Would you believe that despite having lived in Singers for 3 years, I had never made it to KL? Shocking, absolutely shocking! Especially since it’s so close (a 40-50 min plane ride) and tickets are oh-so-stupidly cheap. I have no excuses. But hey! At least now I can say I have been there, although admittedly there is more to KL than just our hotel room and walking down to Bukit Bintan for dinner.
The funny part of our night was our taxi ride from the train station to the hotel. You have to pay for the taxi first and you get two choices: budget or premium. Based on the pictures provided above the stall, a “budget” cab was just a normal 4-door sedan and looked good enough for me. Plus, I wasn’t sure how much cabs cost in KL so I skimped out and went for the budget option. I paid up and we walked outside, bags in tow. Surveying the scene, the premium cabs were essentially mini-vans, so I guess if you’re in group of people and have numerous bags, then go premium, baby! And what I presumed to be the budget cabs were as I expected. Except for one. There was one cab that was a hideous shade of green-yellow and looked like it was standing on its last legs.
The attendant took our voucher just then. He quickly glanced at it and pointed us towards our cab. I did a double-take and hesitated. You have go to be kidding me! Yep, you guessed it. We were assigned the yellow-green cab. Oh well, what could we do? We walked over with our bags and the cab driver came out to help us put our bags in the trunk, but not before taking out some bungee cords. At that point, I wasn’t quite sure what they were meant for but my question was soon answered. He loaded our bags in the trunk and as they were too big (sheesh! how small was his trunk?!?!) and used the bungee cords to keep it closed. I really wished I had taken a picture, but I didn’t want to offend the cab driver.
The cab ride ended up being quite entertaining, he was quite the character and was enthralled with B’s southern accent. Apparently he grew up watching Westerns and was a big John Wayne fan, even did some pretty bang on impersonations! To cap it off, we could hardly keep from laughing as we watched the expressions of the bell boys when we rocked up to the Trader’s Hotel. They kept it in check, for the most part; and took it in stride that we weren’t in some fancy car. Damn, so wish I had a picture to show you guys!
The hotel kindly upgraded our room to a higher level and as we settled into our room, I opened the curtains and I was greeted with a majestic view. We had amazing, unblocked views of the Petronas Towers. I had told B that as we didn’t have much time in KL that first night, all I really wanted to do/see was the Towers. And what does he do? He booked us in the hotel with the best views of the Towers in town! Love this man!! I mean, the pictures don’t do it justice at all.
After taking a few pictures from the luxury of our room, we freshened up and headed towards the Bukit Bintan area. This part of town is where you’ll find loads of restaurants and bars and that is exactly what we were after. We were searching for Pisco Bar, recommended by my friends here, but we didn’t manage to find it. I think we walked the opposite way once we got to that area. Ooops! Oh well. We walked around there and it was pretty lively. Although to be honest, that strip of restaurants and bars kind of reminded me of being in the Algarve or Patong, where its a bunch of somewhat seedy bars aimed at Westerners. Can be fun, but.. Wasn’t in the mood. We settled for a quieter place called Opium instead.
After dinner, we ran back to the hotel, the rain was pissing it down and we were too cheap to buy umbrellas. We wanted to check out the Skybar at our hotel, but the rain had other plans. So, that was our cue to call it a night as the next day, we had a plane to catch!
