friday 9th September 2016

Today we took off to the Twin Towers. We woke up to fog outside all around us but didn't take long to lift but remained overcast until mid day when the clouds went and we had a great day.

Nothing new today just visited the sites that we did a couple of years ago.

Looking up to our apartment 26th floor,(top floor). We are on the left side corner unit. The unit starts from the middle of the dark grey strip, around the corner to the left to the jutting out bit which is our bedroom. The rest you can see is the kitchen, dining and lounge. So you can see it is rather big. All for $100.00 per night. Really good value. It is also serviced each day.

The Twin Towers. Its so big can't get it all in one photo. It doesn't look nearly as striking on this dull morning as when the sun is shining on it it really sparkles with its silver coating.

The grounds in front of the base of the tower. I would have loved to have gone back for a photo with the sun out, but in the too hard basket in this heat. As it was we walked just over 11km today even though we used the mono rail and the train to  go to China Town. The towers are in a good walking distance from our accommodation. 

Inside between the towers in the  shopping complex. About five levels.Looking up to the dome shape roof of the retail areas.

Big circular floors full of fairly high class shops and brands.

 We came back to our unit for lunch before we set off again. The street that is in front of the hotel had a market day today but the road is still open to the traffic so with the stalls on either side doesn't leave much room for them. Its really designed for the locals not the tourists. All their sort of clothing and a lot of hot cooked dishes for the locals probably mainly for lunch for the building workers in the area.

Got the mono rail and train to Chinatown.  Our touch and go card we used for the motorways can be used for all public transport as well.  Makes it much easier just to touch and go rather than  standing  around trying to sort out which ticket machine belongs to what train. The above photo is the entrance to Chinatown.  

Looking down the street full of market stalls but behind the stalls is proper covered in shops.

Just along the street is more the real type of markets. Everyone hounding you as you walk through. We just went for the atmosphere of it all (not to buy) and we just kept walking.

Seeing I didn't have much to post today (slowly slowing down) put some daytime photos of our view. This one is probably similar to one the other day looking straight down to the road from our balcony but this shows more of the view over the city.

Another angle including part of the sky tower.

You can imagine how high up we are, as the sky tower doesn't look very high. It is also up on a hill.

Tomorrow will be a quiet day last day here so will just do the local shopping mall and a swim or two so probably won't do a blog tomorrow night unless something really exciting happens. Will continue on Sunday night when we have arrived at the Sama Sama Hotel at the airport. That will be our last night.

Kuala Lumpur Batu Caves. Thursday 8th September 2016

Today we went to the Batu Caves. Caught the mono rail at the bottom of our road to take us to KL central station. From there we transferred to to a train out to the Batu caves. Train/mono rail are so cheap to travel on. Just short of a dollar a trip to travel quite some distance. The whole days travelling only cost us about NZ3.00 each.

 

Before we left, hanging over our balcony looking down on the street below.

Now arrived at the Batu Caves. This is the entrance to one of caves,  Batu Caves is a limestone hill that has a series of caves and temples one of a series of caves and cave temples.

On our way into the first cave.

The entrance of the main cave with its 272 steps to climb up to the entrance. We were so hot by the time we reached the top. We have never felt so hot, just dripping. Hard work but you have to do it.

As I was wearing shorts like so many women, they made you wear this wrap so that made me even hotter with all this nylon around me. My legs couldn't breath............

This place is full of  wild monkeys running around everywhere . One man had his plastic bag ripped out of his hands while walking up the stairs as he had food in it.

They seem very tame but would never trust them.

  

My new friends. (Above and below!!!!!)

That wrap was so hot to wear.

Getting to the top of the stairs but not quite there yet. A long way down and the steps were quite steep.

At the top of the stairs you walk into this huge cave which has an open air opening with trees above (as in no roof)  and below that is another temple. Might add ahead there were more stairs to climb.

This fellow was right up on that top level along with many more monkeys running around.

Now to climb all the way down again. A long way down.

More little guys running up and down the stairs. Looking to see who's carrying food to steal.

Can you see the baby clinging to his mum. The mother monkeys run round with their baby's hanging upside down clinging to their mothers stomach.

This is how small the babies are.

Absolutely  exhausted we staggered back to catch our train.. These are the trains we travel on then transfer to the mono rail that runs above the roads through town. Great system so convenient to get around. In all we walked 9.5kms today with all the step climbing. 

Now for a nice night out for our 43rd Wedding Anniversary. Congratulations Jackie!! (for putting up with me for that long)

We had a three course meal starting with an entree of cocktail sausages wrapped in bacon with a very nice sauce. Forgot to take a photo at this point. And the mains above were out of this world, pork spare ribs that had been slowly cooked for sixteen hours with beautiful flavour with a black sauce and salad.

Desert was as equally  as good. Cinnamon cheesecake. Beautiful.

PT in the background moving in the kids at the next table. This was only just before we left.

They were lovely people laughing and joking with us.   

As we were walking back to base we walked past the swimming pool area looking across with the top of the Twin Towers in the background. We are going to visit them tomorrow as we found them fascinating when we visited there a couple of years ago.

Close up of the top of the tower from our window.