Malaysia – Truly Asia

On a mildly sunny Saturday morning, 4.5 hrs after we started from Chennai, the team reached the surprisingly quiet KL International airport at 8:45 AM (6:15 AM IST). A few times I felt we guys were creating the only few noises in the airport. We quickly finished the immigration, picked up our bags and also took a tourist SIM card each and called home (5 Ringgits talk time on an 8 Ringgit activation card was not bad at all). Deciding to take the fastest mode to reach KL Sentral, where our hotel was located, we took the non-stop express and reached in 28 minutes flat burning 35 Ringgits apiece. At KL Sentral we learnt our biggest lesson of the trip. A suave Tamil speaking taxi-driver hoodwinked us into paying 10 Ringgits for a less than 0.5 km distance to the hotel. We remembered an old lesson “Don’t believe any Indian doing business abroad unless you know fully well what you are getting into”.

Hotel Florida is ideally located just 5 minutes by walk from KL Sentral. Being a predominantly Indian area there was no dearth of Indian food options. Food is very cheap in the vicinity with a sumptuous meal for us three costing only about 20 ringgits. We quickly swung into action and took the train to KLCC that very afternoon. KLCC is Kuala Lumpur convention center and is among the happening areas in the city. Petronas Towers, Aquaria KLCC and the KLCC Park are the main attractions. We got to know that PETRONAS issues about 1000 free visit passes everyday in the morning from 8:30 AM which meant that passes get over by 9 AMJ. After spending some time in the SURIYA Mall at the base of the twin towers we headed to the Aquarium. It was rather a mini-zoo. Lots of fishes plus tropical snakes, lizards and insects were on display. Admission is a flat 38 Ringgits per head but when I brandished my expired ISB student id they reduced my ticket fare to 25 ringgits. So when you go don’t forget to carry your old student id ;). Since it wasn’t even dark when we got out of the aquarium we decided to go to Chinatown. All shopping buffs don’t miss out Chinatown. There were stalls selling t-shirts, all kinds of counterfeit Rolex watches, Nike/Reebok shoes & T-shirts, decorative items, spare parts and many different eateries. I picked up a Chinese cool drink made of jowar (sorghum) and slowly developed a liking for it by the time I finished it up. Trying to apply some MBA style price-discovery and negotiation techniques I got booed by several Chinese shopkeepers. Anyhow our idea was not really to shop much on day one. Later in the evening we spent a good time at a rather expensive Hard Rock Café and decided to wind up at 11 ‘coz we were all sleepy due to lack of sleep the previous night.

Day two, we were in the PETRONAS visitors queue at 7:45 AM. Leaving L at the queue me and K went in search of a place to have breakfast. We discovered a place that served some dosas plus some other Malay food. I could not resist the temptation to open the folded plantain leaf, inside which was hiding some Malay breakfast. Inside was a ball of rice flavored with some dried chilly flakes in oil plus a small salted-sun-dried fish (Karuvadu). It was actually very tasty and soon enough K also finished one servingJ. After having been atop the Sears Tower, John F. Hancock and CN Tower going up only to the 41st floor of PETRONAS did not sound any bit thrilling. But the beauty here is walking on the sky-bridge that connects the 41st floor of either tower. An interesting trivia is that the towers were constructed by two different contractors. Looking at the Malaysian skyline from atop, I felt my first pang of jealousy at a country that came out of colonial rule 11 years after India. Soon enough we were in a local bus to Genting Highlands, an hour away from KL, the seat of Malaysia’s world famous theme park. From the base of the mountain we had to board a gondola of the Genting skyway. The 3.4 km skyway is claimed to be the longest in the world and in about 17 minutes we were up the 1000 m peak. In spite of reading up so much and planning so well, yours truly was wearing half trousers when we got down at the misty peak. Feeling quite cold we decided that we would spend the half a day or so let out in the indoor theme park. We should have taken around 10-15 rides. The ‘Flying Coaster’, which gives u a controlled experience of how it would feel if you were Superman doing aerial somersaults, was easily the best ride. It is a different story that L decided to sit out looking at the intensity of the experience and the pale faces that came out. The day ended very late that night but not before we discovered the Puduraya bus terminal and we dynamically decided that we were setting off to Melaka (Malacca) the next day.

After coaxing L to get up and wash first, we took the 3 hr bus from Puduraya to Melaka early on day four. We reached just before noon and decided to go around town first rather than finding a place to stay for the night. Melaka is a historic town, one that has changed hands so many times with everyone from the Persians, the French, the English and the Dutch having ruled over at different points in time. Before Singapore became what it is today Melaka was the trading center of the Bay of Bengal. Two museums and a view of Melaka from atop the newly inaugurated revolving tower we were at the famous Jonkers walk lined with nice little shops and resto-bars. Small town Melaka is a refreshingly cute city with beautifully decorated Trishaws to carry tourists around. It is so nice to walk around the town that after getting some rest we went around late in the evening picking up some satay and a Chinese version of Phad Thai for dinner. And yes we did some shopping at Jonkers walk.

Day four was literally wind-up-Malaysia day. We reached KL around afternoon and went straight to Chinatown. After finishing off some namesake shopping (L did get into a binge) we went again to KLCC but this time to the park. While L watched our bags we played in the water for sometime and then we all enjoyed the beautiful dancing fountains in the park (Please don’t imagine anything like the Bellagio fountains at LV, this was basic stuff). Things weren’t over. We came to know that our AirAsia.com flight flew out of a specially built airport called the Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT). But the superb thing was the airline operated special buses started from KL Sentral, a stone’s throw away. Getting into the bus at 4:45 AM to catch a 7:00 AM flight to Siem-Reap (Cambodia) was not really a pain after capping a brilliant four days in Malaysia.