Trip Report Asia 2013: Day 2: Gold Coast to Kuala Lumpur

Day 2: Trip Starts Proper:

Early start this morning, at least the benefit of staying so close to the airport is it literally is only 5 mins and you are there.  So we got to sleep in (a little).  Dropped off the rental car and we checked in to the flight.  No worries.  Gold Coast Airport departures was actually going pretty smoothly this morning, no major lines for security or immigration.

We always tend to fly Air Asia to Kuala Lumpur, partly because they are seriously one of the cheapest airlines we have ever used and also because they are actually pretty competitive when it comes to service, compared to some of the bigger airlines.  The food actually doesn’t taste terrible and they have never stuffed us around too badly!

Definitely wise to pre-order you meals. They don’t taste too bad

We also opted this time to book into AirAsia’s new section of the plane – the CHILD FREE ZONE! Golden choice, so nice not to have 100’s of children running around annoying me.  All power to you if you are a parent and travel with children, but being a childless couple we love a tiny bit of peace on a plane!

Landed in KL at the usual time around 3:00pm, now anyone who has landed into KLCC around this time knows it is usually pretty manic.  The key is to power off the plane, run to the Immigration (it really doesn’t matter how many people you knock over!) and then fight your way to the front of the line.  If you are lucky you get out in 2 hours.  This time! Wow, we were from the plane to the taxi in 30 minutes.  That is a serious record.  There were no lines, we would have been quicker but actually beat our luggage off the plane and had to wait for that.  Seriously good!

Jumped in the Airport Taxi and headed off to the Impiana KLCC.  This is our standard “Goto” hotel in KL.  The Impiana is in a great location smack between the PETRONAS Towers and the Bukit Bintang shopping district.  It is also now connected directly to the elevated walkway so now an even better option.  From memory this was our 4th or 5th time to the Impiana – and they even gave us a room upgrade to one of the bigger Club Rooms (sadly no Club Lounge access!).  Huge Shower.

Impiana Club Room, King Bed, Huge Bathroom. Really nice place to rest your head

The rooms are always really well appointed and have everything you could really need – but for me quite often wasted.  If you are spending time in your hotel room other than to shower and sleep you are missing out on everything KL has to offer!

Ok bags dropped it was time to stock up on the essentials – Uniqlo! If you are from Australia, chances are you have never heard of Uniqlo – it is a clothing store from Japan that has really cool high quality products are quite reasonable prices.  And considering our bags only weighed 10kgs leaving Australia we had budgeted on getting most of our holiday clothes from here! The nearest outlet to the Impiana was in the Fahrenheit shopping centre, which also houses a Brand Outlet store in the basement – another handy option if you need to outfit yourself for holiday (or home!).

If you are stopping in at Bukit Bintang you really can’t miss checking out the biggest and baddest (for your wallet) shopping centre, the Pavillion! This place is huge, just looking at the store map is enough to make most men weep in pain!

Changed some money up at Bukit Bintang (3.02RM – not a bad rate) and headed to Dinner.

It’s touristy – but Jalan Alor is our #1 place to eat when in Kuala Lumpur.  Our favourite place is Restoran Meng Kee Grill Fish.  You have to walk a fair way down to get there but I can assure you it is worth the wait.  High quality and quite reasonable prices.  We grabbed a table and ordered.  Then the rain came! These shop owners have a 6th sense about the weather, they started putting up umbrellas before it rained, almost like they knew what was coming.  And holy cow did it rain!  We stayed relatively dry and they even tried to give us a discount “for the bad weather!”

Jalan Alor – amazing place for dinner, countless options. If you can’t find a meal here there is a problem!

To give you a guide of prices – we ordered, Salt and Pepper Calamari, Butter Prawns, Fried Rice, 10 x Chicken Satay, 1 x Large Tiger Beer, 2 x Cokes – all up 102RM (just over $30AUD).  Not bad! Restoran Meng Kee Grill Fish….check them out!

After dinner we thought we saw a break in the rain…..we didn’t….so a run to 7-11 for emergency umbrellas was needed.  The rain in KL is something else, when it comes down it really comes down, the drains back up pretty quick and so the umbrella just becomes more of a token gesture to keep your hair dry than anything else.

Anyway escaped back to Impiana to dry off and get some sleep.  Planning on a jam packed day tomorrow.

As always thanks for reading and see you tomorrow.