Time to leave Kuala Lumpur
Our reservation for our current accommodations here at the Swiss Garden Hotel ends October 27. With that in mind, this morning we spent some time checking out flights again and ended up booking one way tickets to Labuan Island, a Federal Territory in Eastern Malaysia just off of Borneo Island. There weren’t a lot of flight choices available so we have a 6:50 am flight which means a very early morning for us on the 27th as we have an hour ride to the airport! One of the accommodations we’d look at the night before was fully booked this morning so we ended up finding another hotel.
Once we were finished booking things, we walked to the River of Life where the Klang and Gombak rivers converge. The Masjid Jamek Sultan Abdul Samad Mosque is located between where the rivers join.
There were several buildings with street art along the riverbank and walkways over the river in several spots. The one walkway crosses over the river and brings you out on one side of Merdeka Square. Merdaka Square is a historical site where Malaysia declared its independence.
The Union Flag was lowered and the Malayan flag was raised for the very first time on midnight of August 31, 1957. The flagpole that holds the Malaysia flag is the highest in the world, at a height of 100 meters. Independence Square is situated in front of the Sultan Abdul Samad Building. It was formerly known as the Selangor Club Padang or simply the Padang and was used as the cricket green of the Selangor Club.
There were a lot of workmen and trucks there today taking down some large tents so there must have been Deepavali celebrations held in the Square the past few days. Also adjacent to the square was St. Mary’s Cathedral (Anglican Church) est.1894. This church is the oldest in Kuala Lumpur, the doors were open and we were able to take a quick look inside.
From there we went back over another bridge at the other end of the square and walked to the Kuala Lumpur Eco Park. We’d gone to the park one of our first days here and it was closed. Today we were in luck, it was open! On previous visits there had been no admission charge however this has changed and as International visitors we paid 40 MYR about $11.50 CAD each for admission. The park is very neat, it features a tree top canopy walk. The hike up the spiral staircase on the first tower just about finished us – it was hot and humid and we were sweaty by the time we reached the suspended walkways. Last time we visited the monkeys were terrible and put the run on us in a few spots. Unfortunately some tourists think it is cool to feed the monkeys and all it does is breed BAD behaviour. This time there wasn’t a monkey to be seen! Not sure if the lack of tourists due to the pandemic changed things or if they actually moved them out! After the last time, we didn’t miss seeing them and their aggressive behaviour.
The one end of the canopy walk comes out near the base of the KL Tower. The tower is a 15-story, 421-meter-tall telecommunication tower and is the world’s 7th tallest tower. We took a few pictures and then took the canopy walk back to the gate we’d come in.
You can check out our YouTube video of the canopy walk below.
From there it wasn’t too bad of a walk back to the area near our hotel. We stopped and picked up 2 mango smoothies and two large cups of cut dragon fruit and headed back to the hotel. Once there we got a bucket of ice delivered to our room and had a couple of beer. Sadly the small fridge in our room has a pathetic cooling system. We suspect it also turns off every time we leave the room as the power is off in our room when it is vacant. So the only way we can have a cold beer is to chill down the tepid brew with ice cubes!! For supper we headed back to the Grand Sky restaurant. They know us there now and we are always warmly welcomed. It’s clean, the food is great and it is very reasonably priced. Tonight we each had two calamansi juice with sour plum and we shared a medium order of chicken Pad Thai. It hit the spot! We spent 44 MYR about $12.75 CAD. Very economical with out beer. FYI: Calamansi (Limau kesturi) is a Philippine lime which makes the most refreshing lemonade.
We walked 9.4 km today, the majority during the hottest part of the day!! We will both be ready for bed tonight!