Packing up is hard after 2 weeks in one spot
It was a sad goodbye to all of the wonderful staff at the Palm Beach in Labuan. We spent 8 days there the first time and then 15 days the second time. The staff were great, the pool was beautiful and the room we had was perfect. Did we mention the weather was also ideal. Considering it is actually the rainy season, we really lucked out on the island of Labuan. It may have rained every night but the days were sunny and hot. It was good bye to Labuan and hello again to Kuala Lumpur and the Bukit Bintang neighbourhood. The day we leave Labuan was one of the few days it poured rain before, during and after breakfast.
We arrived back in Kuala Lumpur from Labuan on December 9. We decided to spend 2 nights back at the Swiss Garden in KL’s Bukit Bintang neighbourhood and then our last night near the KLIA airport which is about an hour’s drive south of the city.
The Swiss Garden Hotel Bellman (his name is Sabuj) was the first one to greet us, he is such a pleasant guy. More on him later.
Gary has a torn rotator cuff muscle that has caused him some ongoing problems, mostly a sore shoulder, neck and right bicep. Now back in KL we made good use of the Tropical Spa Massage where we started on Friday evening with a 30 minute neck and shoulder massage. We thought maybe we ordered the wrong treatment because we were directed to a room containing large easy chairs. We soon got the best 30 minute neck and shoulder treatment we’ve ever had. Gary’s gal was named Nanna, she had fingers of steel. She stood behind and eventually beside the chair and worked on the knots in Gary’s neck. Linda had the same treatment. Near the end of the treatment we were both directed to sit on a little wooden stool facing the big chair. They piled a stack of flat cushions on the chair with a towel over them to lean our head on. Then more digging and rubbing. Did we mention we miss our pillows and bed on this trip? The treatment cost was just under $30 CAD for the two of us.
After our massage we headed down the street to the Loco Mexican Restaurant. It was costly ringing in at 134 MYR about $42 CAD. Wow, back to the reality of higher prices after visiting Labuan where food and drink cost peanuts.
We both felt good after the neck and shoulder massage. The next day we booked a 90 minute full body massages which was 110 MYR plus 6% tax translating to $36 CAD each. Gary asked for Nanna again and she performed her magic. Continuity is your friend when you are considering massage therapists. She knew exactly what to do.
Later we walked down Jalan Alor (KL’s main street food area) and bought 3 large cups of fruit. One dragon fruit, one mango, and one pineapple for 9 MYR total about $2.75 CAD. We watched some ladies from Singapore devour 2 Durian fruits. They are large spiked fruit varying in size from 9 to 14 inches across. The fruit inside is creamy and delicious if you are genetically programmed to tolerate the smell. Gary likes them, Linda doesn’t. They have a stinky smell, so much so that they are banned from all public venues, buses, trains and hotels. But in this restaurant you can eat them to your heart’s content. Durian are expensive. Gary had a small serving one day at vendor, the cost was 30 MYR about $9 CAD.
We headed back to the hotel and showered off the massage oil. We walked to Petaling Street Market and Gary bought a new t-shirt for 25 MYR, $7.75 CAD and a new watch to replace his broken watch from Thailand (that landed on the tile floor) and the more recent watch from Labuan that died shortly after leaving Labuan. This latest watch was 60 MYR, less than $19 CAD. We hope it lasts a few days longer than the last one.
We arranged to get a late check out on Sunday December 11.
After breakfast on Sunday we decided to get one last massage before leaving KL. Off we trotted to the Tropical Massage. Gary’s gal Nanna wasn’t in yet so we both settled on new therapists. We paid 85 MYR each plus 6% tax about $28 CAD each for a one hour body massage. It was pretty good. Once back to the hotel about noon we showered and checked out at 1 pm. We arrived in the lobby to discover a tropical rain – more like a torrential downpour! Once checked out we chatted with our bellman and new best friend. He has remembered us each of the 3 times we stayed at the Swiss Garden Hotel. As mention previous his name is Sabuj and he is from Bangladesh. We knew he was married and has a 14 year old daughter but this was the first time he mentioned that his family still lives in Bangladesh and he hasn’t seen them since before Covid. It’s almost enough to bring one to tears. He is the most pleasant and welcoming guy and for us is truly the front line hotel diplomat.
We proceeded to order a Grab to get us to the airport hotel named Movenpick. Our first Grab driver cancelled which wasn’t a big deal as we don’t have a flight to catch. The second Grab was a tiny MyVi (car model name) compact hatch back. We immediately cancelled it and ordered a new car. We ended up with a Nissan. It was raining so hard that we took the KL Smart Tunnel. This tunnel has an adjacent storm drainage tunnel. The tunnel roadway is 6 km long. During forecast flooding conditions the road section of the tunnel is closed and the driving section is also used to divert storm water. Cool idea unless you are driving in it during a torrential rain storm and all you can think about is all the ‘what if’ scenarios. As we exited the tunnel we found almost dry roads and a few more KM down the road there was not a drop of rain to be seen. The dry conditions allowed the driver to put the pedal to the metal and at one point we hit 150 km/hr. He’s the driver you need if you are late for a flight, buy hey, we aren’t in a rush!
We check into the Movenpick Hotel which is a huge and very weird looking structure. It’s kind of neat inside. The internet really sucks here though! There is also a huge convention centre and mosque right next door. We can’t hear any of the airplanes taking off from the airport but we can hear the call to prayer!! Good thing we have to get up early otherwise the call to prayer would likely wake us.
Sunday December 12 we get up around 5:30 am, packed our stuff and ate breakfast which started at 6:30 am. We booked on the 8 am airport shuttle that is a 15 minute ride to KLIA. Our flight on Philippine Air was at 11:50 am. We are looking forward to getting home but not the process of getting there. We don’t look forward to the climate change either. But, even the milder cold is better than what has been dealt to Saskatoon the last month which will be fine. We’ll just be putting our flip flops on ice for a while. Back to shoes and sox.
So, the Movenpick Hotel turns out to be a Muslin owned property. No big deal but they don’t sell beer. There might be a slight withdrawal soon. The hotel was not as great as the price was high. The room had a funky sewer smell emanating from the bathroom. We left the light and fan on in the bathroom and shut the door. It’s not the first time there has been sewer smells in Malaysian hotels. There is something different with the construction of drains and traps in the bathroom floor in some places in Malaysia. We mentioned it at the front desk and they said they could get us air freshener – didn’t need the funky smelling air freshener smell in addition to the sewer smell. We did survive and definitely won’t be staying there again. The worst part was the very weak cellular signal and even weaker wifi internet inside the hotel. Actually the worse part was a swimming pool for men and a separate one for women. It was raining so we didn’t press the issue of a couples swim. They are going to get a poor rating on Google and Agoda.
We made it to the Airport December 12. At the baggage check-in Linda puts her suitcase on the scale and it weights 29 kg. It’s no big deal because we weighed it before leaving the hotel and it was only 21 kg. The scale reads negative 29 kg with no bags on it. Whew. The assured us our baggage was tagged through to Saskatoon which we found out later is not exactly the case.
Our flight PR 526 departs KL at 11:50 am. It’s about 4 1/2 hours to Manila. The flight to Vancouver PR 116 departs around 8 pm. It is over 11 hours long. In case you wondered, KL and Manila are in the same time zone. Either way it will be a long night. We eventually are scheduled to land in Saskatoon on AC 7746 around midnight in Saskatoon. We leave KL at 11:50 am and arrive in Saskatoon at midnight. That would seem pretty simple. 12 hours plus the time difference of 14 hours is a 26+ hour day. Who said there are only 24 hours in a day?
We uploaded this blog post from the Vancouver airport. We had a difficult time finding internet to get it done sooner. We are almost home! Yippee
Merry Christmas to everyone.