Trip Report Asia 2013: Day 4: Kuala Lumpur

Today our friends from back home arrived – they took the overnight flight out of the Gold Coast so made it to the hotel at about 6am. 

Tip for people contemplating that – don’t be cheap! Book a room at the Impiana for the night before so that you have a guaranteed bed to rest and a shower to wake yourself up!

We met them at breakfast around 8am, so we allowed them a small pocket of sleep.  Breakfast again was Cedar on 15, just couldn’t go past that view.  Also as another interesting note (well interesting for me!) with the addition of the walkway we hadn’t actually been back at Reception since we checked in! Each time we come and go via the walkway!

Cedar on 15 – really nice place for Breakfast. Make sure to grab a table outside on the balcony to enjoy the view.

Even started to get all artistic with my food photography there.  Just can’t go past that amazing view.  The only thing they need to fix up is that the Free Wifi doesn’t seem to make it into the restaurant so it makes it tough to download the news etc.

The only other downside if the coffee – its just the normal run of the mill hotel coffee, but you get used to it.

After breakfast we headed up to the Monorail at Bukit Bintang – giving the others a bit of an orientation.  Two of them had been to KL before but 1 hadn’t so gave him the 50 cent tour.

I wanted to check out Little India so we got the monorail to KL Sentral and just wandered around aimlessly – it was pretty warm today, so any place with Air-Con became a shop everyone wanted to check out!

It was an interesting area, but one I would probably like to come back to (when its a little cooler) and just explore a bit more.  You can’t really wander around when you have 4 other people in tow! My style tends to be the random wandering style – which tends to lead travel companions to wonder where the hell I am going.

Petaling Street Markets

So we headed back to the Monorail and this time caught it to Maharajalella to go check out the Petaling Street Markets (also known as the Chinatown Markets). This is the place to go to pick up all your Genuine Copies.  I mean not that you would do that or anything! It tends to not really get going till around midday and depending on your luck you might be able to snag a few good bargains early as they are all setting up shop.

I grabbed some essential supplies (refilling the wardrobe back at home!). And we headed off in search of our next destination.

Central Market

Just a short walk from Petaling Street is the area of the Central Market.  This is a really nice little place to check out, they actually sell some unique crafty items that you won’t see in many other places – as well as plenty of the usual tourist tack.  The food court here is also pretty good and worth a stop.  I usually manage to schedule the day such that by the time you make Central Market there is usually room for a Milo Dinosaur and some Satay Chicken.

Have you had a Milo Dinosaur?  They are seriously cool – takes you back to being a kid again and when you parents said you could have a glass of Milo you generally went with a 3:1 Milo to Milk Ratio – well they now sell them and they are called Milo Dinosaurs.  I am even told now of a Milo Godzilla which apparently introduced Ice Cream to the equation…yet to have one! …anyway I digress.

After a bit of a shop we jumped on the LRT (stop is just across the road from Central Market) and headed back to KLCC.  We walked back through KLCC to Bukit Bintang – yes I know we could have found a better way of getting there, but our travel companions had been travelling for almost 18hours without sleep so I figured a good long walk would be refreshing for them!

After some massages again on Bukit Bintang we headed back to the Hotel Pool for a swim and some cocktails.

The pool is usually pretty empty, I have noticed that the clientele is usually about 70% business traveller so you can generally get a spot at the pool no worries.  Although this afternoon I was proven wrong, it was quite popular.  The drinks are not crazy prices – just typical KL Hotel prices. And depending on what you order service was either really quick or quite slow.  Not to worry we are on holidays!

Jalan Alor – Dinner – Eat Street

Dinner tonight was back to Jalan Alor again for a meal.  We went back to Restoran Meng Kee Grill Fish (and don’t tell our friends – we ordered the exact same meals as the other night!).  Thankfully better weather tonight, no rain.  Again a really great meal, food portions are quite plentiful and the staff are very prompt and attentive (especially to bringing more Tiger Beer!)

To put into perspective, Jalan Alor is about 200-300mts of street packed on both sides with restaurants.  Each place has 1 or 2 spruikers out the front trying to get you in.  They are not too pushy, a polite “No Thank You” and they leave you alone.  Also be careful – it is also still a functioning street, so cars will try to sneak through – and the later you dine the busier it gets.  There are a couple of joints along the strip that are actually 24 hour restaurants!

Don’t worry – I am 100% confident that all food-health hygiene standards are being followed – and lets be honest if you grill/fry anything for long enough all the bad stuff is out of it anyway.  We have eaten here many times and never had a problem.

Quick shot of our weary travellers – you can probably tell they are a little tired by this point.

The Salt and Pepper Calamari – not much to look at but bloody tasty.  Really nice – the calamari was cooked perfectly, not stringy at all.  And at a price that beats any crappy seafood place back in Brisbane.

The Prawns – Butter Prawns.  For the life of me I never found out what the heck was on the top of these, tasted like a pork floss but I think it was egg – either way really really really tasty.  I had to fight the wife to get some.

Satay sticks – Chicken and Beef, nice mild Satay sauce.  A really nice starter.  They actually outsource the Satay to another stall, as it came from down the road at a different restaurant – quite an efficient set up really.

All up I think dinner and drinks came to about 30RM each.

Back to the hotel for a well earned sleep (via the Pavilion for some Gelati – it was on the way how could we not have it?).

Anyway that’s it for today – thanks for reading – tomorrow we are off to the Batu Caves.