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A reluctant departure
This was a trap for the inexperienced, landing in Kuala Lumpur without money, reliant as usual on airport ATMs for the cash needed to get safely to our hotel and to pay such incidentals as the bill, in this case at an establishment without credit card facilities. We joined the queue at the money machine, and watched as everyone’s hopes for a wad of Ringgit, the local currency, were dashed. The same at four more machines, it turns out that in Malaysia ATMs go offline between midnight and 1.30am for routine maintenance and whatever else might be needed. There were some troubled people around, but we presumed rightly that our hotel would be tolerant of us cashless souls, at least for until morning.
To call ours a hotel was something of a misnomer. Booked over the internet as a modestly priced four star establishment with pool, complimentary breakfast and wireless internet close to the airport, the Jawadene turned out to be more a large private residence and something we would associate more as a guest house or B & B than a hotel. Nevertheless, it was rather good, beautifully furnished with exquisite Burmese, Indonesian and Japanese furnishings. Run and owned by a former US Marine and his wife, this was elegance itself and certainly not the place you could stumble around after a night’s binge drinking. That may have been the reason it did not have a bar.
Our plans for a relaxed day around the pool recuperating from our holiday in Phuket were dashed; an unfortunate consequence of staying in a place like this is that it always feels a little like you are intruding in someone else’s home. It just doesn’t feel right to wander around half naked and it didn’t help that the sun refused to shines as well.
Still, Walter and Janet were very conscientious hosts and one of the services they provide is to drop off and pick up guests from the local train station, Salak Tinngi. An exceptionally good public transport system got us within a short distance of the KL Tower, although it could be imagined that Kaelene cursed Marty as he took her cross country through a steeply-sloped urban jungle and below a family of deranged, threatening monkeys from the station to the tower. A taxi would have been easier. Still, the tower, at 420 metres above sea level provided a commanding view over Kuala Lumpur, even if the weather darkened the skyline and reduced visibility to a minimum, but not too much for us to spy, at the base of the tower, the ubiquitous logo of the Hard Rock Café. We knew in an instant where we would be having dinner (The 11th HRC we have been to on this trip).
By the time we returned to ground zero, the dark clouds had delivered their promised storm and it was for an hour at least that we sat downstairs in a half-ordinary place drinking tea and writing postcards, an old-fashioned practice in the electronic age of instant communication.
Entry to the tower came with complimentary ride in a simulated formula one car around a digital racetrack, a pony ride for those under 50kg and a look inside something called animal world. Of the three all we managed were the animals, and what an interesting experience. Pythons and other snakes (including albinos), tarantulas and a variety of inhospitable spidery things and big goanna-like lizards. Then, outdoors, a huge McCaw, not to be mistaken with the All Black captain, this one of vivid blue and yellow.
Back down the hill, the Hard Rock Café was up to the expected standards although something has intrigued us about our visits to their various cafes around the world. At a number during the earlier part of our journey we filled in customer review questionaires, the reward for doing so a $US5 voucher to be redeemed at participating cafes. It seemed however that every subsequent café was not a participating one: Cairo, two in Singapore, Bangkok and then KL.
Next day we took advantage of Walter and Janet’s hospitality to drop us at the train station and then pick us up again later and transport us, with bags, to the LCCT, the Low Cost Carriers’ Terminal, for our reluctant departure from Asia. In the meantime we crammed in a bit more of KL this time the Petronas Towers (although by early afternoon all the tickets to go up and view the city had gone) and a huge shopping mall within its lower levels and then on to Chinatown, the latter of which is not a patch on its Singapore equivalent.
That done, and with more rain, it was clearly time to head to the airport and await our Air Asia flight to Perth, a city and culture dangerously close to home. So dangerously close that we looked at the departure boards for Phuket and pondered just getting on the next plane and heading back.