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| Petronas Towers. |
The plan to visit KL was quite a sudden one. We happened to pass through Kuala Lumpur enroute to Siem Reap, Cambodia. The swanky new KLIA2 looked pretty good and inviting. We also observed that Air Asia connects KLIA2 to many tier-2 cities in India at hideously low prices. We then looked for a good deal and grabbed it. It was supposed to be an extended weekend's trip at a barebones budget. I always wanted to visit the Petronas Towers, having read about them in school. Moreover, Malaysia introduced its eNTRI visa regime for Indians in 2017-18. So we decided to make the best of the situation.
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| Miniso, the Japanese fast fashion brand store in Jalan Petaling. |
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| The Murugan temple at Batu Caves |
We got a really good deal on a round trip fare from Trichy. Ramnath, Anitaa and Varun pitched in to join us as well. We headed to Trichy by a KSRTC bus on the night of 18th August. We reached Trichy by 5AM on 19th and caught a cab to the airport. The Trichy airport is strange. Save for one short flight to Chennai, it's completely international. Air Asia has some 5 flights to Kuala Lumpur per day. Our flight departed at 9:30AM and we reached KL by 4PM local time. We proceeded to KL Sentral by KLIA Ekspres non-stop train, touted to be the fastest train in SE Asia at 160 kph. We connected to KTM Kommuter and reached Batu Caves by 7PM, just as the sun was setting.
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| Street store in China Town |
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| KL Sentral station |
Batu Caves is a huge limestone formation, famous for its Murugan temple. It's prominently featured in several Indian movies and is a must-see in the city. We had dinner right outside and headed back to check into the hotel. We chose to stay in KL's famed China Town, in a street called Jalan Petaling. It's right next to several landmarks such as the Central Market and a stone's throw from KL Sentral station. This place is one huge street market by night, selling everything duplicate and original. It also has several department and fast fashion stores like 7-Eleven and Miniso. Varun went on to sleep while the rest of us wandered the roads till midnight. We had a second dinner in some Chinese street restaurant in the area.
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| Monorail |
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| Chinaware at Central Market |
The whole of 20th August was to be spent in the main highlights of the city, the Petronas Towers and KLCC. We did a quick tour of the Central Market in the morning, tasted durian for the first time, bought a few souvenirs such as the mandatory flag for my flag collection (and Srivani's mandatory hat for her hat collection) and proceeded to Sentral. We caught a monorail to a stop near KL Tower and walked the rest of the way. We had booked for a lunch at the revolving restaurant, Atmosphere 360 atop KL Tower. At 97 MYR for unlimited buffet lunch for 2 hours followed by unlimited time on the observation deck, it was a far better deal than spending 85 MYR to spend 15 minutes in Petronas Towers. Best of all, we can see Petronas Towers at eye level from the KL Tower, which happens to be the 7th tallest communications tower in the world. We reached there just on time for lunch, legging out the last 2 Km.
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| The monorail track. During the walk up to KL Tower. |
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| The amazing view from atop KL Tower. |
The food was sort of okay, with several options for the vegetarian palette. The views were exquisite. The restaurant did slightly over one full revolution by the time we finished lunch. Spending a little more time on the observation deck, we proceeded to KLCC Park by walk and metro. KLCC Park has an underground aquarium called KLCC Aquaria. It's got quite a good collection of fish, along with the glass tunnels and other stuff one would expect. It had no marine mammals, though, unlike Singapore's S.e.A Aquarium. It was smaller than the other such aquaria that I had visited elsewhere, but nevertheless engaging. We spent an hour or so roaming around the KLCC Suriya mall, waiting for the sun to set. We did a little shopping here and there, with me buying my first Swatch. KLCC Park has a lovely dancing fountain show after sunset. This looks beautiful especially in the backdrop of the well-lit Petronas Towers.
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| Petronas Towers by night |
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| Seahorse at KLCC Aquaria |
We went back to our hotel after the show and had dinner in yet another street restaurant on Jalan Petaling. After some photography and window shopping we went to bed. It was one well packed day. We had two options for the first half of 21 Oct. Either the Sepang F1 circuit tour or the KL Bird Park. We understood that despite being right opposite to KLIA, the Sepang circuit is notoriously hard to reach by public transport in the off-season days. So we decided to go to the bird park. This is the world's largest free-flight walk-in aviary. It's filled with peafowl, egrets, ibises and painted storks flying around everywhere. There's a parrot section, water bird section and nocturnal area. This place took around half the day and we barely managed to reach the airport on time. We had our return flight at 3:30 PM that day.
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| An owl at KL Bird Park |
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| The street that hosted us for 2 days. Jalan Petaling |
Air Asia is not exactly a delight to fly, but they do take you for 3000 INR flat! So it was kind of worth it. We reached Trichy by 5PM IST and then caught a bus home from the central bus stand. It was a well spent weekend and yet another item ticked off the bucket list.
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| Turkish lamps at Central Market |
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