6 Feb. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
In Chiang Mai I got up early for the flight to Kuala Lumpur, but wasn’t sure about
how best to get to the airport. As it turned out, a songtaew taxi soon found me
and offered a ride for a good price. Although I found the airport too close to the
city when I did the meditation retreat because of the noise from aircraft taking
off, now I had the convenience of easily getting there! After checking in, I still
had a couple hours to wait, so walked about half a kilometer to a 7-11 to get breakfast
items. Air Asia Flight AK 855 took off into the cloudy skies at 9:10 a.m.
I had bought the ticket way back in October because I had already planned to attend
the retreat and needed to depart Thailand when my 30-day permit expired. The fare
was only 640 baht, but the airport tax was 700 baht, then with all the various fees
including baggage (also 640 baht!) and seat selection (120 baht) the total came
to 2240 baht ($67.73), still cheap for the nearly three-hour flight. I had a window
seat on the right, though views didn’t appear until over the Gulf of Thailand. Then
the Andaman coast appeared and I could make out Langkawi and Penang islands, places
I plan to visit later in this trip. On my last visit to Kuala Lumpur, in November
2014, I had taken the speedy but pricy express train from the airport to city center.
This time I went on the airport bus, which was fine and much cheaper.
On arrival at KL Sentral, a major transit center, I decided to walk to my Airbnb
host, an Indian family from Kerala who live high in the Jalan Tebing 633 Residency.
My route went through Brickfields, one of the Indian districts of Kuala Lumpur,
and I spotted several promising Indian restaurants that I intended to return to.
It’s rare for me to stay in high-rises because they tend to be costly, but this
was only $17.49/night with fees and had a fabulous city view including the famous
451.9-meter twin Petronas Towers and the lofty 420-meter communications tower Menara
Kuala Lumpur. I had booked the room for just two nights, as I planned to make a
side trip to the huge Taman Negara, which translates to ‘National Park’!
7 Feb. Kuala LumpurOn a partly cloudy day, I made the longish walk to KL Bird Park
www.klbirdpark.com/ in Kuala Lumpur Lake
Gardens. About 3000 birds live here, mostly in giant walk-in aviaries, and they
are so accustomed to human visitors that they pay little heed to us! Most of the
200 species come from Asia and include spectacular birds like hornbills, flamingos,
peacocks, and colorful members of the parrot family. Emus from Australia and kangaroos
from Africa strut in their own enclosures. It’s a dream for photographers, and I
took hundreds of snaps. Sometimes I could get so close to the birds that I didn’t
even need a telephoto lens. I also watched the feeding of brahminy kites and a silly
bird show. The park is a bit pricy at RM67 ($17.10), but well worth it to explore
the many areas.
Back to beginning of Southeast Asia Backpacking Jan.-April 2018