“Malaysia Truly Asia” –Malaysian Bureau of Tourism

About a month ago joined John in Malaysia for part business and part fun. I flew Tiger Airways, an Asian budget airlines with no thrills and a nickel and dime you attitude. They are so budget that they don’t even fly out of the main terminal here in Singapore. They fly out a 1970’s orange and white hanger. The waiting area feels more like a bus terminal than an airport you even walk across the tarmac to the plane. Once on board I was upgraded to an Emergency Excited seat, that’s right up graded. Had I chosen this seat when I was booking my flight I would have been charged extra. A quick 45 minute flight and I was in Kuala Lumpur. Now I had been to the KL airport once before but I had forgotten the exact workings of the place. Immigration took nearly two hours to get through, no sweat I wasn’t in a rush and I had time to notice all the Chinese with surgical masks waiting the quarantine area –no idea why, but glad wasn’t with them! After getting out the airport I booked a taxi and was off. The airport is about an hour outside of the city and I must say Malaysia seems to have a very modern highway system.
Arriving at the Ritz Carlton around dinner; I didn’t know it then but it was turn out to be, “The worst 5 star hotel ever.”(JM) The hotel was one big fat disappointment and we had a list of complaints a mile long: broken sink, missing luggage, missing robes, hand prints in the bathroom that weren’t ours, constant miscommunication with staff and no follow through, and incessant noise –just the tip of the iceberg. Thankfully, the hotel was very reasonable priced, guess that should have been a clue! The most interesting part of staying at the hotel we stayed at were the amount of Arab tourist. I could probably write a blog just on this subject. It turns out after 9/11 Arab travelers no longer felt comfortable in the USA or Europe and they started to flock to KL. I was in what I would say is the most luxurios mall in South East Asia and all of the Arab tourist were snapping up jewels and handbags. The experience was very culturally eye opening.
We had a chance to meet up with an old family friend of mine. Rohan worked for my father about 10 or so years ago when he was a student in Malaysia. He now is happily married with twin boys! He and his lovely wife took us for a traditional and delicious Indian dinner just outside the city, where Rohan grew up. Hopefully, we’ll be able to meet them again the next time we are in Malaysia.
Besides seeing the famous Petronas Towers we also took a tour outside of the city to the Batu caves. These are very scared in the Hindi religion. We walked up 272 steps to reach the opening of a cave that became a natural Hindu temple. One of the fun and kind of nervous aspects of the adventure was that we were surrounded by fairly aggressive monkeys the whole time. I think my biggest problem was that I had seen "Outbreak" one too many times!