Here’s what we did in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia!
Monkeys at Batu Caves
Travel Dates: 6-7 December, 2013
2 full days – It was a perfect amount of time. We arrived at 2045 on the night of the 5th and our plane left at 0210 in the morning on the 8th.
Airline: JetStar from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, $62/person via JetStar
China Eastern Airlines from Kuala Lumpur to Okinawa, $306/person via Expedia (1 layover in Shanghai)
Layover in Shanghai was very bad. The plane landed about 1 hour outside of Shanghai due to smog in the city. They didn’t tell us what was going on. The locals on the plane just said still and didn’t question it. The few Americans were trying to find out what we were doing. Some locals translated for us that there was heavy smog and it’s common. We were waiting on the runway at this other airport for almost 5 hours. They wouldn’t let us off the plane. I asked if I could get on a different flight to Tokyo so I could at least try to get to Okinawa that day and they said no. All of a sudden they said we were going to fly to a different airport in Shanghai, but they said that we’d have to find our own way to the right airport for our connection (maybe they just translated this wrong…because it seems they would have helped us, but maybe not). Then as we were taking off they said never mind, we’re going to the main airport. They told us to tell airport staff that we were late for our connection (we had about 10 minutes until boarding). No one seemed to care. The staff at the plane exit didn’t acknowledge us. We ran and finally a security guard asked why I was running and brought us to the front of the immigration line. We made it just in time to board.
Visa: Not required as of our travel dates. Check before you travel in case there were any changes to the policy.
Exchanging Money: At the airport.
Hotel: Le Meridien, 4 star, $101/night ($303.21 total for 3 nights) via Expedia
Beautiful hotel. Connected with a Hilton (same building split in half). Free wifi in lobby. Good location, right across from the main metro station.
Transportation: Metro around the city. From the airport you can take the KLIA Express (30 minutes, 35 MYR/person, one way) or KLIA Transit (45 minutes, 12.50 MYR/person, one way). Check online for updated prices/schedule.
Itinerary: We must have been tired from the long trip and didn’t take as good of notes as to which day we did what, but here are the places we visited.
Batu Caves – Very cool. Take the Metro there. Be careful of the wild monkeys! They will jump on you if you have any food or flowers. We saw them clawing at babies and adults. They were mean monkeys! The blogs say it’s a “climb” to the Batu Caves, but it’s really not that far up, it’s a large staircase.
Petronus Twin Towers – We didn’t go up them because you only go up to the bridge. It was fun to see from the outside. They’re in many movies, so you’ll recognize them. We read to go up an adjacent building to look out at them.
The National Museum – Just a short walk across the street. Not too exciting but nice to learn about the history of the country.
Police Museum – It was near the hotel, just past the National Museum. My husband really enjoyed the gun collection. Clean, free, small, nice staff. It was next to a planetarium (we didn’t go in to the planetarium).
China Town – Typical street market, street food, and knock-off goods. (After being in Thailand, we didn’t have much motivation to explore China Town here.)