We flew into KLIA around 1am. We stayed in KL on a whim. When booking our flights, things were a little awkward so I figured we could stay there for a couple of days and get organized again. Malaysia offers a free layover visa for any stays shorter than 3 days, so we took advantage of that. Anyhow, we flew in at 1am. We didn't want to pay for a full night in a hotel when we wouldn't get into the city until early morning, so we booked for the following night but not our arrival night.
Molly and I made it through immigration without a hitch and then picked up our backpacks. There were some flat, well padded rows of benches against the wall in baggage claim and we staked our turf. Molly and I each slept for about 4 hours and the staff was very accomodating in not kicking us out or hassling us. The A/C was in full effect, to the point that Molly and I both had to pull out Sarongs to cover up with.
The highspeed train from KLIA to KL Sentral kicks ass. It runs nonstop from the airport to Sentral Station at roughly 160km/hr, has comfy seats and tvs. We rolled in around 7am on a Sunday and the station was empty. There was a conveniently closed Starbucks with free wifi where we caught up on the world and looked up directions to our hotel.
Back in our native hemisphere, I am usually the one who knows where we are. There are some exceptions, such as the Kahului Wendy's, but generally I am on top of it. As soon as we arrived in KL, Molly crushed it. We got not so great directions to the hotel and slogged off in the general direction. We got turned around a couple of times and basically walked the wrong way down a car ramp, and I was ready to catch a cab. Molly demanded perserverence and 30 feet later, we found signs directing us to our hotel.
We stored our big packs and decided to find the big park just north of KL Sentral. Following my lead, we managed to circumnavigate the southwestern quarter of the city before we got to the park. Keep in mind, we could see the damn thing the whole time, just on the other side of the highway, or the lightrail line, or the mosque. At one time, I found us the landscaped side of an onramp and declared it to be our destination. Fortunately, Molly could not be dissuaded. We made it to the KL Planetarium, took advantage of their skywalk and crossed over into the park.
This was an epic park. I would say that it is a little smaller than Central Park in NYC, but it has a lot of bang for the buck. We walked past the world's largest free flying bird aviary, hit up the orchid garden, checked out the butterfly garden, caught the tram that took us around the bulk of the park, and generally just walked everywhere. There was no chance of seeing everything, so we just walked and took it all in. There were fashion photo shoots in the orchid gardens and the ampitheaters host concerts regularly.
We checked into the hotel and enjoyed our first hot showers and A/C in two weeks. Finally hunger drove us out of our chilled cocoon and we hit the town. When we had walked through in the morning, it seemed like there were a lot of food stalls lined up in our neighborhood. When we went out at dark, they were all up and running. Food stalls, sidewalk cafes, cham booths, fruit stands. It was yummy, yummy chaos. We cruised around, slightly overwhelmed, looking for grub. We had picked up fried shrimp cakes and a curried potato pie earlier, so we had the routine down. After walking for a few blocks Molly spotted a stand with a bunch of charcoal fires going. We headed over and found the famous Clay Pot Chicken Rice dude!
The owner was running 6-10 clay pots of different sizes at any given time over charcoal burners, adjusting the heat by levering the pots up and down and using a reciprocating house fan behind him. We sat with a nice lady and her daughter and they helped us order. When they left, another lady and her daughter sat down and ran us through proper table etiquette and explained about Chinese New Year and Malaysian Holidays. She suggested a number of different sites for us to check out and was even kind enough to take pictures of the meal and email them to us.
The next day we slept in and went out with the intention of finding the Petronus Towers. I hammered out 3 Harry Potter jokes and we were on our way. We hopped on The J.B.'s Monorail (funk joke) and headed to the towers. Now, the towers are huge. Immense. And unlike NYC where the rest of the skyline encroaches on the big boys, the Petronus Towers stand pretty much alone. I lost them. I admit it fully. I could not find my ass with both hands and a flashlight in KL. After our little misadventures Molly took over and found us the towers. They were awesome. I made a fool of myself and was the guy who laid down in the sidewalk to take the straight up shot.
We ran around the towers, shopped a little, and generally enjoyed ourselves. We hung out on the steps around the water feature and watched night roll in. Molly got some great shots of the light and water show.
We finally broke down, picked up our bags and headed back to the airport. This was our first Air Asia experience. So KLIA is a brand new, high tech airport. All the bargain carriers fly out of the old, run down airport. I was checking the departure board and they were slamming 20 flights an hour out of this thing. Anyhow, we show up and it is like a refugee camp. Everyone is laid out all over the floor with makeshift beds however they can do it. Not to be outdone, M and I staked out our little corner of heaven between two potted plants, broke out the sarongs and passed out. I praise my quick thinking in using my boots as a pillow.
All in all, KL got a 9.5/10. The ghetto airport was goofy, but we loved the city.
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