Holiday Report Part 1 : Kuala Lumpur

Hallo…

Below I make some holiday journey report to two cities outside Indonesia, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and Singapore city in Singapore. It was my second time visiting those cities, read my first experience here. This time I had a longer duration so more places to go. I went  with a girl friend Miss Hera. We spent the good , bad and silly times there haha…. Each one of us brought only a backpack (all clothes, shoes, personal needs were put here), a medium-sized bag (to keep our shopping hunt… Indonesian likes shopping even its only for a tiny souvenir) and a small sling-bag (for our important documents, camera, cellphone and money). Few weeks before travelling, I did a mini-research about how-where-what of KL and Singapore. Made a simple itinerary as our guide and to know budgeting idea. Hoping it made a cheaper and more enjoyable holiday there. Important thing to consider is finding halal foods and place to pray/salat. Malaysia is almost the same with Indonesia, no difficulties for halal restaurant and place to pray, many masjids and muslim praying rooms in public places. Singapore is a different story, we need to watch carefully halal labels and no salat room in public places. There, we found masjid in Bugis area and Little India, the rest was doing salat in hostel.

No further ado, happy reading :)

Part 1 : Kuala Lumpur

When We Travelled
Departed from Husein Sastranegara Airport Bandung on May 7^th at 8 o’clock morning, arrived at LCCT Airport Kuala Lumpur at 10 o’clock. Exploring Kuala Lumpur until May 9^th at 11 PM then continued our journey to Singapore by train.

Gorgeous sky...

Where We Stayed

Joy Inn Hotel (3-starred) on Jalan Thambipillay. The room with its double-bed was small, the toilet and shower room was the smallest room I’ve had  ever seen. Someone with big body wouldn’t fit, I guess. But it was affordable for us, afterall we are just two petite asian females ;) And the room was clean and tidy with TV, water heater, air-con, etc… but no breakfast. Overall, we felt secure and comfy. The best thing is that the place also very near to KL Central (about 10 minutes walking), its like the center of our activities since all transportation we used are started and ended at KL Central. Downstair on first floor is a mini-market, nice. Around hotel there are also halal restaurants besides Chinese food spots. On check-in process we need to deposit 50 MYR (ringgit) which  returned on check-out time. I didn’t know about the deposit, no confirmation from Agoda the site I ordered the room. That 50 ringgit was quite influenced my budgeting plan in KL. I borrowed some money from my friend on my last day in KL anyway :p

 Our hotel room and Jalan Thambipillay

Petite!

Transportation We Used

• Air Asia Flight from Husein Sastranegara Airport Bandung  to LCCT Airport Kuala Lumpur
• Aero Bus (from LCCT Airport to KL Central) 8 ringgit
• LRT Kelana Jaya (from KL Central to KLCC/Petronas Tower and Pasar Seni & Petaling Street)
• GoGenting Bus and Cable Car (from KL Central to Genting Highland) 20.4 ringgit per person, but we missed the change money and paid 25 ringgit… :(
• KTM Komuter (from KL Central to Batu Caves)
• Monorail (from KL Central Monorail Station on Jalan Tun Sambathan to Bukit Bintang)
• KTM Intercity Senandung Sutera (from KL Central to Woodlands Singapore) 34 ringgit, the air-con is way too coooldd…and the lights wasn’t turned off. I could not sleep for whole night. We planned to go to Singapore by Senandung Malam train (40 ringgit) with bed but ticket sold-out that day.

Places We Visited
Petronas Tower, KLCC Mall, KLCC Park – Malaysia icon, we enjoyed taking pictures of the tower from afternoon to evening, window shopping and dinner at KLCC Mall and relaxing at KLCC park.

At KLCC Park, place with many trees and love quotes in every corner...hmm...

Petronas Tower from day to night

 The lobby of Petronas Tower also access way to KLCC Mall

Genting Highland  -  this is an amusement indoor and outdoor park placed in high forestry mountain Genting.   Besides amusement park, Genting Higland Resorts contains several big hotels and of course gambling areas. Litle Las Vegas. Muslims are prohibited to enter this area. We tried to find Beryl’s Chocolate Store but couldn’t find it, instead I bought chocolate at Famous Amos outlet. Too cute! But the most memorable experience was when we took a skyway cable car from bus terminal to the resort high above at top of the mountain, the longest route in the world… It was quite an adrenalitic rush in just first minute then we felt excited in the rest of journey. Kewl!

Pasar Seni and Petaling Street – bought  cheap souvenirs here

Batu Caves – a cave in a rocky cliff where you find a giant Buddha statue. The view is remarkable…we saw many pegeants and monkeys here. To reach the cave we need to climb 220 stairs… Inside spaceful, cold and damp cave we found many smaller statues and Buddhists prayed.

 I like this tree....

Bukit Bintang – mall, shopping arcade, Jalan Alor street food and hostels. Such a crowded street especially at night. And we did some girlie shoppiiing…yeeayy…

The ambience of Bukit Bintang with Miss Hera in action :p

What We Ate

Our budget per meal was 5 ringgit, for food and mineral water. I think it was not enough for a complete meal with mineral water, because the average price for a set of meal is around 6-7 ringgit, one bottle of mineral water is 1 ringgit. Honestly I ran out my ringgit, Miss Hera shared breads and a can of lemon tea for breakfast in Singapore with me, bought in a mini-market inside KL Central. Mostly we ate in foodcourt (or medan selera in melayu language) in KL Central and one time in KLCC Mall. To save our money, we mostly ate Roti Canai, priced around 1-1.5 ringgit and bought big bottle of mineral water. We also could not miss to taste Nasi Lemak and Teh Tarik, delicious… The nearest dining place is accross hotel on Jalan Thambipillay named Hussain Cafe where Miss Hera always ate her Roti Canai with Kopi Tarik :) The most expensive meal was our lunch in Genting Highland which was double of our meal budget with only menu rice and 2 kinds of vegetables. Blah! We also tasted some cheap street food near KL Central. Yummy... On a night when we explored Bukit Bintang, we were curious about street food on Jalan Alor, but apparently it was dominated by Chinese food. We were not sure about the halal-ness, we found one halal food but the price was out of our budget :(

Roti Canai, Roti Canai and Roti Canai...with various filling : onion, banana, egg, sarden fish....Miss Hera's fave while I was tempting to have other kind of food. Well, Miss Hera could save more ringgit than me... Best eaten with Teh Tarik or Kopi Tarik

What We Bought

Hmm…as usual Indonesian tradition we bought oleh-oleh souvenirs for family and friends in Pasar Seni. But keychains are too mainstream now. Look for another oleh-oleh please... We also had a great time doing shopping at Bukit Bintang. Our hunt resulted cute bags, watches and sunglasses in Vincci store. Too bad no suitable size for a pair of nice sandals.

Giant cat mug filled with chocolates...bought this at Famous Amos outlet :)

Money We Spent

• Flight Ticket from bandung to KL per person Rp. 550.000,  non-promo :(
• Hotel ordered from Agoda Rp. 384.000/night (sharing cost with Miss Hera so half of the price for each one of us)
• We only brought 200 ringgit per person from Indonesia (for meal, transportation in KL and to Singapore, etc), include shopping budget 50 ringgit. But we used used our credit card around 90 ringgit each person in Bukit Bintang -__- 

What We Missed
Putra Jaya and Dataran Merdeka, next time maybe…..I personally want to eat some Nasi Lemak in KFC Malaysia haha…

 View of KL from the bus...

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I could't make a same photos size. Sorry... Will be continued to Part 2 : Singapore…………..