January 11, 2020
We hiked (today’s total) 13.1 km and up 8 floors in elevation hiking across Kuala Lumpur. We went to Chinatown and the Petaling Street Market. We looked at t-shirts, shoes and fabric; we bought nothing. Actually we got so hot that we did buy 2 soft ice cream cones and one Fanta slurpee at McDonalds for a total cost of 3 ringgit. The unbelievable total of 96 Canadian cents. We desperately needed a place to sit down and cool off and our McDonalds stop filled the need.
We walked from Chinatown in the general direction of Jalan Alor street food night market where we ate last night. We stopped at a bar on the street Changkat Bukit Bintang and had a drink of beer at the Loco Mexican Bar and Restaurant. Our lunch at Loco consisted of 2 glasses of ice water and one small beer each combined with an order of tortilla chips, salsa and guacamole to share. Once we got our energy back we wandered down the street and ended up at a massage place where we each had a one hour massage for less than $20 CAD each. We had a good deal and it went a long way to unknot our muscles. Our massages were generous on time we ended up with well over the full hour. They also do a one hour foot massage for the same price, or less. Foot massages may be next on our list. We wore flip flops the first day in KL but Gary soon developed raw spots on his tender feet. It’s been too long since we have worn sandals or flip flops. We’ll have to ease into it, so today we donned our running shoes. As hot as they are, they are are definitely safer and more comfortable. Just very hot.
We walked down the night food market street as vendors were setting up their tables. No rain today, or tonight. We looked at menus along the way and we were offered a large beer for 15 ringgit, the equivalent of $4.80 CAD (regular price 20 ringgit) The large beer was 660 ml equivalent to 2 regular sized beer. The beer was served in frosty glasses by our waitress! We visited with the waiter who was originally from Myanmar (formerly Burma). He has been in Malaysia for 20 years. His English was hard to understand, but he told us the waitress is from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She later told us she had one child and the papa was Malaysian. The F&B (food and beverage) industry is predominantly foreign workers. Actually Gary’s masseuse is from Bali. Her English was not that great either. She said Australia, England and Canada all good people. That much we could understand.
After our beer we walked around the market area and looked in some of the stores. Once again we found nothing that we wanted or needed.
Around 6 pm we headed back to Loco’s Mexican Bar for supper. We once again had ice water, beer and shared one order of fajitas. They were very good. Our waiter at Loco is from Bangladesh. He is a university student taking Business Administration. He has made enough money working here to pay for his tuition without taking money from his parents.
Our walk back to G Tower hotel took about 40 minutes. Rather than walking around the Petronas Towers we have learned to take the short cut through the Suria KLCC mall at the base of the towers. It is likely equivalent to a city block or two through the mall in air conditioned comfort. The mall covers 35 acres and has 6 floors/levels. We walked past stores like Dior, Louis Vuitton, Guess, Versace, Rolex, Kate Spade, Gucci, Prada, and Salvatore Ferragamo just to name a few. All places we have no desire to shop and not enough money for either.
Back at the hotel we showered off all the massage oil and did a bit of laundry in the bathroom sink. The bath mat is great to wring out the t-shirts etc!
Sounds great…still very cold here with warnings. Mark insisted on coming and putting a new battery he purchase at Costco for in my van. I told him Inwould take it to battery place but no way…He went to Martensville to buy a truck front cover from kijiji. Then I took him out for supper…you will have to try the new place ( to me) It was good…similar to spring roll …more veggies..Garners gothome👍❤️