Today we fly from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. Our flight leaves Changi Airport at 12:10 and on the way here the train only took 30 minutes or so, so we left about 2 hours before the flight.
This was a bit of a mistake because we need to check in an hour before, then drop off our baggage and be at the gate about 20 minutes before. That means we only left 1 hour to carry our bags from the hotel to the train station, catch the train towards Changi, change trains, get off at Changi and taking the skybus to our terminal, then getting through the lines - not enough time.
Luckily I had a Singaporean data plan on my phone so I was able to check us all in from the Air Asia app while we were on our way, but this doesn’t actually let us board the plan, it gives you a 2D barcode that you can scan from a machine at the airport.
As we need to scan that barcode an hour before our flight departs, we were rushing through the airport quite quickly. When we finally got to our terminal, we managed to find the check-in machine with about 5 minutes to spare and it gave us reciepts. With those reciepts we got in line to drop off our baggage and then we proceeded through customs.
I hate cutting things like this so fine, we definitely needed to leave earlier, and probably should have just taken a taxi from our hotel, but we got there in the end.
We had to be at our gate 20 minutes before the flight, but Anthony wanted to try get the tax back on some of the purchases from Singapore, like our wide-angle lenses. We eventually found the place, but at this stage it was 40 minutes before our flight left, and the signs said it took about 10 minutes to walk to the gate. This left a window of 10 minutes for the tax refund queue. Anthony and Amy queued up and I started making my way to the gate so if anything happened, I could just call them, but once I realized how far it was, I called them straight away and they missed out on tax refunds again.
Better that than miss the plane - that would cost more!
We finally boarded our flight and by the time we reached cruising altitude it basically time to start the decent into KL. The flight took about 45 minutes! Once we got to LCCT (Low Cost Carrier Terminal), we picked up our bags and headed for the bus terminal. Amazingly with my bad memory I was still able to remember where we had to go. The bus ride goes from LCCT to KL Sentral - a big shopping center and transportation hub. The bus ride took longer than the flight! We all fell asleep at one point or another. We got some lunch here and bought a prepaid taxi fair to get to our hotel.
Malaysia is probably the closest thing to a third-world country Anthony and Amy had seen (although I’m fairly certain KL is not considered third world), and watching their reactions from the traffic conditions and the negligence for road rules was pretty funny. I think I’ve heard Amy tell me that she’s going to die quite a few times since we arrived.
We got to our hotel, paid and checked in. The concierge asked us if we wanted smoking or non-smoking and because we requested non-smoking, they upgraded our room to the premium suite on the 24th floor! The same thing happened to me last time I was in KL too!
Our premium suite is amazing! It is the size of a house with a large lounge room, two big bedrooms each with their own bathrooms, a full size kitchen and 2 balconies! It is at least double the size of the last hotel.
After taking some photos, we went down stairs to level 22 where there is a bar, the restaurant where we have breakfast and 3 pools! One is a little kids pool, then there is the normal pool which is quite large, then off to the side there is a little private pool which is almost like a spa, but not quite.
Amy and I went for a swim and the water was not heated (again), but it didn’t take long to adjust. It was really nice!
After we came up, showered and got changed, we headed out to KLCC to meet Sarma for dinner. As Sarma lives here, he was able to use the public transport system pretty efficiently, so we took a train and then a monorail and walked through Bukit Bintang. My foot was really sore today, so I spent all night limping and pushing through the pain which was probably not a good thing.
We went through Low Yat Plaza to take a look at some electronics. Unfortunately as we were walking out of the lift, Amy’s UV filter fell off her camera and dropped straight down the gap, luckily we were in the perfect place to get a replacement, so that was first stop.
Our hotel is very fancy and has a few differences from the last one, one negative difference is that our room doesn’t have wifi, there is a LAN cable instead, so being typical nerds, we thought we would see just how cheap we could get a wireless router so we could all use the net at the same time. After going to a few places, the cheapest we came across was 45 Ringgits, which is about $15 Aussie Dollars - so we bought it :)
On the advice of our concierge and my experience from last time, we wanted to go to Jalan Alor for dinner, which was about a 10 minute walk from Low Yat, but my foot was hurting so much, I suggested a taxi. The taxi cost about 15 Ringgit, which according to the going prices is expensive, but it was only $5 Australian, which I was happy to pay to save the walking.
After dinner we used the public transport to get us back to the hotel, looked up some tours for the best way to spend our time in KL and went to bed. I think our first day in KL was pretty good.