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.