We concluded our side trip to the island of Borneo with our visit of Kuching, the state capital of Sarawak which encompassed Miri and Mulu. We returned to Malaysia’s mainland for a 4 night stay in the national capital: Kuala Lumpur (KL). After a few weeks on the road, we’ve been pleased to-date in having good success in reserving our hotels directly instead of using third-party sites like Booking.com or the sleazy Agoda websites. Thanks to a Valentine’s month special, we even managed to secure a very nice hotel for our stay in KL.

2023.02.06 – Miri – Kuching (Malaysia)

We had a relaxing breakfast at our hotel and took advantage of a late checkout before taking a Grab to the Miri airport. That was our fourth visit to the airport – two arrivals and two departures. We enjoyed some expensive Starbucks drinks before going through the security control. Our 1hr flight to Kuching was uneventful except for the rain downpour waiting for us at the airport. The early arrival of our checked luggage on the carousel enabled us to quickly secure a Grab from the airport to our hotel. As the rain continued into the evening, we had dinner at our hotel.

2023.02.07 – Kuching – Kuching (Malaysia)

After breakfast at our hotel, we ventured out on our sightseeing. Kuching means “cat” in the Bahasa Malaysia language and in the spirit of this homonym, the city erected a number of statues of cats across the town. We took a stroll along the Sarawak river waterfront promenade and crossed the impressive pedestrian bridge. We visited a large and well maintained orchid garden – the state’s official flower. Later, we took a tambang (river ferry) to visit a fort and a hanging garden. We later re-crossed the river further downstream with yet another tambang to cross back the river. We returned to our hotel room in mid-afternoon for a well needed shower and some clothes wash. In the evening, we had a late dinner at a Chinese cafe and then walked to the waterfront promenade to catch a light and water jet show across from the parliament building.

2023.02.08 – Kuching – Kuching (Malaysia)

We felt good about the extent of our sightseeing yesterday. Nonetheless, we ventured out again after our hotel breakfast to check out a few more sights. Along our walk, we stopped, unexpectedly, at the pleasant Taman Perpaduan Kuching park which opened only a few months ago after going through a couple of years of upgrades. Later, we stopped at yet another very modern building for the Borne Cultures Museum which opened less than 7 months ago. We managed to get our tickets at the foreign senior rates – a $15cdn saving from the adult price. We initially enjoyed cooling down in the air conditioned environment but after a while we started to feel chilly. We spent over two hours going through the well designed displays. Later, after a short visit of a shopping mall, we embarked on river boat cruise for a one hour ride. Sadly for the boat owner, his motor abruptly stopped working after 45 minutes. The man had to row his boat to the nearest dock to let us off. We were glad we were not on an ocean or sea boat trip as we might have finished on Gilligan’s Island. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at McDonald’s for some ice cream. We had our dinner at restaurant in Chinatown.

2023.02.09 – Kuching – Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)

After an early breakfast, we took a Grab to the airport. There was a funny moment when Jenny went through the immigration control. The requirement in Malaysia often calls for our two index fingers to be scanned on a device resting on the side of counter. When the immigration agent requested Jenny to scan her index fingers she simply held her index fingers to the agent without hesitation. It was hilarious even the agent laughed. At the Kuala Lumpur airport, which was some 60kms south of town, we initially considered taking a bus but the departure was almost one hour away. Instead we took a Grab from the airport directly to our hotel. After settling in our hotel room, we went for a swim at the rooftop infinity pool where we also enjoyed a complimentary cocktail. In the evening, we had our dinner at a food court in a nearby shopping mall.

2023.02.10 – Kuala Lumpur – Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)

We enjoyed our hotel’s expansive breakfast buffet where we later chatted with a couple from Toronto. Back in our room, we completed our sightseeing KL itinerary for the next three days. After strolling in KL City Center park, we came upon the famous Petronas Twin Towers. We registered for a 1:00pm 45 mins visit of the Twin Towers. We were thankful for the half price entrance fee for seniors. Before our visit, I was struck with day long bout of loose bowels. I had to visit the shopping mall washroom a number of times during the afternoon. The tour ran like clock work: a stop at the 41st floor for 10 mins on the bridge, another 15 mins on the 86th floor and then like any respectable tour plenty of time at the gift shop. We later stopped our sightseeing day early due to my ailment. We returned to our hotel with a Grab. Jenny did not feel well either. We suspected the milk from the automatic cappuccino machine might have been the source of our ailment. We skipped dinner as we preferred to give our stomach a break.

2023.02.11 – Kuala Lumpur – Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)

Before walking into the hotel’s breakfast room, we stopped by the reception desk to speak with the duty manager to share our concerns that something we ate or drank at yesterday’s breakfast caused us both ailment. It appeared no other guests complained to them of any such issues. We skipped the cappuccinos and were careful about our breakfast food item selection. Later, we stepped out of the hotel for our second day of sightseeing. We took the opportunity to get introduced to the public transportation by taking a monorail to the train station. It was a valuable exercise as we planned in repeating the same travel next Monday in order to take a train to our final destination in Malaysia: Penang. From the train station, we walked following a convoluted series of paths, staircases, tunnels, that only a GPS or locals would be able to decipher, in order to reach the Botanical Gardens. We strolled around the park for an hour or so. It was an OK park but sadly the number of areas were closed off for some reasons – hence not our highest rated garden. Later, we took a MRT line to Chinatown where we visited the Central and Petaling Street markets. We returned mid-afternoon to our hotel using the MRT lines. It rained late afternoon and into the early evening. We ventured out of our hotel under a light rain in order to experience eating along the Jalan Akor street night market. The choice of restaurants and hawker stalls were simply overwhelming. We finally opted for a Thai restaurant and enjoyed our dinner selection.

2023.02.12 – Kuala Lumpur – Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)

After breakfast, we resumed our sightseeing of the remaining sites we had selected from our LP travel guide. We used various public transportation mode (monorail, MRT, LRT) to get from/to selected sites. In mid-afternoon, before returning to our hotel, we finally managed to purchase some sunscreen at a reasonable price – but more expensive than back home. Back at the hotel, we enjoyed once again infinity pool with some cocktails. The late afternoon weather pattern appeared to echo yesterday’s raining situation. We delayed our dinner along Jalan Akor street night market until 8pm in order to avoid the heavy rain downpour.