I arrived yesterday at KL’s hyper modern bus terminal and took the commuter train to the city centre. The public transport system is fast, efficient and cheap, a real pleasure to discover the city (if there was so much to discover). I went directly to a guest house, which was recommended by the owner of my guest house in Melaka. It was really horrible with rooms as large as prison cells and without outside window (needless to mention that there was no private bathroom and no air condition neither). A single room was “on offer” for 50 Ringgit (12,50 EUR) which was out of question for me. The next guest houses were similar and I really started to worry. At the end I found a brand new place with rooms for 65 Ringgit, including private bathroom and air condition (and very good mattresses). It has a window to the interior, not to outside but it is very quiet, so ok for me. Actually I didn’t want to spend more than 10 EUR per night for accommodation (and I have never passed this limit except the first night in Bangkok) but in KL I have to make an exception. A room for 10 EUR in KL is definitely not fun!
Yesterday afternoon I was strolling through Chinatown, where my guest house is located. It’s also the centre of KL. Just before sunset, I went to Merdeka Square (where the country’s independence was proclaimed) to take pictures of the sunset and KL’s skyline. There are some colonial buildings, so it’s a nice contrast. Then I had dinner in a food court in Little India before going to the roof-top terrace of another hostel, which is almost next door to mine. I met some people there and it was a nice final of the day.
Generally spoken I am really impressed how multicultural this society is. If you go to KL, you almost don’t need to go to India or China. For me the main problem is that I don’t know which dish to try first; there is so much great food everywhere!
Today I woke up at 7:30am to get entrance tickets for the Petronas Towers. There are 15 min time slots available for visiting the Towers and if you arrive late it may happen that all tickets are sold out. When I arrived the queue was already huge. I was really surprised that you have to pay 50 Ringgit. Someone told me recently that it was for free but obviously since 2010 you have to pay. I found it quite of a rip-off and so I decided to go back to the guest house and continue sleeping. It was raining anyway and I guess the views you have from the tower are quite poor under these conditions. There is also a kind of television tower in KL (called Menara KL) with a platform 276m-high. It’s not as high as the Petronas Towers but I thought that you probably have a great view of the Petronas Towers from there. On the foot of Menara KL there is a small leisure park. I only wanted to go up the tower but tickets are only sold in combination with the 3D cinema and the zoo – for 45 Ringgit. What bullshit! Why do I have to pay for a cinema and a zoo when I only want to ascend the tower? On principle I didn’t buy the ticket! Besides, it was still raining. At the end I don’t care about their towers here. They take advantage of the fact that the towers are the main touristic highlights (in a city which doesn’t have too many other sights) and I will not support this rip-off. I will come back to KL anyway, so the chance was still there if I wanted.
I planned to leave KL on Monday but I think I will already leave tomorrow. There is not too much to do and the weather isn’t very good, drizzling all day long.
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