Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
We left Saskatoon October 18, 2023 on the 5:25 pm flight to Vancouver. We then endured a 7 hour layover in Vancouver. Thankfully we have lounge passes to the Air Canada lounge through our Aeroplan credit card. Free food and beer and a relatively peaceful and comfortable place to stay. The lounge closed at 12:15 am so we went to our gate for the second flight from Vancouver to Taipei on EVA Airways. We left on time around 2 am Vancouver time (3 am Saskatoon). Yes this sounds tiring. After our meal, which was chicken and rice, or in Linda’s case, “silicone chicken”, we fell asleep in our seats which were ok. We arrived in Taiwan’s capital Taipei about 11 hours later. We had a short layover of one and a half hours. Our flight was perfect, at least for us. We landed in Kuala Lumpur about four and a half hours later around 11 am. We were met by a person holding a sign with our names on it. The bad news, our luggage was not on our flight, it would arrive in 3 hours with a China Airways flight CI721. We could either wait or have it sent by midnight to our room in downtown Kuala Lumpur. We were so tired by then, we couldn’t even think straight.
We proceeded to get SIM cards for our phones at a 7-11. It took forever as the place was extremely busy. After we got our phone SIM cards activated we have Malaysian phone numbers with unlimited data. The cost was about 45 RM (Malaysian Ringgit) or $13 CAD for one month. Unlimited texting and voice calls in Malaysia. To activate, you need to take a photo of your passport page with your picture and then take a selfie that apparently needs to match the passport picture. Our passports were issued in 2017 and after being up for 40+ hours, our selfie looked bad. Terrible in fact! It took a dozen selfie photo tries to get each SIM card approved. Our 3 hour wait for luggage turned in to less than an hour.
We bought a bottle of water and ate some trail mix while we waited. We went to the “missing luggage” area and they allowed one person to go fetch the luggage. Gary went and walked the whole length of the baggage area, around a dozen sections to the very last spot where we were told to report. Once there, he was directed back to the carousel that had the China Airline flight’s luggage. Gary waited on a bench beside a guy from Vancouver that had been on the same flight as us. He was in the same boat. Finally bags started dropping onto the carousel. The guy from Vancouver got his immediately, so Gary was hopeful. It wasn’t long and both bags came around. Gary texted Linda and we met at the arrival hall. We got outside and to the Grab (like Uber) pick up area. In about 15 minutes we were on our way to the Bukit Bintang area of Kuala Lumpur. Destination Hotel Swiss Garden.
We got checked in to room 1301 which we booked through the agoda.com booking site. We got unpacked, charged our phones a bit and headed out to the Jalan Alor street food night market. When approaching Grand Sky Restaurant we were met by the staff that remembered us from the previous year. How do they do that? Our waiter Janson gave us hugs and remembered our names. Ok, he remembered Linda’s name for sure! Amazing. We ate a great meal and had a few well deserved beer. It wasn’t long until we headed back the few blocks to our hotel. It was raining by then and we were fine with the warm wet air. The airplane had dried us out like prunes.
The next day we tried to make some flight and hotel bookings for the next 12 days. We had purposely not booked any flights or hotel rooms that did not have adequate cancellation in case we got delayed or something worse. Our Aeroplan card was useless because when we tried to book flights online the two factor authorization went to our Canadian mobile number. We ended up using a different card that authenticates via an email address. Aeroplan’s card failed us. We got some hotels booked for Kuching on October 24 and Miri on October 28. Both places are in Sarawak the Malaysian state located on the island of Borneo, also known as East Malaysia. When we called the credit card company, they gave us a work around that was supposed to allow us to add another phone number to our Aeroplan card profile. We tried their suggestion but when we tried to verify the number, a process where the credit card sends a text message, we could not receive the message. We eventually figured out we flipped two numbers around when we recorded Gary’s phone number. Stupid mistakes are easy when you are tired.
We went to a nearby mall for some lunch and a few batteries for the GoPro camera. We returned to the room for a rest, then headed back to our favourite spot, Grand Sky Restaurant. Supper was great. We got back to our room in decent time around 8 pm. Exhausted. Linda killed a bug right by the door on the tile floor. A quick google search identified our bug. Gary took a photo and the bug on a piece to tissue in a ziplock bag to the front desk. He showed the picture on the phone to our favourite bellman and he took Gary’s phone to the manager. Not a question was asked and we got upgraded to a slightly nicer room down the hall, room 1309. Maybe not far enough for our liking, but what can you do? We had washed and hung up shirts, undies and socks in 1301 earlier in the day so we had to haul everything to the new room. Once in the new room we realized the safe was locked shut and dead (no light came on the touchpad). We made countless phone calls and a trip to the front dest to get that resolved. We never got to bed til after midnight. We were wrecked by then. Of course a day later the safe quit again, another trip to the front dest, a chat with our trusty bellman and we had new batteries in the safe. To be honest, our trusty bellman Sabuj was the main reason we booked a return stay to the Hotel Swiss Garden. Sabuj is the nicest guy!
.
The next day we took a Grab to the butterfly park. It was warm, humid and an enjoyable outing. Grand Sky again for supper. We met a few guys from Miri, Sarawak where we will be going October 24. Gary sat at their table and next thing he has another beer in front of him. These guys are commercial divers that do rig inspections. You couldn’t ask for a nicer bunch of guys. Finally Linda moved over from our table. She too had a beer in a flash! We had asked what frog tasted like and before we knew what happened they ordered a frog for us, We both loved it. Even Linda tried it! Yes!. We chatted with these guys for at least an hour, probably more. One of the fellows is Iban, an ethnic tribe of Borneo. We had lots to talk about from diving to Malaysian politics. Finally, Gary went to pay for our supper and to buy a few beers for the guys! John, one of the guys shows up and has a chat with the waiter (in Malaysian) and it appears we are unable to proceed because they insist to pay for our meals and drinks. We already know how this ends, you can’t pay. They are so generous it brings tears to your eyes. We got John’s contact information and went back to our room. We kept one eye open for blood sucking insects that crawl into bed. Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite!
The next day we went hotel shopping for our next trip back to Kuala Lumpur. We found a couple of nice options. One is very nice, newly renovated and right in the same area. It may be slightly more money. We have not booked it yet, but that’s our plan.
We checked out of our hotel October 24th. We allowed for one hour travel time to the airport so we’d arrive 2 hours before departure. On the way down the elevator with our bags we got a message that our flight was delayed. Due to the delay we arrived at the airport with extra time to spare. We checked in for our flight and were politely informed that we would need to show a return flight to KL from Borneo before they’d issue our boarding passes. Malaysian Borneo runs their own immigration. In some ways, it’s like a different country. We ended up standing off to the side at the check in counter and booked a return flight on Gary’s cell phone for December 6 from Kota Kinabalu. Guess what? The Aeroplan credit card does not work, again! So we re-do the booking and used a different credit card. We get the return flight confirmation and finally get checked in. The Dec. 6 return flight we booked cost RM 999 for a 2 hour trip. That’s $288 CAD for 2 people one way. We paid extra for a flex fair because we didn’t know what day we wanted to return. We have an overland wilderness adventure planned on November 30 for 2 nights and wanted to keep our options open.
We were 3 hours late arriving in Kuching, the capital city of Sarawak. We got into our room and went to the Top Spot Food Court for supper. The food was great. 6 huge shrimp served in Asam (sour sour). The prawns are like chicken drumstick for $8.65 CAD Linda had sweet and sour chicken and we shared one small rice and a plate of stir fried vegetables. Our meal cost RM74, including a huge bottle of water. That amounts to $21.30 CAD. We actually were too full to eat it all – we left no prawns.
