Malaysia – Truly Asia
A trip abroad is something that always holds untold excitement; no matter how many times somebody has crossed the shores of the country. So it was, with me when I had an opportunity to visit Malaysia on work last week. That this was only my second visit abroad only added to the exhilaration.
The journey began on a not so interesting note with the flight getting delayed by about half an hour. This allowed us an opportunity to check out the duty free shop at the Bangalore airport. I was to later on realize the importance of that short visit, because it provided me with a perspective of how far we need to go, to catch up with international standards of the sort signified by the KL International Airport.
The journey to Malaysia, all of four and a half hours was pleasant, but ended up tiring us on arrival since Malaysia is about 2.5 hours ahead of us. We landed at 4.30 A.M. IST, but it was already 7.00 A.M. there, leaving us with virtually no sleep that entire night. We were welcomed with bountiful rain on our arrival to Malaysia and a huge strike of lightning just before landing, woke us up from what ever little sleep we had managed.
The Kuala Lampur International Airport is a mega airport with separate arrival and departure terminals. The duty free shops at the arrival lounge stock virtually every big brand possible and the team decided to stock up on their bit of cigs and alcohol, while I decided to check out the place a bit more. There was a raffle going on with the big prize being a Mercedes and I decided to try my hand at that.
Post this shopping spree, it was time to move on to the immigration counter. One needs to take the in-house mono rail to reach the immigration counter from the arrival lounge. A short 5 minute journey landed us at a huge immigration counter.
What hit me instantly was that fact that every one of these counters was manned by ladies with their heads covered in scarves. Malaysia is largely an Islamic country with a mix of ethnic Malays, Chinese and Indians, forming the core of the population. With Islam being the major religion, I was under the impression that it might be a conservative society, but they seemed to be ahead of some of their more established brethren in terms of women’s rights and liberation.
The immigration counters, the toll booths around the country, the entry counters across museums, every one of them was manned (or womanned!!) by women, a pleasant surprise to all of us.
The immigration over and our baggage having arrived in a jiffy, it was time to hit the roads on our way to the famous Genting Highlands, about 70 kilometres from KL. A large six lane highway takes one to the Highlands. The immediate equivalent I could think of was that it was like driving to Ooty or Kodaikanal in India. While the drive to Ootyis not as comfortable, it is definitely more enjoyable, given that a large part of the natural landscape has been left untouched. In comparison, while the journey to the Highlands is wonderfully comfortable, the drive is definitely not even close to as enjoyable given that the entire stretch feels largely man made with very specific landscape work all along the drive. It takes out the natural ‘feel’ and seems very monotonous.
Spread across a large expanse 6000 feet above sea level, The Genting Higlands houses accommodation for different budget visitors, right from 5 star hotels to 3 star hotels. The Theme Park Hotel that we were staying in housed a theme park attached to it.
It is a wonder how these rides manage to bring out the kid in you. The various rides bought back memories of childhood when the annual exhibition in RBANMS grounds would be something that we would look forward to eagerly every year. I spent close to three hours enjoying every possible ride and leaving the really daring ones behind for another day.
The place also houses what is arguable one of the largest casinos this side of the planet and the walk through, at 3 in the morning, was quite nice and enjoyable, a far cry from the dumb casino off Goa’s coast.
It was quite amusing to see people active and kicking at 4 in the morning in the casino as was the sight of quite a few ‘die-hard’ gamers spending their nights sleeping right in front of their gaming screens!!!
This was followed by a stopover at one of the 24 hr discos around the place, a quick peek through some nice 24 hr shopping arcades and a dash to the hotel room to catch some sleep before hitting the road at 6 in the morning.
Two days in the highlands savoring the beautiful weather and then the cable car ride down to the plains as the icing on the cake. This was THE best part of the tour. The cable car journey in Genting takes you through thick dense Mediterranean type forests and is the longest in South East Asia. It takes a full 30 minutes to reach the plains and is as exhilarating as exhilarating can be!
Alongside providing a breathtaking view of the mountains, it also cuts the distance from the top to the bottom of the hills by a cool couple of hours. And the fact that we traveled when it was drizzling made the spectacle seem even more magical.
And then it was on to KL. The drive to KL takes one past the famous Batu caves, that houses a revered Hindu temple, that of Lord Murugan. The Thaipusam is celebrated with grandeur here and it is an event that a lot of the local Indians as well as visitors keenly look forward to.
The roads leading upto the city house what look like a row of low class apartments and an immediate thought that came to mind was that of the Chawls in Mumbai. These are apparently where most of the working class resides and they bear an uncanny resemblance to some of the low end localities that you would find in any of the bustling cities in our country.
The downtown emerges imposingly in the background with the Petronas Twin Towers taking pride of place. It is difficult to miss the twin towers from anywhere in the city.
We checked into Hotel Corus at around 4 in the afternoon and immediately were out of our rooms to catch a glimpse of the city. Given the fact that our Hotel was situated diagonally opposite the twin towers, our first destination was the beautiful Suriya KLCC Mall at the base of the twin towers. This mall has all of four floors and houses virtually every possible big name brand from around the world. The shopping centre leads out onto a large park, approximately the size of Cubbon Park and also has a public swimming pool to boot. Unfortunately the couple of hours spent in the mall left us with no time to check the park out and given the incessant rains, we decided to head back to the Hotel for an early dinner.
After dinner, three of us decided to get a bit adventurous and decided to do a recce of the night life in KL. We were already told by our very well informed driver – Hari Krishnan – that KL’s nightlife is something worth checking out, but were not prepared for the assault that we faced outside one of the well known clubs in the city, the Beach Club.
While were out just for a walk, with no intentions, whatsoever, of getting inside any of the tens of clubs that lined that particular road, we were in for a big surprise, something we did not particular enjoy. Outside every club, we were hounded by touts who spoke to us in chaste Hindi and offered us ‘services’ of every kind possible! It was time to take to our heels and off we went, back to our rooms. We were to learn later on that this is normal occurrence and that the touts are hand-in-glove with prostitutes, who have migrated from mainland China.
The next day called for an early breakfast and we left the hotel at 9 in the morning to catch the 10 A.M. opening of the shopping malls in the city.
Malaysia is celebrating 2007 as the year of tourism and it is hard to miss the fact anywhere in the city. A glimpse of the fun and frolic that promises to accompany this celebration is visible trough out the city, with the metro, the monorail coaches, the buses, the concrete columns around the city, etc. being painted in bright colors communicating the festival to the tourists.
A set of 6 or 7 malls in a place called Butik Pintang is supposedly the best place to shop for everything in KL. We were not let down and ended up buying some stuff from a complex called Sungei Wang. We rushed back to the hotel at 12 in the morning since we had to check out. Once this was done, I decided to take a trip up the Petronas Towers before heading to the airport in the evening.
One needs to pick up a ticket (which is free, incidentally) to reach the Sky Bridge, which is situated on the 42nd floor of the Tower The bridge connects the twin towers and has a wonderful view of the city. This is about as far as one can go if he is a visitor. Given that only a limited number of tickets are given out everyday, I was not too hopeful of picking up one and grudged the fact that I might return from KL without seeing the Petronas towers. Luckily, my colleagues who had gone their earlier had bought tickets from me as well.
The façade of the twin towers is made up completely of steel and glass and is quite imposing for a first time visitor. The sky bridge that connects the 2 towers was built as an emergency exit in case of any mishap in either of the 2 buildings. The two towers have 84 floors each in all. Two high speed lifts take the passengers to the 42nd floor in less than 27 seconds.
The sky bridge provides a bird’s eye view of the entire city and one is allowed to take pictures and stroll around the bridge for about 10 minutes at the max, after which you are escorted back to the basement of the building.
The Petronas Twin Towers lost the tag of being the tallest towers very recently, but still retain the tag of being the tallest ‘twin’ towers in the world.
It is understandable why the Malays are so passionate about the grand building. Incidentally, the twin towers have an interesting Indian connection. The land on which it is built was owned by a Keralite and he sold off the land to the Government-owned Petronas Gas when he was requested to do so. Petronas, the Malaysian equivalent of our ONGC, has its main offices situated in these towers and is bustling with life at any given hour.
After the visit to the Petronas which lasted close to an hour, we decided that we better head off to the airport early to catch our flight later in the night, especially given that the city looked like it was getting ready to receive another pounding of rain shortly. Our experience with driving in Bangalore during rain had us worried, but we were to be proved wrong. The drive to the airport, about 72 kms away, took us less than an hour approximately (in heavy rain).
Once in and the immigration procedures through, it was time to board our long flight back to India. The Malaysian trip had ended, but not before I got a parting gift from the country in the form of a bad cold!!!
PS: If somebody has had the patience to have gone through this loooong page, thanks a ton. For those of you, who haven’t had the patience, and understandably so, I promise to get back to smaller posts in future. This post was done to help me relive my moments at a later date.
Some pics from the trip…. http://www.flickr.com/photos/8410933@N04/
The journey began on a not so interesting note with the flight getting delayed by about half an hour. This allowed us an opportunity to check out the duty free shop at the Bangalore airport. I was to later on realize the importance of that short visit, because it provided me with a perspective of how far we need to go, to catch up with international standards of the sort signified by the KL International Airport.
The journey to Malaysia, all of four and a half hours was pleasant, but ended up tiring us on arrival since Malaysia is about 2.5 hours ahead of us. We landed at 4.30 A.M. IST, but it was already 7.00 A.M. there, leaving us with virtually no sleep that entire night. We were welcomed with bountiful rain on our arrival to Malaysia and a huge strike of lightning just before landing, woke us up from what ever little sleep we had managed.
The Kuala Lampur International Airport is a mega airport with separate arrival and departure terminals. The duty free shops at the arrival lounge stock virtually every big brand possible and the team decided to stock up on their bit of cigs and alcohol, while I decided to check out the place a bit more. There was a raffle going on with the big prize being a Mercedes and I decided to try my hand at that.
Post this shopping spree, it was time to move on to the immigration counter. One needs to take the in-house mono rail to reach the immigration counter from the arrival lounge. A short 5 minute journey landed us at a huge immigration counter.
What hit me instantly was that fact that every one of these counters was manned by ladies with their heads covered in scarves. Malaysia is largely an Islamic country with a mix of ethnic Malays, Chinese and Indians, forming the core of the population. With Islam being the major religion, I was under the impression that it might be a conservative society, but they seemed to be ahead of some of their more established brethren in terms of women’s rights and liberation.
The immigration counters, the toll booths around the country, the entry counters across museums, every one of them was manned (or womanned!!) by women, a pleasant surprise to all of us.
The immigration over and our baggage having arrived in a jiffy, it was time to hit the roads on our way to the famous Genting Highlands, about 70 kilometres from KL. A large six lane highway takes one to the Highlands. The immediate equivalent I could think of was that it was like driving to Ooty or Kodaikanal in India. While the drive to Ootyis not as comfortable, it is definitely more enjoyable, given that a large part of the natural landscape has been left untouched. In comparison, while the journey to the Highlands is wonderfully comfortable, the drive is definitely not even close to as enjoyable given that the entire stretch feels largely man made with very specific landscape work all along the drive. It takes out the natural ‘feel’ and seems very monotonous.
Spread across a large expanse 6000 feet above sea level, The Genting Higlands houses accommodation for different budget visitors, right from 5 star hotels to 3 star hotels. The Theme Park Hotel that we were staying in housed a theme park attached to it.
It is a wonder how these rides manage to bring out the kid in you. The various rides bought back memories of childhood when the annual exhibition in RBANMS grounds would be something that we would look forward to eagerly every year. I spent close to three hours enjoying every possible ride and leaving the really daring ones behind for another day.
The place also houses what is arguable one of the largest casinos this side of the planet and the walk through, at 3 in the morning, was quite nice and enjoyable, a far cry from the dumb casino off Goa’s coast.
It was quite amusing to see people active and kicking at 4 in the morning in the casino as was the sight of quite a few ‘die-hard’ gamers spending their nights sleeping right in front of their gaming screens!!!
This was followed by a stopover at one of the 24 hr discos around the place, a quick peek through some nice 24 hr shopping arcades and a dash to the hotel room to catch some sleep before hitting the road at 6 in the morning.
Two days in the highlands savoring the beautiful weather and then the cable car ride down to the plains as the icing on the cake. This was THE best part of the tour. The cable car journey in Genting takes you through thick dense Mediterranean type forests and is the longest in South East Asia. It takes a full 30 minutes to reach the plains and is as exhilarating as exhilarating can be!
Alongside providing a breathtaking view of the mountains, it also cuts the distance from the top to the bottom of the hills by a cool couple of hours. And the fact that we traveled when it was drizzling made the spectacle seem even more magical.
And then it was on to KL. The drive to KL takes one past the famous Batu caves, that houses a revered Hindu temple, that of Lord Murugan. The Thaipusam is celebrated with grandeur here and it is an event that a lot of the local Indians as well as visitors keenly look forward to.
The roads leading upto the city house what look like a row of low class apartments and an immediate thought that came to mind was that of the Chawls in Mumbai. These are apparently where most of the working class resides and they bear an uncanny resemblance to some of the low end localities that you would find in any of the bustling cities in our country.
The downtown emerges imposingly in the background with the Petronas Twin Towers taking pride of place. It is difficult to miss the twin towers from anywhere in the city.
We checked into Hotel Corus at around 4 in the afternoon and immediately were out of our rooms to catch a glimpse of the city. Given the fact that our Hotel was situated diagonally opposite the twin towers, our first destination was the beautiful Suriya KLCC Mall at the base of the twin towers. This mall has all of four floors and houses virtually every possible big name brand from around the world. The shopping centre leads out onto a large park, approximately the size of Cubbon Park and also has a public swimming pool to boot. Unfortunately the couple of hours spent in the mall left us with no time to check the park out and given the incessant rains, we decided to head back to the Hotel for an early dinner.
After dinner, three of us decided to get a bit adventurous and decided to do a recce of the night life in KL. We were already told by our very well informed driver – Hari Krishnan – that KL’s nightlife is something worth checking out, but were not prepared for the assault that we faced outside one of the well known clubs in the city, the Beach Club.
While were out just for a walk, with no intentions, whatsoever, of getting inside any of the tens of clubs that lined that particular road, we were in for a big surprise, something we did not particular enjoy. Outside every club, we were hounded by touts who spoke to us in chaste Hindi and offered us ‘services’ of every kind possible! It was time to take to our heels and off we went, back to our rooms. We were to learn later on that this is normal occurrence and that the touts are hand-in-glove with prostitutes, who have migrated from mainland China.
The next day called for an early breakfast and we left the hotel at 9 in the morning to catch the 10 A.M. opening of the shopping malls in the city.
Malaysia is celebrating 2007 as the year of tourism and it is hard to miss the fact anywhere in the city. A glimpse of the fun and frolic that promises to accompany this celebration is visible trough out the city, with the metro, the monorail coaches, the buses, the concrete columns around the city, etc. being painted in bright colors communicating the festival to the tourists.
A set of 6 or 7 malls in a place called Butik Pintang is supposedly the best place to shop for everything in KL. We were not let down and ended up buying some stuff from a complex called Sungei Wang. We rushed back to the hotel at 12 in the morning since we had to check out. Once this was done, I decided to take a trip up the Petronas Towers before heading to the airport in the evening.
One needs to pick up a ticket (which is free, incidentally) to reach the Sky Bridge, which is situated on the 42nd floor of the Tower The bridge connects the twin towers and has a wonderful view of the city. This is about as far as one can go if he is a visitor. Given that only a limited number of tickets are given out everyday, I was not too hopeful of picking up one and grudged the fact that I might return from KL without seeing the Petronas towers. Luckily, my colleagues who had gone their earlier had bought tickets from me as well.
The façade of the twin towers is made up completely of steel and glass and is quite imposing for a first time visitor. The sky bridge that connects the 2 towers was built as an emergency exit in case of any mishap in either of the 2 buildings. The two towers have 84 floors each in all. Two high speed lifts take the passengers to the 42nd floor in less than 27 seconds.
The sky bridge provides a bird’s eye view of the entire city and one is allowed to take pictures and stroll around the bridge for about 10 minutes at the max, after which you are escorted back to the basement of the building.
The Petronas Twin Towers lost the tag of being the tallest towers very recently, but still retain the tag of being the tallest ‘twin’ towers in the world.
It is understandable why the Malays are so passionate about the grand building. Incidentally, the twin towers have an interesting Indian connection. The land on which it is built was owned by a Keralite and he sold off the land to the Government-owned Petronas Gas when he was requested to do so. Petronas, the Malaysian equivalent of our ONGC, has its main offices situated in these towers and is bustling with life at any given hour.
After the visit to the Petronas which lasted close to an hour, we decided that we better head off to the airport early to catch our flight later in the night, especially given that the city looked like it was getting ready to receive another pounding of rain shortly. Our experience with driving in Bangalore during rain had us worried, but we were to be proved wrong. The drive to the airport, about 72 kms away, took us less than an hour approximately (in heavy rain).
Once in and the immigration procedures through, it was time to board our long flight back to India. The Malaysian trip had ended, but not before I got a parting gift from the country in the form of a bad cold!!!
PS: If somebody has had the patience to have gone through this loooong page, thanks a ton. For those of you, who haven’t had the patience, and understandably so, I promise to get back to smaller posts in future. This post was done to help me relive my moments at a later date.
Some pics from the trip…. http://www.flickr.com/photos/8410933@N04/
posted by Shree at
7:42 PM
9 Comments:
I never knew Malaysia was a Islamic Country
Will look for a job that requires me at the "immigration counter".
and thirdly....you've talked about holidaying all through, was this a short holiday or a business trip? I am asking this as I find no mention of any business activity :-)
Karthik..leave that to your imagination..Luckily I seem to have a job that allows me to holiday in the midst of work..;)
Great description :) and yes i did go thru the whole thing. U can test me if u want ;)
rafiki..oh yeah?? Well.. trust you..& Thanks..should I question you on the pictures btw ;)??
You want to go ahead...
Nope...am happy even if somebody just claims to have gone thru...that makes my day :)
A very long enrtry indeed ! But seems like a great trip !!!!! Any news abt the Mercedes ????
@Kumu..Very clever..read a couple of paras and pose a question.:)
Btw..I dont have great luck with raffles..so the Mercedes remains a dream..
Well , just to be called Clever , I will deny that I read the entire entry.:)
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home