A Weekend In Kuala Lumpur - Day One

Backdated: 10th July 2010

Theme park in Berjaya Times Square

We arrived in KL around 1pm after a grueling 5 hours on the road from Singapore. I say grueling... we were on a coach which had chairs the size of armchairs that vibrated.. so really it was complete luxury as far as coach trips are concerned! Literally the chairs were so big that, on a normal sized coach, they could only fit 3 in. 

Market stalls in Berjaya Times Square

So we got to KL and found our hostel with great ease, dumped our stuff and went out for a wander. Our hostel is right behind Berjaya Times Square, so that was our first port of call. We had a wander around the 10 storey mall, which seemed to get better as we got higher up. The lower 2 floors are well known shops and as you get higher it becomes more like market stalls but in shop spaces. Very nice though. Also it has a mini theme park inside! It has a rollercoaster and a twister type ride high above the shops. We are very surprised when we stumbled across it - having no idea it was there. 

Then we decided to hop onto the city's monorail (which I loved! cost the equivalent of 40p to go 5 stops) and head towards Bukit Nanas - the nearest stop to the KL tower. Having read in a KL guide thing that the entrace gates were a mere ten minute walk away we got off and thought that we would walk to the gate of the tower. We looked at a sign post, but it didn't say KL tower anywhere on it.. so we began to walk in the direction that we thought was most likely to be right. 20 minutes later after looking up and realising we were actually moving further away from the imposing tower, we got a 'teksi' and paid 4.80 ringits (about 1.20 GBP) to go right to the front door. When arriving we passed a pony trotting up the roadside towards the tower.. it turns out that there is a tower pony ride.. There is also a F1 driving experience, an animal zone containing about 15 snakes, a few spiders, some bright birds and a couple of racoons, a cultural garden where you can try samples of Malaysian treats, an extreme sports zipwire and a few dozen other fun touristy things to do. I could complain about the cost of it all but it makes it more than just a tower i suppose.

We went up to the tower, and even with the awful misty view we had it was still a very impressive sight to see the sheer size of KL and how far into the distance you could see. On the viewing deck we bought an 'I <3 KL' T-shirt for myself and some mountain dew for the both of us to try. I was very disappointed when i realised it was merely another brand of lemonade.. 

Me in KL Tower looking over the city

After a brief amount of time on the viewing deck (after all, once you've looked out there's little else to do!) we went down into the cultural garden to sample some yummy Malaysian tom yam crisps and beef curry thing (whatever it was it was lovely!). Just as we were about the head down to look at the houses and gamelan player, I noticed a Malaysian lady across the room calling me over, motioning a camera. I quickly skipped across the room, presuming she wanted me to take a picture of her and her family, and after all i love to be helpful! I got over there and the woman who had been calling me over passed the camera to her friend and put her arm around me to pose! They wanted their picture with the token white girl! Incidentally, I saw several white English and American males but few women.. odd. They were such a lovely family and handed us a business card with details of their address in Kuantan and told us if we were ever in the area to pop around to their place. So lovely. 

As we left the tower a thunder storm started (and has only recently stopped) with hugely impressive fork lightening. We walked back to the monorail and back to Berjaya Times Square where we grabbed some food in Wendy's and headed back to our temporary home!