Day 152-153: A Day in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The cheapest flight from Bali to Hong Kong stopped in Kuala Lumpur, so while this city was not on our original itinerary, we decided we might as well spend a day and check it out.  It's really easy to get into town from the airport via a recently-opened express train called the KLIA express, which takes about 25 minutes.  Once downtown, the subway system or monorail can bring you to most of the major hotels in town. The subway was really easy, especially because English speaking staff  helped direct us to the right place. 

We arrived mid-evening, and the next morning decided to visit the Petronas Towers and walk around the city.  The first thing we noticed was that Kuala Lumpur is brutally hot and humid!  

Kuala Lumpur is probably most famous for the Petronas Towers, the tallest twin-towers in the world, joined by a sky-bridge on the 45th floor.  We made our way from our hotel over to the famous towers.  Until recently, you could go up to the top for free, but daily tickets were limited and first-come first-served, so they usually 'sold out' early.  It turns out they now charge for the experience, and tickets still sell out early!  By the time we arrived, the only trip up in the towers left was not until 8pm, so we decided to bag it.  But we did wander around outside and got a few shots:

Whoa

Naturally, each of us had to get a picture with the twins:

We next learned that KL also has lots of malls and indoor shopping centers, likely because of how hot it is.  This is probably how many locals spend their time when it's too unbearable to be outdoors.  We walked a little loop around the downtown area, popping in and out of some of the local shops and international chains, before getting caught in huge thunderstorm around mid-afternoon.  It came out of nowhere and we had no umbrella or raincoat so we killed some time in a few stores until the downpour let up a bit.

We made our way back to the hotel in the rain (via taxi) and decided to take advantage of the Hilton's free  happy hour which went from 5-7:30 (if you get enough Hilton points, they upgrade your room, give you free breakfast and free happy hour).  The happy hour was on the top floor, which had a great view of the Petronas Tower: 

Good night, KL.

There was so much food at happy hour, we weren't hungry for dinner.  Since we had a very early flight out to Hong Kong the next morning, we decided to make it an early night and headed back to the room to catch up on some blogging and planning. 

So the verdict on KL?  Well, our experience was limited, and I am confident there's a lot of great stuff to see here that we didn't get to.  But we can tell you that if you want to go up in the Petronas Towers, be sure to arrive first thing in the morning, and be prepared for some steamy weather!

Anyway, the next morning, we were off to Hong Kong!