Instead of the normal portion of the KL airport, we went to the LCC terminal (totally separate, unconnected low-cost-carrier terminal) because we were flying Air Asia. We walked around king of confused as to what to do... all the counters said Air Asia... and there was a separate line for each counter... and people didn't seem to pick the shortest line ones. We finally saw an Air Asia rep who directed us to counter 5, where we find out our 6pm flight has been delayed to 23:30.
We wait around the waiting area for a while, reading our respective books. K looks over at three guys playing some card game, but not the standard cards we're used to. After a while, his curiosity is only sated by going over and inquiring about the cards and game. Turns out the cards are Spanish playing cards and the guys are playing a game called Tute. He sits down with them, they explain the rules, and he gets his game fix for the week ^-^
After a couple of games, they ask if he wants to join them for a smoke (they'll be killed if they smoke inside), to which K politely declines. K and I get dinner at the Asian restaurant (only other place to eat is McDonalds). I order a noodle soup and K, a nasi lemak... a coconut rice dish with chicken, peanuts, and sardines.
After a little while, we go through the boarding security and exit immigration check... to discover the boarding area is not air-conditioned. Argh, we should have waited out in the main area longer! Oh well. Some more waiting. The seats of Air Asia are not reserved (first come first get like Southwest), so everyone lines up for their gate early.
We're supposed to be at T1. After lining up for our gate, a weird hard-to-hear announcement is made... context of which is "we are now distributing complimentary dinner for flight 884 (our flight), please line up at gate T2 to get your complimentary meal". But the announcement is practically unintelligible, so there's quite a bit of confusion... people moving into the T2 line, then moving back to T1, etc., leading to a big line-mess. They first gave out McDonalds Filet-o-Fishes, then Nasi Lemak (minus chicken)... what K already ate for dinner.
On the flight, a friendly 25-year-old Thai girl sat next to us... she was working in hospitality/tourism so her English was pretty good. She said Bangkok was somewhat similar to KL, except with a lot more traffic (is that possible??) and plenty of pollution.
Bangkok airport... we get our luggage and then wait for Beilie. With the delay of our flight, we were worried she might arrive before us, but our worries are for naught. Her plane ends up landing 40 minutes late at 1:20am-ish.
The taxi to our hotel was mostly uneventful, except for the questionable 25 baht and 60 baht tolls the driver had us pay. Decent hotel booked by Beilie... definitely more 'upscale' than our hotel in KL.
Sleep 3:30am-ish.
KL mosquito bite count: 6 (1 day1, 1 day1 while sleeping, 3 day2 while sleeping, 1 on way to bird park)
Showing posts with label Malaysia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Malaysia. Show all posts
Monday, December 11, 2006
Day 3: KL, Malaysia
6:45am. Wake. Time to fly out of KL to Bangkok today; we have until 3pm to finish our KL fun.
We walk down Petaling looking for a place to grab an ok breakfast. An outdoor Asian food court is the only place really up and running. We circle around twice before deciding on a stall... I picked it because I heard someone talking to the stall person in Mandarin. K and I share a Kway Teow... stir fried somewhat-wide noodles with egg, bean sprouts, and to my happy surprise, an unskimpy-amount of baby clams.
Petaling is still clear-ish when we leave. I think sometime near noon is when the street "opens up" and it shuts down around 11pm. All the vendors pack up their stalls and the street is cleared. Cleaning happens sometime between then and the next morning, when the vendors come back and set up their stalls anew, fully restocked. The transformation is pretty cool... shots taken from above the night before vs in the morning, and street-level in the morning vs afternoon...
Loaded with a happy stomach and ready to go, we grab a taxi out to the national mosque, which is in the same area as the butterfly and bird parks. I've brought a long sleeve button-down for the occasion (skin fully covered). We're required to take off our shoes and I'm also required to cover my head with a headscarf (provided prior to entering).
The mosque is very quiet and cool, with sparkling-clean floors (someone constantly sweeping up dirt from the floors while we're there)...
K picks up some Islamic information/propaganda pamphlets from the rack that has 20+ multi-language pamphlets about different aspects of the religion... our future reading leisure...
After returning the headscarf and getting back our shoes, we walk over to the bird park. We're short approximately 20 RM of the admission fee. A fellow tourist who we originally met back at the mosque and who we saw again along the path up to the park agrees to exchange money for us; we give him $6 and he gives us 20 RM.
The bird park... lots of cool new birds I'd never seen in person before. The entire park is covered in netting and the park is divided into zones, so the birds per zone are confined to that zone and many of the birds are just left free-flying within their zones. Like the butterfly park, lots of greenery. Hornbill that looks like a statue, but it's real...
I caught a hornbill in flight later...
All the trashcans in the park were pelicans...
On the way out, we passed a cute group of kindergarten-age school kids on a class trip...
We then walked to the national museum (not to be confused with the national history museum from yesterday), also within the same huge park compound. The museum is usually two floors but the top floor is closed for renovation. One side of the first floor focuses on influences on Malaysia (other countries, Islamic history, etc) and the other side exhibits standard customs, etc... with more than a couple of exhibits discussing circumcision (??).
Leaving the national museum, a random taxi dude tries to get us to use his unmetered taxi, charging us an overpriced fare. We opt to walk in the general direction of our next destination (Chow Kit market) and encounter a good metered taxi.
Chow kit market is crazier and more claustrophobic than Petaling. Whereas Petaling has many tourists walking the streets, Chow kit caters to locals... lots of fruits, veges, meats, fish, standard 'everyday' foods as well as household wares...
Our original plan was to eat lunch at Chow kit, but we're not brave enough to eat at the few food stands (too spicy for me or unknown foods for K again) though I do buy this interesting pancake (folded in half with crushed peanuts and corn in the center).
No taxis in sight, so we walk back towards Petaling until we find a taxi. Along the way, we encounter a few 'restorans' and we finally decide to stop at one that actually has English on their menu item signs, indicating a greater chance of an English-speaking person in there. They gave us a plate of food with a fork and spoon. Most of the people around us are just eating with their hand... the right hand because the left is considered dirty, I later found out. Then at the end, the people get a napkin to clean up (no napkins are given until the end, unless you specifically ask for one). We got a chicken dish, which was bearably spicy, thank goodness, with a side of egg.
On the rest of the way back to Petaling, we managed to hit a taxi that someone just got out off. He refused to use his meter (claiming traffic issues) and offered 8 RM... K asked for 3 RM... we negotiated to 5 RM. We were right on schedule. 2:30pm. We quickly walked through one floor of an indoor shopping area across the street from Petaling (which we never noticed earlier). One store had lots of *really* cute items, but we were down to 8 RM or so left =(
K finally resolved to get one of those oh so popular drinks at one of the Petaling stands... it didn't say what it was nor how much it cost, so we watched another person pay the guy for a drink first (1.20 RM, ~36c). After drinking a third of the yummy cup, we bought a second one.
Back to the hotel... had a few minutes to tidy our things and then the taxi came (we previously asked the hotel to set something up). The taxi driver turned out to speak Cantonese (her parents were Chinese) so K conversed with her for a little bit. She listened to a Cantonese soap opera on the radio on our way to the airport.
We walk down Petaling looking for a place to grab an ok breakfast. An outdoor Asian food court is the only place really up and running. We circle around twice before deciding on a stall... I picked it because I heard someone talking to the stall person in Mandarin. K and I share a Kway Teow... stir fried somewhat-wide noodles with egg, bean sprouts, and to my happy surprise, an unskimpy-amount of baby clams.
Petaling is still clear-ish when we leave. I think sometime near noon is when the street "opens up" and it shuts down around 11pm. All the vendors pack up their stalls and the street is cleared. Cleaning happens sometime between then and the next morning, when the vendors come back and set up their stalls anew, fully restocked. The transformation is pretty cool... shots taken from above the night before vs in the morning, and street-level in the morning vs afternoon...
Loaded with a happy stomach and ready to go, we grab a taxi out to the national mosque, which is in the same area as the butterfly and bird parks. I've brought a long sleeve button-down for the occasion (skin fully covered). We're required to take off our shoes and I'm also required to cover my head with a headscarf (provided prior to entering).
The mosque is very quiet and cool, with sparkling-clean floors (someone constantly sweeping up dirt from the floors while we're there)...
K picks up some Islamic information/propaganda pamphlets from the rack that has 20+ multi-language pamphlets about different aspects of the religion... our future reading leisure...
After returning the headscarf and getting back our shoes, we walk over to the bird park. We're short approximately 20 RM of the admission fee. A fellow tourist who we originally met back at the mosque and who we saw again along the path up to the park agrees to exchange money for us; we give him $6 and he gives us 20 RM.
The bird park... lots of cool new birds I'd never seen in person before. The entire park is covered in netting and the park is divided into zones, so the birds per zone are confined to that zone and many of the birds are just left free-flying within their zones. Like the butterfly park, lots of greenery. Hornbill that looks like a statue, but it's real...
I caught a hornbill in flight later...
All the trashcans in the park were pelicans...
On the way out, we passed a cute group of kindergarten-age school kids on a class trip...
We then walked to the national museum (not to be confused with the national history museum from yesterday), also within the same huge park compound. The museum is usually two floors but the top floor is closed for renovation. One side of the first floor focuses on influences on Malaysia (other countries, Islamic history, etc) and the other side exhibits standard customs, etc... with more than a couple of exhibits discussing circumcision (??).
Leaving the national museum, a random taxi dude tries to get us to use his unmetered taxi, charging us an overpriced fare. We opt to walk in the general direction of our next destination (Chow Kit market) and encounter a good metered taxi.
Chow kit market is crazier and more claustrophobic than Petaling. Whereas Petaling has many tourists walking the streets, Chow kit caters to locals... lots of fruits, veges, meats, fish, standard 'everyday' foods as well as household wares...
Our original plan was to eat lunch at Chow kit, but we're not brave enough to eat at the few food stands (too spicy for me or unknown foods for K again) though I do buy this interesting pancake (folded in half with crushed peanuts and corn in the center).
No taxis in sight, so we walk back towards Petaling until we find a taxi. Along the way, we encounter a few 'restorans' and we finally decide to stop at one that actually has English on their menu item signs, indicating a greater chance of an English-speaking person in there. They gave us a plate of food with a fork and spoon. Most of the people around us are just eating with their hand... the right hand because the left is considered dirty, I later found out. Then at the end, the people get a napkin to clean up (no napkins are given until the end, unless you specifically ask for one). We got a chicken dish, which was bearably spicy, thank goodness, with a side of egg.
On the rest of the way back to Petaling, we managed to hit a taxi that someone just got out off. He refused to use his meter (claiming traffic issues) and offered 8 RM... K asked for 3 RM... we negotiated to 5 RM. We were right on schedule. 2:30pm. We quickly walked through one floor of an indoor shopping area across the street from Petaling (which we never noticed earlier). One store had lots of *really* cute items, but we were down to 8 RM or so left =(
K finally resolved to get one of those oh so popular drinks at one of the Petaling stands... it didn't say what it was nor how much it cost, so we watched another person pay the guy for a drink first (1.20 RM, ~36c). After drinking a third of the yummy cup, we bought a second one.
Back to the hotel... had a few minutes to tidy our things and then the taxi came (we previously asked the hotel to set something up). The taxi driver turned out to speak Cantonese (her parents were Chinese) so K conversed with her for a little bit. She listened to a Cantonese soap opera on the radio on our way to the airport.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Day 2: KL, Malaysia
6:30am. Wake.
8am. Manage to finally get out.
First stop - Petronas Towers, the tallest building in the world, well, up until 2004. 88 stories of concrete, steel, and glass. A lot of thought went into the architecture, the standard tall building stuff, but also incorporation of Islamic building ideals. The skybridge on the 41st floor has 15 minute visits all day, the tickets for which are distributed first come first serve in the morning (starting at 8:30 by our tour book, 8:00 by the hotel receptionist... hotel dude was right, of course), a total of 1320 tickets distributed per day.
We take the KLRT (light rail train... basically subway). It's almost 8:30 and there's already a huge line, a line which at first just resembles an unorganized sea of people, but upon much closer inspection, it's really a "snake" and people do just fine without any extra line cues (i.e. no arguing, jostling, cutting, or other similar rudeness). The sea...
We make our way to the end of the line. The ticket times go from 9am to 12noon, break, then 1pm to 5pm. While waiting, we befriend a couple behind us, originally from Vancouver, who had just visited Thailand, and were going to Vietnam and Singapore after KL... our itinerary shuffled around. The girl said it was her 3rd visit to Thailand and the shortest... she stayed two months on an earlier visit.
Finally got tickets for 2pm. They had closed off the line to any newcomers prior to us getting to the front; poor people who woke up late.
The first four floors of the towers is a huge international shopping mall, with familiar [somewhat expensive] brand names like Gucci, Burberry, and Armani as well as random brands I'd never heard of. We travel up to the food court for our first meal of the day.
The food court is entirely Asian (to be expected) with more than half the places serving various Malaysian foods. One place had a much longer line than the others, serving roti canai with various indistinguishable curries. K shys away from certain foods (too much bone, not sure what it is, etc) and I have low tolerance for spiciness, so, we end up going to the other stands... with me getting a noodle soup and K, a sauteed bai luo buo with bean sprouts and other veges (they called it fried carrot with veges, but yay for the picture above the stand that added extra detail... "white carrot").
Since we have some time to kill, we grab a taxi to Menara Tower aka KL Tower, the fourth tallest communications tower of the world. For 20 RM (~$6), you get a 360 degree view of KL from high high up (higher up than the Petronas skybridge) and a free audio tour of what you're looking at in that 360 degree view. No time limits either. Menara Tower from the outside...
One of the views from Menara Tower...
Another view... note the buildings with swimming pools on the roof...
Then it's back to Petronas... a quick walk/run around the surrounding lake and park and then our 15 minutes on the skybridge. The view isn't as impressive as from Menara Tower but it's still pretty cool... seeing the lake, entrance, and structure from above. Requisite picture of the towers from the outside...
Don't know how the window cleaners do it...
We go back up to the Asian food court for lunch. We've resolved to get the freshly-made roti canai and attempt to order an edible unknown curry. Of course, the place with the roti tells us they only serve it in the morning. The rest of the day is rice dishes. Squashed anticipation. We end up grabbing some food from the claypot and sizzling platter place.
Next, KLRT to Merdeka Square, where Malaysia gained independence on Aug 31 1957. The square shows both the European and Islamic influences on Malaysian architecture. We visit the National History Museum in the square for a quick overview of Malaysian history. While there, it has begun to pour outside. Thankfully, we had the insight to bring along our rain jackets in K's backpack. We ask one of the museum people where we can best catch a taxi... turns out it's not much further from the taxi hailing place than to just walk back all the way to Petaling, so, into the rain we battle.
Merdeka Square pre-rain...
Merdeka Square and the Supreme Court building across the street in rain...
The rain jacket helped our tops, but by the time we reach our hotel, both our pants are soaked...
We decide to wait for the rain to subside and for our clothes to recover and dry. I'm a bit tired and lie down on the bed... only to fall asleep. K falls asleep as well (it's 7pm by now). I wake at some point, surprised to discover it's already 11:30pm. We freshen up, eat a snack, charge some camera batteries, and continue our sleep, a little past midnight.
I'm awoken a little past 1am by lots of yelling in the hall, mostly by this one guy... and his companion is some girl who either laughs or cries, I couldn't tell which. The hallway yelling is followed by lots of door slamming and more yelling. Freaked me out, but I manage to zone it out and fall asleep again after a while.
8am. Manage to finally get out.
First stop - Petronas Towers, the tallest building in the world, well, up until 2004. 88 stories of concrete, steel, and glass. A lot of thought went into the architecture, the standard tall building stuff, but also incorporation of Islamic building ideals. The skybridge on the 41st floor has 15 minute visits all day, the tickets for which are distributed first come first serve in the morning (starting at 8:30 by our tour book, 8:00 by the hotel receptionist... hotel dude was right, of course), a total of 1320 tickets distributed per day.
We take the KLRT (light rail train... basically subway). It's almost 8:30 and there's already a huge line, a line which at first just resembles an unorganized sea of people, but upon much closer inspection, it's really a "snake" and people do just fine without any extra line cues (i.e. no arguing, jostling, cutting, or other similar rudeness). The sea...
We make our way to the end of the line. The ticket times go from 9am to 12noon, break, then 1pm to 5pm. While waiting, we befriend a couple behind us, originally from Vancouver, who had just visited Thailand, and were going to Vietnam and Singapore after KL... our itinerary shuffled around. The girl said it was her 3rd visit to Thailand and the shortest... she stayed two months on an earlier visit.
Finally got tickets for 2pm. They had closed off the line to any newcomers prior to us getting to the front; poor people who woke up late.
The first four floors of the towers is a huge international shopping mall, with familiar [somewhat expensive] brand names like Gucci, Burberry, and Armani as well as random brands I'd never heard of. We travel up to the food court for our first meal of the day.
The food court is entirely Asian (to be expected) with more than half the places serving various Malaysian foods. One place had a much longer line than the others, serving roti canai with various indistinguishable curries. K shys away from certain foods (too much bone, not sure what it is, etc) and I have low tolerance for spiciness, so, we end up going to the other stands... with me getting a noodle soup and K, a sauteed bai luo buo with bean sprouts and other veges (they called it fried carrot with veges, but yay for the picture above the stand that added extra detail... "white carrot").
Since we have some time to kill, we grab a taxi to Menara Tower aka KL Tower, the fourth tallest communications tower of the world. For 20 RM (~$6), you get a 360 degree view of KL from high high up (higher up than the Petronas skybridge) and a free audio tour of what you're looking at in that 360 degree view. No time limits either. Menara Tower from the outside...
One of the views from Menara Tower...
Another view... note the buildings with swimming pools on the roof...
Then it's back to Petronas... a quick walk/run around the surrounding lake and park and then our 15 minutes on the skybridge. The view isn't as impressive as from Menara Tower but it's still pretty cool... seeing the lake, entrance, and structure from above. Requisite picture of the towers from the outside...
Don't know how the window cleaners do it...
We go back up to the Asian food court for lunch. We've resolved to get the freshly-made roti canai and attempt to order an edible unknown curry. Of course, the place with the roti tells us they only serve it in the morning. The rest of the day is rice dishes. Squashed anticipation. We end up grabbing some food from the claypot and sizzling platter place.
Next, KLRT to Merdeka Square, where Malaysia gained independence on Aug 31 1957. The square shows both the European and Islamic influences on Malaysian architecture. We visit the National History Museum in the square for a quick overview of Malaysian history. While there, it has begun to pour outside. Thankfully, we had the insight to bring along our rain jackets in K's backpack. We ask one of the museum people where we can best catch a taxi... turns out it's not much further from the taxi hailing place than to just walk back all the way to Petaling, so, into the rain we battle.
Merdeka Square pre-rain...
Merdeka Square and the Supreme Court building across the street in rain...
The rain jacket helped our tops, but by the time we reach our hotel, both our pants are soaked...
We decide to wait for the rain to subside and for our clothes to recover and dry. I'm a bit tired and lie down on the bed... only to fall asleep. K falls asleep as well (it's 7pm by now). I wake at some point, surprised to discover it's already 11:30pm. We freshen up, eat a snack, charge some camera batteries, and continue our sleep, a little past midnight.
I'm awoken a little past 1am by lots of yelling in the hall, mostly by this one guy... and his companion is some girl who either laughs or cries, I couldn't tell which. The hallway yelling is followed by lots of door slamming and more yelling. Freaked me out, but I manage to zone it out and fall asleep again after a while.
Saturday, December 9, 2006
Day 1 cont...: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
5pm. Checked into our hotel. Put down our belongings, asked the hotel receptionist how much it would cost to get to the butterfly and bird parks. He said 5 RM. Walked through the bustling Petaling market, got accosted by several taxi drivers offering 15 RM to get to the park. Finally found a line of honest drivers and off we went (this was the aforementioned opinionated taxi driver).
A pitcher plant fountain, which I found quite strange, but it illustrates the different vegetation...
The tour book said the butterfly park closed at 6 and the bird park at 7:30, so butterflies came first. SF's Conservatory of Flowers butterfly exhibit is peanuts when compared to KL's butterfly park. Not just a room, but a large net-covered area that simulates a "natural habitat", complete with random live bugs (ants, spiders, etc).
The butterfly area...
View from one of the higher vantage points...
Butterfly cocoons + an "extra large"...
The bug exhibit rooms following were quite interestingly crawly as well. The exhibits lacked the refinement of certain museums in the U.S. but was well done content-wise...
The gift shop sported many framed butterflies to buy...
Walked down some paths to the bird park only to discover our tour book was wrong... it closed at 6, not 7:30. Oh well. Unsuccessful in getting an honest taxi back, we navigated and walked the 15-20 minutes back to our hotel. Along the way out of the lake gardens area, we encountered a seemingly-to-size replica of Stonehenge...
By the time we got back, Petaling market was very alive and well. We picked one of the obviously local street stalls to try, but English didn't work too well. Cantonese was ok, but after frustrating the little girl (literally) to whom we said "no" when asked whether we wanted anything to drink, K wanted to leave. She spoke some weird accented cantonese and then maybe some really heavily-accented mandarin, I think implying we had to order drinks, or something. So, we ate dinner at the recommended-by-hotel-receptionist coffee shop. I just got a noodle soup and K got some weird rice dish... with spicy chili-ed sardines and some other spicy mash made of lobsters.
We then slowly weaved through the crowds on Petaling. All sorts of stands selling "authentic" music, clothes, watches, video games, wallets, purses, etc. line the street and an array of locals and tourists browse the goods. We were behind an obviously non-local (he was caucasion) during a portion of our "stroll"; he was approached by practically all the vendors along the way while we were mostly ignored. It helps to be Asian.
10pm. Sleep.
A pitcher plant fountain, which I found quite strange, but it illustrates the different vegetation...
The tour book said the butterfly park closed at 6 and the bird park at 7:30, so butterflies came first. SF's Conservatory of Flowers butterfly exhibit is peanuts when compared to KL's butterfly park. Not just a room, but a large net-covered area that simulates a "natural habitat", complete with random live bugs (ants, spiders, etc).
The butterfly area...
View from one of the higher vantage points...
Butterfly cocoons + an "extra large"...
The bug exhibit rooms following were quite interestingly crawly as well. The exhibits lacked the refinement of certain museums in the U.S. but was well done content-wise...
The gift shop sported many framed butterflies to buy...
Walked down some paths to the bird park only to discover our tour book was wrong... it closed at 6, not 7:30. Oh well. Unsuccessful in getting an honest taxi back, we navigated and walked the 15-20 minutes back to our hotel. Along the way out of the lake gardens area, we encountered a seemingly-to-size replica of Stonehenge...
By the time we got back, Petaling market was very alive and well. We picked one of the obviously local street stalls to try, but English didn't work too well. Cantonese was ok, but after frustrating the little girl (literally) to whom we said "no" when asked whether we wanted anything to drink, K wanted to leave. She spoke some weird accented cantonese and then maybe some really heavily-accented mandarin, I think implying we had to order drinks, or something. So, we ate dinner at the recommended-by-hotel-receptionist coffee shop. I just got a noodle soup and K got some weird rice dish... with spicy chili-ed sardines and some other spicy mash made of lobsters.
We then slowly weaved through the crowds on Petaling. All sorts of stands selling "authentic" music, clothes, watches, video games, wallets, purses, etc. line the street and an array of locals and tourists browse the goods. We were behind an obviously non-local (he was caucasion) during a portion of our "stroll"; he was approached by practically all the vendors along the way while we were mostly ignored. It helps to be Asian.
10pm. Sleep.
Day 1: arrive Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia... taxis
Stepping off the plane and walking up the corridor, we get a hint of the Malaysian heat we're sure to get more of. Getting our passports checked and stamped and claiming our baggage went smoothly, and thankfully, there is plenty of English in Malaysia. Well, at least all the airport signs are in English as well as Malaysian. They use different words for certain things than would normally be used in the U.S... baggage reclaim instead of baggage claim... the straightforward "toilet" instead of "restrooms", calling it like it is.
We were a bit confused about obtaining a taxi... you pay for a taxi at a taxi ticket counter and then take your ticket to the exit number they tell you. I don't know what happens to people who don't notice the taxi ticket counter; I guess then they get ripped off by random taxis waiting for those unsuspecting tourists.
K calls Malaysia the kiddie pool when compared to the rest of SE Asia, but still, not all taxis are trustworthy. First off, find a taxi driver who speaks English. All the ones who want to rip you off speak English, and they *will* randomly approach you if you look like a tourist. "Taxi?" You ask them if they "use meter?", but they will respond by asking you where you want to go. You tell them, and they give you a flat price, which is sometimes 3x or 4x what you should really pay. If you like the hassling, you can go with the whole bargaining thing. But us... we just move on. At some tourist locations, it's impossible to find an honest taxi driver at the location itself, either you just give in or you walk towards your destination until you find one. We would just walk.
All the taxi drivers like to ask "where you from?" since it's quite obvious we're not Malaysian. All the random people who speak English speak broken English and we ended up doing the same a lot of the time because they understood the broken version better. One "honest" taxi driver was very opinionated about the dishonest taxi drivers. He said they were mostly Indian and gave Malaysia a bad name; though I hate generalizations of this sort (the Indian part), it more or less turned out to be true :-/
First impressions... from the taxi ride... the different vegetation, the obviously oppressive heat, the many apartments and residences along the way (the really rundown ones vs. the newly built colorful ones...
...all in the exact same style), the non-working passenger seatbelts in taxis.
Our taxi ride from the airport to our hotel was uneventful *until* we got close to our hotel. Common sense hit #1. Our hotel was on Jalan Petaling (Petaling Street), the portion of which did not allow cars during most hours of the day. We did not know that. Our taxi was driving on Petaling St, hit the undrivable portion, turned left, and proceeded to look up and down the street for our hotel (this is now the street _perpendicular_ (sort of) to Petaling). It should have been obvious to us that this was incorrect. My assumption was the street was curved (in retrospect, ?!?!). Even after we got our KL map out, we were still not thinking. After the taxi drove around for quite a while, we saw one of the hotels marked on our map that seemed close to our hotel and just asked to get off. We then asked the receptionist at this other hotel for directions to _our_ hotel and walked from there.
We were a bit confused about obtaining a taxi... you pay for a taxi at a taxi ticket counter and then take your ticket to the exit number they tell you. I don't know what happens to people who don't notice the taxi ticket counter; I guess then they get ripped off by random taxis waiting for those unsuspecting tourists.
K calls Malaysia the kiddie pool when compared to the rest of SE Asia, but still, not all taxis are trustworthy. First off, find a taxi driver who speaks English. All the ones who want to rip you off speak English, and they *will* randomly approach you if you look like a tourist. "Taxi?" You ask them if they "use meter?", but they will respond by asking you where you want to go. You tell them, and they give you a flat price, which is sometimes 3x or 4x what you should really pay. If you like the hassling, you can go with the whole bargaining thing. But us... we just move on. At some tourist locations, it's impossible to find an honest taxi driver at the location itself, either you just give in or you walk towards your destination until you find one. We would just walk.
All the taxi drivers like to ask "where you from?" since it's quite obvious we're not Malaysian. All the random people who speak English speak broken English and we ended up doing the same a lot of the time because they understood the broken version better. One "honest" taxi driver was very opinionated about the dishonest taxi drivers. He said they were mostly Indian and gave Malaysia a bad name; though I hate generalizations of this sort (the Indian part), it more or less turned out to be true :-/
First impressions... from the taxi ride... the different vegetation, the obviously oppressive heat, the many apartments and residences along the way (the really rundown ones vs. the newly built colorful ones...
...all in the exact same style), the non-working passenger seatbelts in taxis.
Our taxi ride from the airport to our hotel was uneventful *until* we got close to our hotel. Common sense hit #1. Our hotel was on Jalan Petaling (Petaling Street), the portion of which did not allow cars during most hours of the day. We did not know that. Our taxi was driving on Petaling St, hit the undrivable portion, turned left, and proceeded to look up and down the street for our hotel (this is now the street _perpendicular_ (sort of) to Petaling). It should have been obvious to us that this was incorrect. My assumption was the street was curved (in retrospect, ?!?!). Even after we got our KL map out, we were still not thinking. After the taxi drove around for quite a while, we saw one of the hotels marked on our map that seemed close to our hotel and just asked to get off. We then asked the receptionist at this other hotel for directions to _our_ hotel and walked from there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)