Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia
February 07, 2014
I have had a quiet couple of days in KL since my last post, trying to save some funds and waiting for Dani to arrive on Wednesday night. Sure enough her flight came in fine albeit passport control and getting through customs seemed to take forever, but at last my little travel buddy is here with me now and we are both ready to crack on in search of new places and more adventure together.
The Wednesday night itself was a fairly chilled affair once we made it back from the Airport with a bit of cheap Indian food from around the corner and a few strong beers bought from the local alcoholics shop up the road.
Thursday was a little bit of Deja Vu for myself as I took Dani along to see the Batu caves which I have already been to a couple of months ago with Gary from California but it was a good little spin out together on the bus followed by the train back along to the center of the city to go and take a look at the Orchid Park next to the botanical gardens.
The good thing about the Orchid garden and botanical gardens is that both are free and they are also a great retreat away from the hustle and bustle of the metropolis that is KL city. The Orchid garden I have to say is a very beautiful and tranquil place. Anyone who knows me from Bellevue Park will know that I love my plants and flowers after my past couple of green fingered years there. My dad used to be a gardener before he retired and I guess at some point his passion for that must have rubbed off further down the line to me. I love all of nature really and find it both relaxing and exciting, I love the fact of how diverse this small beautiful planet of ours is and enjoy seeing anything new that I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing or experiencing before. The gardens are quite a size and we spent a good hour wandering round enjoying the myriad of colours and varieties on display before the heat of the Malaysian sun took its toll and we were well and truly out of drinkable liquids so headed off in search of refreshment and rest.
That rest took quite some time! We wandered through the Botanical gardens and park towards KL Sentral station to catch the monorail along to Bukit Bintang for some food and drinks and boy did that take some effort. It looks about a ten minute walk on the map but took about an hour in the baking sun as there are several crazy roads to try to navigate across and the station although modern and impressive is undergoing expansion work at present so we wandered aimlessly around a building site in search of the green monorail line to head along to where we wanted to be.
Bukit Bintang is the touristic spot I went to watch the match but it has some great cheap street food there as well as places to drink which are hard to come by in a predominantly Muslim country, it’s a decent enough place to hang out. We only spent a total of a fiver between us all day on a whole array of street food and fed up of the standard pints of Tiger and Carlsburg we went in search of a craft/real ale bar called Taps that’s not far from the main strip.
Taps was a great place to grab a drink in as well as some great live music. Their beer menu, in particular the bottle selection is awesome, but you do get the impression who ever owns the place has spent many a night in a Brewdog bar somewhere as it has a very similar feel. Still it’s been nice to have my first decent beers in over four months even though they were a little on the pricey side. The two lads providing the music were really good as well as comical, reminding me of a musical version of Cheech and Chong.
We popped along to Yut Kee, the oldest restaurant in KL that I went to before for some of Jackie’s famous Pork. Unfortunately this week Jackie has decided to cook his pork on Saturday and Sunday as opposed to the usual Friday and Saturday that he normally cooks it on. Still we stayed for some lunch which was good anyway before heading back towards the hostel and a good rummage around China town. It’s Chinese New Year and it was cool to see a Chinese Dragon dance in one of the shops on the way back home, not something you see every day I guess.
We have now sorted a couple of flights out to Bali in the morning so tonight will be packing up time again ready to head off to the beautiful Island and some much needed change of scenery away from the bustle of the city.
