Travel : Kuala Lumpur Weekend

It's been a week now since Hubby and I arrived from our weekend getaway in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was just a very short trip, so short that we stayed there for just a day and a half. No worries, that quick trip allowed us to let loose and relax over the weekend.

To start off, I booked the flight in November when Air Asia had a seat sale. I was able to purchase the ticket for only Php1638. This amount covered : round-trip airfare for hubby and me, taxes (not airport and travel tax) and surcharges, Skybus shuttle from the airport to KL Sentral, and check in baggage. Quite a steal, right. Only thing is that Air Asia departs and lands at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Clark. This wasn't a problem for us neither because there are Philtranco buses that ply the route Pasay <--> DMIA and vise versa. Bus ticket was at Php350 per person/one way.

Day 1:
5:30am Hubby met me at work. Bought ourselves breakfast at The Sandwich Guy One E-Com branch (Chili Con Carne baked potato for him and Cheezy Bacon baked potato for me).
6:15am Philtranco bus terminal in Pasay City.
6:30am Bus left the Pasay terminal for passengers who were at SM Megamall.
7:45am Bus leaves from DMIA Clark.

9:30am We arrived DMIA Clark and checked-in. From this time up until we boarded the plane, we just bummed around the departure area. Hubby was busy with his PSP, while I was on the lookout for food. Yes. Food. I wanted our adventure to start then. There weren't too many choices at the airport so I decided to have a Smokey's Taco Dog and I forgot what I got for hubby. I window-shopped at the mini Duty Free store and souvenir shop at the airport.
11:10am Time to board the plane!  Notice that we only had overnight bags with us.

11:40am Take-off. As seen in the picture, the weather kinda looked bad. It was really dark somewhere. We felt lucky that take off was smooth and worry-free.

1:30pm (estimated time) I got hungry (again!) and decided to have donuts and coffee for a snack which I shared with hubby. 

3:40am We have arrived LCCT. Malaysia now! Whoopee... Since we had no check-in bags, alighting the aircraft and lining up for customs and immigration was just done in a few minutes. I then proceeded to the money changer to change a few of my pesos to ringgit. Exchange rate at the airport was Php1 = 0.066 ringgit at the airport.

 A good friend of mine wanted me to bring home Old Town White coffee for her. She said that I should try it and bring home some for myself too. To my surprise, at the airport exit. I saw this and requested the husband to take a picture of me with the coffee shop as the background.

The weather was kinda gloomy at the time we arrived. But that didn't ruin our day / stay. Adventure and food trip was what we had in mind and at that time we knew that it was about to start!

4:30pm We have now reached the Skybus terminal which is just a few walks away from the arrival area. Bus left after 15mins and we were on a roll. Actually, it was only I who felt that way as hubby was already starting to fall asleep. Actually, I fell asleep too but not right after we boarded the bus. Haha! The bus ride from LCCT to KL Sentral usually takes an hour. So I thought of getting that well deserved power nap to last me through the night. I woke up to the sight of the Twin Towers and the KL Tower. At last! I told hubby to wake up now as we are nearing KL Sentral. Pfffftt... Fail. It was too far pa pala. Another 20-30mins pa. All the while, I thought that I had been sleeping for about 45mins na.

6:00pm We are now at KL Sentral. And I saw my cousin Jing as we alighted the bus. KL Sentral is the hub for Kuala Lumpur. It's the transfer point for major rail systems including KLIA Ekspres, KLIA Transit, KTM Intercity, KTM Komuter, Putra LRT and KL Monorail. With these rail systems you can get to your destination with so much ease. 

6:30pm We relaxed a bit at my cousins flat at the Mayfair Apartments in Sri Hartamas. His place is fab! Residential units on the upper floors, commercial spaces on the ground floor which includes, Fridays, Starbucks, 7-11, and a mall - Hartamas Shopping Center. I could live here!

 That's me and my cousin, Jing. 

 The husband and I 

7:30pm We were off to have dinner at Jalan Alor. This is food paradise... Indoor and outdoor hawker food stalls. A tip of course would be eating or ordering from a stall with the longest queue. Go for where the locals go and you'd never go wrong. 

 No vacant tables and chairs yet so we had to wait

 I decided to walk the long stretch of the road first while my cousin and hubby were waiting for the other customers to vacate the seats.

Yey! They found a place. It's chow time!

For my Chili Padi

Bah Kuh Teh

Special Fried Rice

We need not order more food because their fried rice had everything in it. Shrimp, pork, beef, veggies, eggs, etc.

9:00pm Done eating. Time to walk the streets. Passed by the shopping centers namely : Berjaya Times Square, Bukit Bintang Plaza, Sungei Wang Plaza, Lot 10, and the Pavilion.

On our way now to the Petronas

By the time we reached the twin towers, Suria was already closed. The only shops left opened were the restaurants and bars around the area. I lost the chance to visit Cold Storage, then. It took quite a while for us to figure out how we could get a good shot of the towers with ourselves included in the pic. A good friend of ours toured Kuala Lumpur last month and had a wonderful shot of the towers with them below it. Arrrghh.. Then it started to drizzle. I kept hoping and praying for it not to rain. Thank you, my prayer was answered. It was a challenge for hubby and I to take pictures because we had to protect our cameras plus the fact that we wanted to lie on the ground to get a great, great shot. It went pffffttt... The ground was wet, goodbye great shot. We settled for this instead:

A shot I took... 

And this by the husband. I was too scared to stand on the edge of the tall plant box - all slippery and wet. I decided to stand on the center of it instead. Nakakalula kaya.

10:30pm All done with the walking and photo-ops. We decided to call it a night. We took a cab back to my cousins place at Mayfair Apartments in Sri Hartamas. Travel time: 10-15mins. It was too early to head up to the flat so we just enjoyed the cool breeze at the courtyard just beside 7-11. Hubby and my cousin got themselves a beer, and I settled for my favorite drink when in Malaysia - Kickapoo!

12:00mn Good night!

Day 2: Batu Caves and Mid-Valley Mall

6:30am I woke up ready to start another wonderful day. I headed to the shower. My cousin prepared Teh Tarik for us so I had that for breakfast while hubby was in the shower. Looking out the window, it was a cool, breezy morning. Great weather to visit the Batu Caves. 

7:30am Off we go to KL Sentral for our train ride to Gombak. As soon as we rode the cab, hubby and I imagined that we were Amazing Race contestants. It was fun. The only difference is we weren't in a rush all the time. We took time for some photo-ops again. 

From KL Sentral to Gombak station. The very last station on this line and the station to get to Batu Caves.

Priority Seating Zone. Guess why we are seated? Kasi malaki tyan namin. Just like what is illustrated on the second drawing. Haha! There weren't too many passengers so we sat and enjoyed the ride.

At the Gombak station at last. Seen on this pic is the ticket counter going to Genting. We had no time to visit Genting as one whole day is needed to visit the park and enjoy the cable car ride, view, cool weather, and much more rides. We will definitely visit Genting some other time. We now are headed to ride a cab to get to Batu Caves which took us 10minutes. 

Batu Caves

8:00am We have arrived! The statue of of Murugan is beautiful. It's the world's tallest Murugan statue standing at 42.7 meters, high a Hindu deity, located outside Batu Caves. 

Batu Caves is a limestone hill, which has a series of caves and cave temples, located in Gombak district, 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It takes its name from the Sungai Batu or Batu River, which flows past the hill. Batu Caves is also the name of the nearby village.
The cave is one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India, dedicated to Lord Murugan. It is the focal point of Hindu festival of Thaipusam in Malaysia. (via Wikipedia)

 

We are now ready to climb up the 272 concrete steps to enter the cave.

Tired but all smiles pa rin. Kakahingal. Rest first. 

 The monkey we met while resting on the steps.

Mom and Child

Thumbs up sign for making it to the top! Whew!

There is light at the end of the tunnel, erm, Cave. We didn't manage to reach that point as it was all slippery and wet inside the cave. We just decided to take pics of what was within our area. 

If climbing those steps took us more than 15mins, it was a breeze going down. Haha. 

Too tired still from the climb and the trail going down, we stopped at the foot of this Hindu temple to rest and watch the monkeys play. 

Hubby and I didn't notice the time. We had to meet my cousin at the Mid-Valley mall for lunch and pasalubong shopping. Surprised to see that it's almost 12noon. We hurriedly went out to catch a cab going back to Gombak station and straight to Mid-Valley.

to be continued...