A Birthday at 38,000 ft

This week’s flight from Osaka to Kuala Lumpur saw us celebrating my birthday in-flight.  One of the wonderful staff at the pointy end heard the Princess toast my birthday and presented me with a bottle of champagne, which was great and a real surprise.  Thanks to Malaysian Airlines!!!!

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur International Airport just before 6pm and a confusing time was eventually sorted out with a “premium” cab to the city because the regular cab was supposedly too small for we two and our bags – I think we were “had”.  Arrival at the Shangri-La after a nail-biting drive of 40 minutes for what is usually a 1 hour trip, was a relief and we celebrated with an up-grade of room, membership to the Horizon Club and a dinner at Arthur’s Bar & Grill.  The meal was a premium Australian rib-eye – enormous and delicious – with Yorkshire pudding and vegetables and we were told that the Horizon special, two glasses of wine for the price of one, was still available.  The waiter encouraged us to line them up before the special went off, so we did.

Exploring KL the next day left us with the impression that there is little left of the history – there is high-rise after high-rise and most of the old buildings are gone.  The skyline is dominated by the Petronas Twin Towers, which at 428 metres are a spectacular sight.  When we were a little awed by the  view from the 38^th floor of the Umeda building in Osaka, we didn’t realise what lay ahead.  The 38^th floor of the Petronas is just the start – the cross-over from one building to its twin.  From there, we travelled in a 6metre per second elevator to the observation room on the 86^th floor and to say that the view is awesome is an understatement.  Absolutely amazing!  We were there in time to watch the sunset, although it was a little overcast and not quite as spectacular as it might have been.  But then, this is the start of the monsoon season, so we were glad it wasn’t raining.

The following day we joined a walking tour – Eat, Pray, Love Heritage Tour – run by “Be Tourist” – a tour group dedicated to showing off the history of the city. This was an excellent tour with a very good leader, Sean Tan, who described the development of Kuala Lumpur, which actually has quite a short history.  The area was the site of tin mines, mined by the Chinese, as recently as the early 1800s and no organised government – just tribal affiliations – until the 1850s when the British stepped in to assist with organising proper government.  The British stayed until the 1950s when Malaya became Malaysia and the country began its rush to develop.  Unfortunately in the process, most of the old buildings are being lost and the tour group is dedicated to showing the best of the old areas off and promoting the heritage awareness required to save what’s left.  We toured the old Chinese areas, the Hindu areas and the Muslim areas of the old city and sampled foods and drinks from these cultures along the way.  We ventured into shrines and many alleys and streets which normally don’t see westerners and we finished up in Chinatown in the old market, which has been on the site since the 1850s.

On our last night here, after another great dinner at Arthur’s, we joined the crowd in the bar to listen to some live music and it was excellent.  We met a Scottish couple who live in Brussels and we hit it off extremely well, so much so that our bar bill at the end of the night was horrendous and the headache the next morning was even worse.  Perhaps we’ll catch them again in Brussels next year when we’re in Europe – hopefully without the headache!

Kuala Lumpur is certainly an interesting place to visit but we felt that it’s not a holiday destination.  We’ve been through the airport here, enroute to somewhere else, a number of times and although the shopping is good, I’m not sure that I’d stay here for more than a day or two in the future.