Day 01 – After Côme’s best ever flight (we had tv screens in front of our seats), we land in Kuala Lumpur at 4:30 in the morning (2:30 in Nepalese time). Let’s just say that we are not fully awake when we go through the customs. We are starting to regret taking night flights because, aside from the exhaustion, things are really complicated with transportation and hotels. We have to wait until 6:30 for our shuttle bus and the one that should take us closest to our hotel has been canceled since Covid so we have to take another one (taking us 3.5km away). When we arrive at the terminal, we have to take another bus to our hotel but we need bus cards to pay the fare and we can’t buy them at the bus stop (what is it with the bus cards everywhere nowadays… things used to be much simpler when you could buy a ticket from the bus driver). So we decide to walk those 3.5km… It’s 8 o’clock in the morning, it’s already 30°C (86°F) outside and Doo in carrying Côme on his shoulders, on top of his backpack (we’re going to be svelte and athletic by the end of our trip). When we reach our hotel, all sweaty and exhausted, the “charming” ladies at the reception tell us that the room will only be available at noon and if we want to check-in early (that’s before 3pm), it will cost us 15 ringgits (about 3€) per hour. Doo tries to negociate, to no ends. The ladies’s personality type is what Doo calls “collabo”. Those people who blindly follow “rules” even if it means selling your own kind. The ladies tell us that we can wait on a mini couch in an office next to theirs. Côme and Julia will sleep a few hours there while Doo is going grocery shopping (we had planned to bake crêpes today since we have an appartment with a kitchen).
When comes noon, Doo goes back to the ladies’ office and ask for an early check-in. And that’s when we hit the jackpot! You know how close 15 and 50 sound in English with a foreign accent? Well, the ladies (whose English was far from being perfect) had mispronounced fifty and Doo realizes that each hour does not cost fifteen ringgits but fifty ringgits (11€). And that’s a whole lot different!!! So technically, for the 3 hours of early check-in it would cost us the price we paid for a full night. Doo gets agravated with the ladies and tries to make them realize how stupid this is and how heartless it is to let a 5 year old sleep for hours on a couch in an office. But the collabos don’t budge and Côme wants to go to the bathroom. Doo tells him to pee in the wicked witches’ office. A bit of cleaning would do some good to their souls… All jokes aside, we decide to go for a walk and have something to eat (our first McDonald’s since Instanbul airport). On our way back, we discover a cultural center or “art mall” close to our hotel. There are some artsy shops, art galleries, a temporary exhibit, a bookstore and a library where we can rest and read books. So we spend some time there and when we go back to the hotel, it’s 3:30pm.
The witches finally give us the keys to our appartment. In the elevator we discover the strict rules in place during Covid. Here a lot of people are still wearing masks. But there’s only one thing on our mind (especially Côme’s): going to the swimming pool. So that’s where we go. And you know what? As soon as we get to the gigantic swimming pool it starts to rain… No big deal right?! Well, tell that to the security agent who forbids us to enter the pool because it is “dangerous”… Doo is really starting to hate this place. And that’s saying something because we love Kuala Lumpur. We came to Kuala a few years ago and we fell in love with this city. There are modern high rises but also trees and old buildings. It is clean, the atmosphere is soothing and it is multi-cultural.
So in order to forget all our setbacks, we have our crêpes party! It feels great!! We’ve been talking about it for weeks. Then, we decide to go for a night stroll to the Petronas towers (the famous twin towers) to watch the light and sound show at the fountains. It is midnight when we come back to our appartment. We are exhausted but we are glad we had that late walk (and a frozen yogurt). Kuala Lumpur is really lively. Julia and Doo are heading straight to bed but Côme is so enthusiastic about the fountain show that he decides to draw it (inspiration knows no schedule for artists).
Day 02 – After a good night sleep and a good brunch (crêpes and fruits), we decide to head to the Battu caves, 10km away from the city. This temple/cave is impressive. The cave is on top of a hill, there are hundreds of colored steps to get there, a gigantic statue and monkeys enjoying offerings from tourists. Here, there are no banana snatching monkeys. Well, Doo had yet another monkey climb his shorts to “gently ask” for a piece of crêpe… But we feel those monkeys have manners. After the caves, we grab another taxi (or more exactly a taxi grabs us). Once again, it is an old taxi driver who seems to be the nicest and happiest person on this planet. When we agree to take his cab, he just tells us (with a smile) to wait a second in order for him to grab his waiting chair and put it away. This driver is in fact a retired ship engineer and Doo is really enjoying the conversation with him. In the meantime, Côme and Julia invent a shopping game for Côme to learn how to count and spend money wisely while buying incredible stuff (like strings that make you jump to the clouds or a magical fishing rod that always catches fishes).
When we reach the Petronas towers, Côme and Julia eat a delicious grilled corn and we go back to the fountain show. We take our time on our way back to the hotel in the lively streets of Kuala Lumpur. Unfortunately we take too long to decide where to eat and end up once again at McDonald’s… Tomorrow we leave for Bali already. We knew we wouldn’t stay long in Kuala Lumpur but Doo is really sad to leave that quickly, knowing that next time we come back it will be even shorter (just one night). We decide to spend the last hours we have in the cultural center, reading books to Côme. At the airport we find a new friend and decide to take him with us on our adventure. His name is Dino (or Rex) and he is really happy to join the family and come with us…
In Kuala Lumpur, Côme:
Did not understand: why the witches were mean.
Learnt: that the monkeys were nice in this city.
Loved: the Petronas towers.
Julia:
Did not understand: how some people can eat Durian fruit.
Learnt: that coconut sauce was excellent with grilled corn.
Loved: the cultural center and the library for kids.
Doo:
Did not understand: how can some people be so dumb.
Learnt: that Kuala was not made for pedestrians (sometimes sidewalks just end and then, there’s just the road…).
Loved: being back in Kuala Lumpur.