Jul21
Here’s a very belated travellog of my trip to Malaysia:
My flight from Dubai to Kuala Lumpur had an hour stop at Singapore airport. Though i only got to roam about this airport for 45 minutes, i officially declared it as my fav airport straight away. The whole airport looked like a hotel lobby…so quiet…so clean…so cozy :D…my first though was that if I’m ever forced to live in an airport for the rest of my life–you know like Tom Hanks in the Terminal (which FYI was loosely based on an Iranian dude who lived in Charles De Gaulle airport for 14 years)–I would pick to live in this airport:
So, I arrived at KL airport around 1 o’clock in the morning. I was told that i could get visa right at the airport, so as soon as I arrived my little observant eyes radared around for the Visa Issue desk…couldn’t locate any…so I approach the first airport officer:
ME: xcuse me…where can i get a visa?
HER: over there
ME: no, that’s passport control…i still need to get a visa
HER: (all smiles, in the sweetest voice ever) yeah, same place
OK, that was my first encounter with a Malaysian and my first thought then was, boy they are so sweet, so friendly :D
Well, the whole visa issuing and passport control process took about 25 seconds…
Now i had done my homework so I knew there are many different types of taxis I could get (even a rapid train) and that the best choice for me would be the budget taxi since I only had 1 suitcase and that ride to my hotel should be around 60 RM (about 5 KD or $20) ….and I KNEW I had to be wary of being swamped by non-airport taxis…but hey i was dead tired. I had left Kuwait at 3 in the morning and had arrived in KL at 12 midnight…that’s about 15 hours….so when the guy said the ride to my hotel would be 150 RM i didn’t haggle or turn him down…so as he was writing out the receipt, i just smiled and said:
ME: I read online that it’s suppose to be 60 RM
HIM: Don’t believe things you read online…they are outdated…
ME: Yeah but you are more than double charging me…i’ll pay..but i want you to know i know you are over charging me
HIM: ok, i know
…and here i bursted out laughing at my own idiosy :D…
but when i got to the taxi i saw it was the ones that online described as limos (they aren’t real limos)…the price for those was RM 120 and the site did mention that after mid-night they might charge more…so i wasn’t being over-charged after all :D :D
Enjoy these random pics of KL:
KFH in KL
View of KLCC from the Petrona Tower’s Sky Bridge
The Petronas Towers at night (these were the tallest towers in the world till 2004). There’s a rumor that the film Entrapment is banned in Malaysia coz of a super-imposed scene that show these Towers near the ‘slumps’ of the city of Malacca which is about 90km away from KL. Apparently the Malaysian government was upset. Now I’ll post pics of Malacca soon, I actually liked the ‘slump’ i thought it had soul and a past, it didn’t look anything like a ‘slump’ to me.
The KL Tower (aka Menara Tower). First thought, doesn’t Menara in Arabic mean Tower? So the name of this tower is Tower Tower??) Anyway, I recommend that whoever goes to KL, they should first go to the observation desk over here and check out the audio-visual tour guide of the whole city from up there. You can even see the Batu Caves from up there. Oh and when you go there definitely try the flying fox ride.
Me on the Flying Fox Ride at KL Tower (aka Menara Tower)
A notice board about a special tree at the base of the Tower. They spent RM 430,000 (about KD35,000 or $133,000 to save this single tree during the construction of the tower!!!
And here’s that special tree:
The ceiling of the dome inside the tower. The ceiling was designed by an Iranian from Isfahan.
Inside the tower
Another activity you can try at the KL Tower is to take a guided walk through the Bukit Nanas Forest. This forest is the oldest virgin forest in the world located within a city. What I really liked about KL is that it was a city in the middle of a rain forest. So if you live there and one day you need to take a short break from the fast pace of city life, you could just take a detoxifying walk in a rain forest. The plant species I saw over there looked like something out of Jurassic Park. Here’s a pic of the back of our guide and two other vistors. BTW, that couple were Indians who also lived in Kuwait for a while…how small is the world!!!
Darya
http://mymagicaldroplets.wordpress.com
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