Malaysia – Page 4 – saskatoonie.com

April 24, 2021April 24, 2021

March 15, 2020 Pandemic

We spend our last 2 days in Kuala Lumpur

By now the government of Canada has requested all citizens to return to Canada. Also, by now we have had several flight changes and cancellations. Our original flights home through Hong Kong were cancelled while we were in Coron Philippines. We were rerouted through Japan. We make new arrangements to fly home on March 17 instead of March 19 due to the growing concern over the pandemic. Our toll free number for Air Canada no longer works, we found a new number for Air Canada on social media. After finally contacting Air Canada we had to wait for a callback from them. They did call within one hour. Air Canada had to phone us back to confirm pricing on seats. It cost us $250 extra to get home. We then booked our seats with ANA (a Japanese Airline) via phone. ANA is wonderful to deal with. ANA could teach Air Canada a few things on customer service.

The Chinese returned after WW2 to find the tin mines flooded where they originally worked. Yap Ah Loy, an influential Chinese figure back then, had opened a tapioca mill on Petaling Street in an attempt to allow the Chinese to stay employed. To this day, Petaling Street is sometimes called ‘Chee Cheong Kai’, meaning ‘Starch Factory Street’ in Cantonese, referring to its history as the centre for the production of tapioca flour back then.

We left home January 7, and returned 2 days ahead of schedule on March 17. We were in 5 countries, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines and our return flight transferred through Japan. We flew on 12 flights and 2 ferries. This whole time covid-19 was spreading around the world. We were checked and double checked for fever or contact tracing. We arrived in Canada without even a question on our health status. Canada dropped the ball on covid-19 prevention right from the start. One year later we get our first vaccine shot March 20, 2021.

April 24, 2021April 24, 2021

March 2, 2020 Malaysia

We landed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport around noon. It was very strange retrieving our luggage from an empty carousel. The pandemic was off to a good start. Luckily there were lots of preventative measures like temperature recording and contact tracing. SE Asia was ahead of Canada in all respects to preventing the transmission of Covid-19. Two days after leaving the Philippines they completely shut down all travel both domestic and international. All ferries and air travel was cancelled. WOW, we dodged a bullet. We were happy to be in Malaysia again!

We enjoyed our Grab ride from KLIA to Malacca. Originally we planned to take a cheaper method of transportation but we were afraid of contracting Covid-19 on a public bus.

The red buildings in then historic tourist area of Melaka are iconic.

Our allotted time was up in historic Melaka. We stayed at the Ramada Plaza Melaka which was absolutely fantastic! The staff were great, the food was over the top! It was the beginning of our crave for Malaysian food.

March 15 we took a Grab car back to Kuala Lumpur. It was sad leaving Malacca (Melaka), but exciting to be back in KL. We stayed for the last time at the G Tower Hotel.

KUALA LUMPUR, April 29 — G City Club Hotel Sdn Bhd, which manages a 180-room hotel under the trade name of GTower Hotel, is shutting down its hotel operations, after a decade in the business, due to a drop in occupancy rates. Thanks Covid-19. They employed 79 people.

April 23, 2021April 23, 2021

February 29, 2020

Leaving Malaysia for the Philippines

February 29, 2020 we flew from Georgetown, Penang Malaysia to Kuala Lumpur. We stayed at Rumah Putih Bed and Breakfast (Click Here) which was close to the airport. The next morning, March 1, we flew to Cebu Philippines. We spent the evening at our favourite high end Cebu restaurant Scape Skydeck. While walking back to our hotel we enjoyed the smells of sidewalk local food stalls with bbq chicken, satay and all kinds of things we couldn’t identify. Great smells none the less. The next morning, March 2, 2020 we boarded a flight from Cebu to Busuanga Philippines which is the home to Coron town. We checked into Pirates Diving Resort, Coron. This was our second stay here in as many years. In fact we are officially the resorts first retuning guests, 2 years in a row.

April 23, 2021April 23, 2021

February 26 2020 more Penang

Georgetown Penang almost pandemic

We spent the first half of our time in Georgetown staying at Coffee Atelier. It was excellent. We spent the second half of our time in Georgetown at the Hotel Penaga. We enjoyed both places very much. The Panaga had a swimming pool. Also, it was located in a different neighbourhood, this allowed us to walk to different places and explore. Linda purchased some Batik material from a vendor in the Komtar building. The stores name was Sri Batik Sri Batik click here We sent it home by Malaysian Post to use in Linda’s quilting projects.

We left Georgetown Feb 29 to spend one night at Rumah Putih a beautiful bed and breakfast at Kota Warisan in the Seleangor area not far from the Kuala Lumpur airport.

February 25, 2020February 25, 2021

George Town, Penang Island, Malaysia.

February 24

How time flies. Our last post was Feb 11, now its Feb 24. We spent 2 weeks on Adang Resort. We’ll blame the missing blog posts on relaxation and island internet. Their internet is slower than rural Saskatchewan turtle net.

Feb 23 we checked out of Adang Resort. We took the long tail boat across to Koh Lipe managing to get only partly wet from the heavy waves. We landed on Sunset Beach and the boatmen from the resort carried our suitcases up the 200 metres of sidewalk to the road where the tuk tuk was waiting for us. We gave them a tip and we were on our way in a flash. We arrived at the ferry port at 9 am. We were passengers 112 and 113 to register. About half of the total. Our boat was to leave at 10:30 am, by the time we pissed around loading luggage onto long tail boats, and getting everyone moved out to the ferry by long tail boat it was well after 11 am. After we sat in the ferry for quite some time we started on our rough voyage. It was after 11:30 am. It was rough with 2 metre seas. Weren’t we the lucky ones to be sitting in the squishy seats up in the bow. The triangle shaped bow didn’t allow either of us to sit up straight. We both ended up with sore necks from the trip. It took 1 hour and 15 minutes to get to Telaga Harbour in Langkawi. Probably another half hour to get the luggage off and for all the passengers to disembark. Remember we were at the front of the boat. We were almost last to get off.

We walked up a gang plank and as we entered the building, having our forms and passports inspected we also had our temperature taken by the customs officer. We were hot, but not feverish. Gary had a fever about a week before after we were in Koh Lipe and ate something that gave him food poisoning. By the time we got to the exit of the tiny customs inspection building we were well over an hour on the shore.

Some guy was arranging taxis, and we were told 30 Ringit for 2 to get to the airport. It was a fairly long journey, at least longer than we were expecting. When we arrived we got unloaded and Gary paid with a 50 Ringit bill. The guy was going to keep the change. Gary had an OMG moment and a few words were spoken. Finally the driver (not Gary) agreed on 40 Ringit. Gary, the patient guy that he is just walked away and cursed under his breath. After we got into the airport, had lunch, got checked in and consumed a cafe mocha, we talked about the taxi rip-off. Gary phoned the taxi company and reported it. The guy took the information, including the taxi number which Gary had photographed inside the car. The taxi company a few minutes later called back and said the taxi driver operating that taxi was never at the Telaga Harbour. Gary said, really? I have a picture of his taxi number on the plaque from inside the car. The taxi official was speechless. Gary said, guess what, he could SMS message a picture to prove this event happened. That’s exactly what happened. Later, a few messages from the taxi company by SMS. They were going to look into the situation and take action . Thank you!

Our flight was likely one of the shortest flights we’ve ever taken. Basically we got up to cruising altitude, Gary was the only passenger to have time to run to the washroom and the seatbelt sign was back on for us to descend and land! We caught a Grab from the airport to our hotel where we were greeted with an ice cold beer! Best welcome drink of the trip so far!! By the time we got settled we ended up having a very late supper at a nearby Indian restaurant. The food was ok but no where near as good as our favourite Indian restaurant, The Bombay, in Koh Lipe.

We are staying at the Coffee Atelier hotel in historic George Town. The main floor used to be shops and the upstairs was residences. It has been restored with rooms on the main level and upstairs. Ours is upstairs – it is up a narrow steep flight of stairs and has skinny high double doors. The bed is amazing and the best bed on the entire trip. It’s a four poster bed with a mosquito net. The net is great as there are a few mosquitos around. We had the best sleep in ages as the a/c and bed were all good! Breakfast is included and is very nice. Fresh squeezed orange juice, americano coffee, cereal, yogurt, bacon and eggs if you wanted, a fruit bowl and basket of bread. A great start for the day.

We got ourselves organized and headed out to check out a fabric store that we saw last night. From there we walked to the post office to get rates to ship fabric home if we could find a good deal. A wonderful woman at the tailor shop across from the post office told us of a good fabric store for batiks that was at a nearby mall. We ended up catching a Grab and checking it out. Linda has yet to find some batik that is priced reasonably enough to warrant the additional shipping costs. We’ll keep our eyes open but don’t think we’ll find anything. From there we wandered around looking at all the street art in the area.

We had another fresh orange juice and a bowl of fruit at one of the street restaurants and then had a passion fruit soft ice cream. We also encountered another quick change artist, the guy short changed Gary with his change from the ice cream order. Its 33º, in the hot sun, Gary is counting his change looking confused, then “hey, hey, MONEY”. Gary holds up his short changed cash and says “more money”. Problem solved. We were so hot by then that we walked back to the hotel and cranked on the air. It was time to cool down. After a bit Gary walked down to the 7-11 not far from our hotel and picked up some beer. A few beer and a few hours later we headed out for supper at Holy Guacamole a little Mexican restaurant only a few blocks from the hotel. The food was good but quite a bit pricer then last nights meal. We shared nachos and guacamole and an order of chicken fajitas along with 2 beer each. Total bill was around $37 CDN.

On our stroll back to the hotel we stopped at a massage place. Linda had a 30 minute neck and shoulder massage as her neck is still so sore from the boat she could hardly turn her head all day. Gary had a 30 minute foot massage. Both were great. Then it was back to the hotel to shower and cool off before calling it a night.

January 16, 2020January 16, 2020

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Krabi, Thailand

January 14, 15 & 16

January 14 we travelled from Kuala Lumpur Malaysia to Krabi Thailand. We checked out and called for a Grab about 9:30 am. We arrived at the airport well 10:30 am. It’s a good 40 minute ride depending on traffic. We had relatively good traffic conditions and we were heading out of downtown which helped. Our driver held the speed at 120 km/h on the110 km/h posted highway. The amount of construction of new highways and sky scrapers is unbelievable. The picture at the top of this post shows some of the overpass construction we passed.

AirAsia has self check in counters like everyone else. Of course Linda’s boarding pass didn’t print. We had an AirAsia rep help us out. Our bags were tagged and we dropped them off at the belt.

We proceeded to our gate K14 which was nowhere nearby. We went through one set of security scanners which seemed a bit lax. We then went through passport control, which was quick. A long ways down the terminal we finally hit the final security check point. We had to drink our water and once again get ready to open up every thing. It usually helps if Gary takes his wallet and wrist watch and puts them in his carry on bag. They both set off scanners. We both walked through with no glitches. We got to our gate so early we could have gone to Manila which was just starting to board. We had a drink and sat and read for 2 hours. Better being early than late. As we found out later the couple sitting beside us missed their flight earlier. The inconvenience and cost of doing that far outweighs the the time we spent reading and waiting.

When we arrived at Krabi we had to pass through customs before picking up our luggage. The passport control there is thorough to say the least. Since we had applied and received Visas in advance we got the fast track line. Thailand not only takes your picture but they also scan all your finger and thumb prints. This is getting more widespread. Malaysia only does your pointer finger on each hand same as Hong Kong.

We had pre arranged a shuttle through Krabi Shuttle and we were upgraded to a Toyota 4 runner for our ride. That was considered the Luxury SUV, we had paid for a Camry style vehicle. We liked the ride and thought our chances would be better in a crash, considering the way they drive here.

We checked into our hotel and went for a walk. We hit a place nearby and had a beer and fries. We came back to the hotel for a quick rest and then went out to find a place for supper. We missed happy hour which increased the cost of beer by nearly double. A large Leo beer went from 65 to 120 baht, about $5.15 CAD. Keep in mind a large is 2 beer in one bottle that we share. We shared an order of stir fried chicken with cashew nuts and a steamed rice. It was good. We got back to the hotel and went to bed.

Jan 15 we were up early and down for breakfast by about 7:30 am. It is a huge spread of everything you could imagine. Gary ate watermelon until he sloshed. There was dragon fruit, pineapple, guava and salads, tomatoes, breads and hot foods as well as the omelette bar where you could order eggs any way you liked

Coffee, espresso, tea and 3 juice selections. Later in the morning we went to the pool for the day. They have lounge chairs with padded mattresses and pillows under umbrellas that kept us comfortable. We alternated from sweating and reading to swimming and repeat. That evening we made sure we got to happy hour on time. We tried an Indian place and it was excellent. Not only do they have Indian but also Thai and Western dishes so lots to choose from.

The next day we repeated breakfast and pool till about 3 pm. We showered off and went for a walk to look around town. We are staying on Aonang beach (pronounced ow-nahng). We are on the North side of the big rock or cliff that separates the two sides of town. You have to walk inland of the big rock/cliff to get to the south. Today we took the 15 minute walk south to see what was there. It appears the beach is way nicer on the south side. We will find out more tomorrow when we have a boat trip to Railay Beach, a cave and some other beaches. About 6 hours total costing us 2200 baht for the two of us on a private tour. Including the national park fees of 400 baht each, our cost for the day is $130 CAD.

We are very sorry to hear about all the terrible cold weather at home. Hope everyone is surviving ok. This is what we are so thankful to be missing at home in Saskatoon.

January 13, 2020January 13, 2020

KLCC Park & Aquarium

January 13, 2020

We enjoyed breakfast at our hotel again this morning. The platter of fruit this morning had some different varieties and while it was good it has been better on other days. We basically have our fill of watermelon, pineapple, melon, dragon fruit and whatever else they decide to put out. There is cereal, lots of pastries, an omelet station and a number of hot dishes available. We’ve never left hungry!

After breakfast we made a couple of calls home and then headed out. We walked to the Kuala Lumpur convention centre that is just past the Petronas Towers and is on the other side of the KLCC gardens. The Aquaria KLCC is located beneath the convention centre. We spent a couple of hours looking at the various exhibits and tanks. The coolest part was the tunnel where you walk thru and watch the manta rays, sting rays, sharks, fish and turtles swim over and around you. The fish are actually 30% larger than they appear, which means some of them are huge! For both of us, that was the best part of the Aquarium. The fish are actually 30% larger than they appear, which means some of them are huge! There was also a column in the one area that had a number of fish that are found in the fresh water lake Kenyir that Malaysia created for electricity generation.

From the Aquaria we headed back through the convention centre to the KLCC gardens. We walked around for a bit and got some more photos of the Petronas towers and gardens. While wandering around we met a couple from Switzerland who have taken a year off from their jobs and are travelling. We chatted with them for a bit. It’s always interesting the people you meet along your travels. After we thought we could maybe get back to hotel from the one end of the park. After hiking all the way down there we decided that with all the construction and barriers we’d never find a way through so had to walk all the way back and head back our normal route. The construction here is unreal. There was lots last year but I think there is even more this year! There are cranes everywhere and buildings going up, new overpasses and detours and barricades everywhere!

We finally made it back to the hotel. We’d picked up some beer at the 7-11 on our walk back so we enjoyed that in our room and relaxed and cooled off. For supper we hiked down to the night market food area again and enjoyed supper there. We couldn’t get a Grab to get there as it was peak rush hour so we caught one back to the hotel after as we’d both had enough walking for the day. Today we managed 10.8 km of walking.

We are organizing our stuff and packing up as we head to Krabi, Thailand tomorrow!

January 12, 2020January 12, 2020

Little India

January 12, 2020

We have been going hard lately, so today we were slow moving out of our hotel. After breakfast and talking to grandkids, we booked our airport transfer to our hotel in Krabi (Ao Nang Beach area). We headed to the hotel lobby and ordered a Grab to Little India. Little India was as hot as the BIG India in the heat of summer. We looked in shops and sampled some sweets that vendors were selling. We saw lots of cut flowers in one area of the market. Women making “Mala” garlands. Down one side of the street and crossing an overpass to get to the other side we walked back to where we started. Like I said, it was uncomfortably warm and humid with full sunshine today. We slipped into The Gem Restaurant, a very nice Indian restaurant. We each ordered ice water, a mango lasi and one order of onion padoka to share. Padoka or pakora, not sure what the difference is, but it tasted great. If it wasn’t such a long distance from our hotel it would be a great place to go for supper. We still might do that when we return here in March on the way back to Saskaroon. We are still unsure but plan to spend a week in KL before heading home March 19. Planning is underway.

Once we left the Indian Restaurant we walked to the Royal Museum. It took about 40 minutes to walk to the Museum. A pedestrian overpass took us across a narrow river and wide highway. Then up some stone steps into a path through the jungle. It was a bit of a jungle trek. Thank god we didn’t run into any monkeys. Linda’s scared 💩- less of the little beasts and Gary isn’t a fan either after a couple run ins last year. I wasn’t kidding when I said jungle walk. We came out of the jungle on a little back street in a residential area and it opened onto a large parking lot where the locals were enjoying street food and merchandise for sale. It was almost like a small flea market. Once we passed the crowd we turned up a lane towards the palace. Unfortunately we came up to the palace from the back side. The freeway was along the front side. We virtually walked around the whole museum to get to the entrance. The tickets were only 10 ringgits each for foreigners. Up the driveway about 800 metres we came to the building entrance. We showed our tickets and had to remove our shoes. Bare feet on the beautiful marble and tile floors felt good. There was also some carpet in the building upstairs. Unfortunately, they do not permit pictures in the museum. That was disappointing.

We got back to the hotel in a Grab then spent some time by the infinity outdoor pool on the 11th floor of our hotel.

Walking around Kuala Lumpur is fairly quick, many locations are 1 to 5 km from our hotel. There are many high rise buildings with residential housing. We started wondering what is the area of KL city. Turns out google says 93.8 square miles with a population of 1.73 million (greater Kuala Lumpur 7.25 million). Compare that to Saskatoon, 88.1 square miles with a population of 273,000. (greater Saskatoon area 325,000). We can walk most places here in an hour or less. Little India is quite a bit farther from our hotel, about 6 km which would have taken 90 minutes to walk. We took the Grab for 13 ringgit, $4.20 CAD. The economical price for Grab is likely influenced by cheap gas here, approximately 76 cents CAD. Gas in KL is about 25% less than Costco’s price for gas in Saskatoon.

Tonight we ate supper across the street at the Indian restaurant Spice Garden. Tikka chicken, vegetable kabobs and garlic naan. We’re ready for bed by 9pm here which is only 7am at home when most people are getting up. We are pretty much accustomed to the time zone here after 4 or 5 days. Tomorrow, Monday Jan 13, will be our last full day in Kuala Lumpur.

January 11, 2020January 12, 2020

Chinatown Kuala Lumpur

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!

January 10, 2020January 11, 2020

Kuala Lumpur

We Arrived!

Yawn, 3 am and it was time to get up as we planned to leave for the airport around 4:30 am. Our flight departed Saskatoon on time at 7:10 am. Upon arrival in Vancouver two hours later we were disappointed to learn our flight to Hong Kong was delayed one and a half hours. We only had one hour and 55 minutes to make our connection in Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur. Definitely not looking good. By the time we left Vancouver we were 2 hours behind schedule. We actually landed 3 minutes after our scheduled connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur had departed. We got off the plane around 8:30 and were greeted by several agents waving signs above their heads showing passenger names. Probable half of the flight missed connecting flights to places like New Delhi, Singapore and Bangkok. We got ushered off to Cathay Pacific’s transfer desk by our respective agent. We had the option of leaving our bags checked or taking them to our designated hotel – the rep strongly recommended leaving them checked. We decided to leave our bags checked to simplify check in that was less than 12 hours later. We eventually got booked into the Marriott near the Hong Kong airport. We had a nice room with a king bed. The foods voucher was worthless, the options being spaghetti with tomato sauce or vegetable fried rice. The rice was dry, salty and very low on vegetables. Nonetheless, it was something to get us through the short night.

We took the 6am shuttle back to the airport. Passport control and security screening was busy. Gary had to empty his carryon because of medication. We had breezed through security in Saskatoon over 24 hours earlier. Not in Hong Kong. Once past security we immediately found a fast food place for a quick breakfast, then off to our gate. We got reacquainted with some of fellow travellers from the Vancouver flight. One guy in particular, from Preeceville, is a chef at a family owned Indian Restaurant. He, unfortunately had not booked all of his flights on the same ticket through Air Canada and ended up staying in the terminal overnight.

Our flight to Kuala Lumpur took off and within a few minutes into the flight we needed blankets to keep warm. The flight was otherwise great, taking about 4 hours. The airport was a mob scene at immigration, we waited almost an hour to get through. When we got to the luggage carousel all the bags were up and we found Gary’s quickly. After waiting on Linda’s bag for quite some time, in near panic, we went looking for it. It had mysteriously been set near the lost and found. Breathing a sigh of relief we headed to the exit in search of an ATM and SIM cards for the phones. We bough Digi Sim cards. They work but the internet is SLOW.

We checked in to the G Tower hotel we thought one day late. In reality if we had arrived when we should have, we would not have had a room. With the confusion of international date line and time changes it turns out we actually didn’t have a room booked for January 8 which we would have needed to check in at 3 am January 9. If things went according to schedule, we would have been screwed! We would have arrived at the hotel at 3 or 4 am with no room. We dodged a bullet there! Thank You Air Canada, you provided us a flight and room and board!

After we `unpacked we rested a bit. Shortly after 5 pm we headed out and ordered a Grab (like Uber). The Grab app initially showed a 10 minute wait, then 6 and eventually a 10 minute wait. After 20 minutes we cancelled our ride and walked across the street to the “Spicy Garden” Indian restaurant. Beers, pakora, tikka masala chicken and naan bread. We could barely finish. It was great. Sitting outside in the humid heat was beneficial for our dry flaky skin. By the time we returned to or room our skin felt totally different. In a good way. Soft and moist.

January 10, our first full day touring in Kuala Lumpur. We walked around the Petronas twin towers and through the mall at the base of the towers.

Out behind the towers is the beautiful KLCC Park. We wandered around the gardens, pool and fountain in the park. We walked to the Banyan Tree Hotel and took an elevated walkway to the Pavilion Mall. From there we walked to a pharmacy to get some bandaids. Gary’s feel are getting raw from his flip flops. Our feet, and the rest of us, are not acclimatized to the +32 º weather yet. We ate lunch at Lot 10 which is a huge indoor food court in the basement of a building. It is all Chinese, Malay and other are ethnic food. We shared a sweet and sour chicken with pineapple and rice for 11.30 MYR (Malaysian Ringgit) equalling about $3.61CAD. Our lime and sour plum drinks, a local favourite totalled 9.10 ringgit equalling $2.91 CAD. We didn’t drink beer because of the cost, one bottle of beer was 17 ringgit or $5.45 CAD.

Traffic was terrible so when it came time to get a Grab (Asian Uber) we walked to the Westin hotel to designate our pickup spot. It took at least 10 minutes for the Uber to arrive and when he did he actually dropped off people at the Westin, then we got in. Our ride to G Tower took at least 15 minutes. Friday afternoon is Muslim prayer time, and I guess every Muslim was heading for the Mosque. Grid lock again.

After a cool down in the hotel room, we made a trip to Jalan Alor night food court. The Grab wait time wasn’t too bad tonight!! It had rained a bit while we were in the hotel room and after we got seated at a Thai restaurant food stall there was some thunder and a cloud burst. It eventually cleared up and turned out to be a nice evening. After sharing a Thai cashew chicken dish with beer, we walked around and eventually got sucked in to by ice cream vendor where we shared a small ice cream. We walked by all the foot massage places on the next street until we came down to part of the street lined with bars and restaurants. We stopped at the Brix Union Gastreo Pub where we each enjoyed a glass of beer as we people watched. After our beer we walked back to our hotel which was about 3 km. Along the way we stopped at the Petronas Towers and went through to the KLCC Park where we sat and watched the pool jet light show that was timed with music. There were hundreds of people surrounding the large pool. We weren’t at the hotel long before we crashed for the night.

Supper tonight was 67 ringgit total for rice, cashew chicken and 2 beer each. Total meal $21.45 CAD. Ice cream was 10 ringgit, $3.20 CAD. More beer at the pub, 34.80 ringgit, $11.13 CAD. Grand total, $35.78. It felt like we spent too much and ate too much, so we walked home and saved the $4.50 the Grab ride back to the hotel would have cost. All together we walked 12 km today. Economical food, drink and taxi fares with excellent weather. We love Malaysia.

Signs along the streets of Kuala Lumpur say: Selamat Datang 2020, which means welcome 2020. There are Christmas decorations and Chinese lanterns along the streets. After all Chinese New Year is coming January 25. There are Mosques everywhere that have call to prayer. The locals wear lots of clothing, Muslim women wear head scarves, even a few wear Burkas, Maybe they are tourists from Arab countries, not really sure. All that clothing in such humid heat well over 30º. Meanwhile we are wearing shorts, t-shirts and dripping sweat. Still loving it!