|
Kuala Lumpur, or KL as the locals refer to it, is a little like a reasonable man’s Singapore. You still have a bit of the glamour and glitz, if you want to find it, but seem to have a more common man’s town as well. Langkawi is an island northwest of the mainland, near the border of Thailand. A tropical resort island, with gorgeous beaches and scenery. We visited KL numerous times over the six years we lived in Brunei, Langkawi once, and other places within Malaysia as well. Our Malaysia trips on the island of Borneo are talked about in the “Borneo” tab. Highlights: #1 - Sunway Lagoon park and resort #2 - Trapeze at Club Med Cherating Beach #3 - Upgrade at the Langkawi Westin #4 - Petronas Towers and Park Lowlight: #5 - Missing USA flight connection at KL airport #1 - Sunway Lagoon park and resort - Sunway was bit of a city within a city. In the housing/hotel/entertainment/shopping complex were hotels, multiple amusements parks and a huge shopping mall. Our favorite place was the skating rink in the mall, which we always visited when we were there. #2 - Trapeze at Club Med Cherating Beach - We tried a Club Med vacation while living in Brunei, an all-inclusive family vacation, with housing, meals, entertainment all included. A bit like a cruise on land. In the tropical resorts in southeast Asia, they include trapeze as part of the entertainment package. Where else in the world can you go to get training and practice on an actual double trapeze? The first move you learned was hanging from your knees on the bar, and swinging to an arm catch on the other bar. I moved up through three or four levels of catches, thank you very much. #3 - Upgrade at the Langkawi Westin - Our trip to the Langkawi Westin was over Tera’s birthday, and we had reserved two hotel rooms, with no-view, not-connecting, pretty miserably situated. Normally I’m not too fussy about the room location, but in this instance, on Tera’s birthday, as it rained and we went inside to these dark claustrophic feeling rooms, Tera was pretty dissapointed. So I talked to the hotel manager, and got a discount on an upgrade, to their villa suite, 3 bedroom apartment with wraparound balcony, on the top floor. It was the first time we ever stayed in a super swanky hotel suite, and it was a lucky, sweet stay. #4 - Petronas Towers and Park - The iconic Petronas Towers are a sight to behold, at one time the tallest buildings in the world. Beneath them, there is a great little waterpark, which in the heat of the tropics is always a great place to be with kids. #5 - Missing USA flight connection at KL airport - Without a doubt, this was our worst travel experience. Our Air Asia flight from Brunei to KL was delayed by over 2 hours. Unfortunately, our connecting evening flight to the USA through Japan was on a different ticket, so we had no recourse if we missed the flight . . . . . which we did. They could do nothing for us at the airport, so at midnight, we got a cheap nearby airport hotel, and I got on the phone long-distance to the USA to talk the airline reservation desk to try to re-book 8 international tickets. It was a nightmare to make work, and the change fees and fare increases cost us almost as much as we paid for the tickets in the first place. At 4:00am I finally got off the phone with re-booked tickets in three days time. We spent those days at the Sunway Lagoon, which included some ice skating.
0 Comments
|
|