10 Day Budget Trip to Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur
- 21 June 2016 | 1480 Views | By Mint2Save
So, we had started the journey to Malaysia with 4000Ringgit and that included the tariff we had to pay for the resort at Langkawi.
Stage V: Kuala Lumpur: Life of South Asia
I am not going to describe about the local journey, however, the summation table at the end of the article, would include the local expenses (such as cabs to reach Delhi Airport, food at Delhi Airport etc. ). Here is what we did each day:
Day 0: Arrival to Malaysia: We took the Malindo OD-208 at 12:55 PM from New Delhi and Reached Kuala Lumpur at 20:50 PM ( as per Malaysia Time) . It was a pleasant flight, we were served hot and fresh vegetarian food and had access to in-flight entertainment. The flight attendant was very humble and was happy to help all the time.
On reaching Kuala Lumpur, I used the Wi-Fi to connect to the manager at Ohana Suites, got the number of the Car and voila! We are on the way to our stay. From the airport, it was a 55 minute drive to Ohana Suites and were charged 90MYR for the airport pickup.
Ohana Suites are a backpacker hostel facility having hi-tech and super comfortable staying options that vary from a dormitory to a suite. Located in the Taragon Square at Bukit Bintang Area, the place is close to Imbi Monorail station that directly connects to KL Sentral Station. This area never sleeps. There are clubs opened all night and so are the food marts and restaurants.
At Ohana Suites, you get classy accommodation with top class room service, but have to arrange for the food. You get a fully furnished kitchen, if you want to cook on own (more preferable for those who seek a long time stay). There is 24*7 store downstairs from where you can get all the necessary groceries and ready to eat food. At around 100m distance, there is a restaurant that serves fresh food all the time. We grabbed some juice, fruits and snacks and had back to the suite. On an average, buying these would cost anywhere from 10-12MYR and we bought them each day. So, for our 5 day stay, around 60 MYR was spend on regular supply of juice, fruits and snacks.
The 5 hour flight doesn’t put much of a jet lag, so getting a sleep wasn’t difficult for us.
Day 1: Feb 2, 2016 Malls and Extravaganza : After breakfast, some TV and calls to home (via WiFi), we started our day out to Kuala Lumpur at 11am and rushed into the Berjaya Times Square. The Berjaya Times Square is a 10 minute walk from the Suite and it is a huge mall. It is mixture of a grand hotel, some worldwide known restaurants and coffee houses, exquisite brands, indoor amusement park, unbranded fashion clothing and accessories stores (which you will love), electronic items and everything else you could imagine it to be.
We started the day with a visit to the mall and got caught in the fashion shopping. Interestingly, the word expensive or out of the budget doesn’t exist when you shop. The banners of “Fixed Price” are hanging everywhere but it seems justified. We bought a lot of casual clothing and accessories, almost 6-7 bags full, at 300MYR. In this price, also included is the price for my eyeglasses (which I left home, in India) and lenses for my wife. Around noon, we got hungry, and a sumptuous lunch and headed back to the Suite to keep the bags back and start again.
After the Berjaya, we headed to the magnificent Petronas Twin Towers: Reaching the twin towers was simple, take a cab and shell out around 12-14 MYR. The Twin Towers are a worthy enough to see and one of them has a mall too. But what made me feel bliss was presence of an outdoor cum indoor restaurant in front of it that served delicious Dosas.
Getting good and pocket easy food is never a problem in Kuala Lumpur.
Day 2: Feb 3, 2016 Batu Caves and Langkawi Tickets: This day was dedicated to travel to the Batu Caves. Thanks to the Google Maps, Tripadvisor, the plan was easily chalked out.
Catch a monorail towards from Imbi Station to KL Sentral and from KL sentral take a train to Batu Caves. The Tickets including return cost MYR 10.40 for two persons.
CHECK: Before going to Batu Caves, just make sure that you have enough water with you and clothes are light and lose.
Batu Caves is a place derived out of Hindu Mythological Epic, Ramayana. There are three large caves, out of which one is where you can see all the sculptures that detail about the epic ramayana. It is a must watch even if you haven’t been much into religion for the amazing art and detail.
The next cave can be reached by climbing 272 steps. It consists of two temples and has a lot of monkeys who do not disturb you at all until you mimic them or are eating an ice cream.
From Batu Caves, we headed back to KL Sentral to get our tickets for a train journey to Arau. Our plan was to get the train on 5th morning to reach Arau. From Arau, we were supposed to take a cab and reach to Kuala Perlis. From Kuala Perlis, a ferry ( semi-cruise sort of boat) runs that takes you to Langkawi. As per plan, it was supposed to be a 12 hour journey. The plan was rock solid and was nicely researched and it failed. Owing to occasion of Chinese New Year, all the trains heading to Arau were full. There was no seat left.
Helpless and confused, we asked the localites for a solution and instantly, we got two:
- Take a Bus to Kuala Perlis, or
- Take a Taxi to Kuala Perlis
Keeping low on budget, we decided to check out the buses and headed to Bandar Tasik Selatan, the standard bus stand. From KL Sentral, catch another train to get there. En route, I was feeling really excited as if we were on live travel show on Discovery. Anyways, upon reaching Bandar Tasik Selatan, we found that only 1 bus was available, which had only 2 seats left and was at 7 in the morning. 7am in Malaysian Timing would be around 4 am in India. However, lacking of any other options, we bought the tickets. The bus tickets cost us 50 MYR each. It was around 30 MYR cheaper than the train, and upon asking locals and ticket vendors, we came to know that the bus journey lets you explore the countryside of Malaysia and is very very comfortable. It was not easy to trust them as even Volvo fail miserably in India when it comes to comfort.
Tired after a really long day, we came back, ate and had a good sleep.