Okay so yes, this will be a long one. Was going to try make it short and sweet but guess what? I'm a waffler and love Bali so much that I can't do it any other way. Bear with me and I'll try to make it enjoyable :)
Oh and this part is also just about our KL leg so if you're not interested, no point reading on...
This was our first trip with friends, other times we've gone over have been with family or just the two of us. It was my fourth trip, OH's third, our friends; B's second and J's first time to Bali and out of the country. We haven't been to Bali since September 2006 and in the mean time had done the whole working holiday in Europe thing. It was funny to see our tattered, 'well-loved' passports with threads hanging off be passed in with our friends nice crisp and flat passports.
So first time that we've booked everything ourselves, or more to the point first time 'I' booked everything 'myself', OH only started asking questions re: insurance, what hotels etc a few days before we flew out! We booked in July as we got cheap flights and accom however as it turned out Air Asia scrapped the fuel levy since, we didn't pay our accom up front (just a deposit) and as it was in US dollars was 30 odd% more in Feb than in July AND one of the hotels had put their prices down! All in all though I think we did okay. It just goes to show that booking earlier is NOT always cheaper!
Anyhow, our holiday took us first to KL for four nights with Air Asia, then to Legian for 7 nights. B and J then returned home and we spent a further night in Lovina and 4 nights in Ubud. I know KL isn't in Bali but I will include our trip there in this JBR as overall it was a holiday to Bali, we just took the long route!
We were supposed to be going over with another couple, Bali virgins as well however they bailed on us and gave birth to twins a week before we flew out....excuses excuses! So it was just the 4 of us. Our flight left Perth on time, we'd booked our seats just in case the plane was full and we couldn't sit together. We needn't have bothered, we had 2 whole rows to ourselves at the back. The staff on AirAsia were fantastic, nothing was too much bother. Only gripe would be the aircon was so incredibly cold we sat there literally too cold to sleep for most of our trip. We'd ordered meals as well and they were fine, what you'd expect for a budget airline. We arrived in KL about half an hour earlier than schedule. Breezed through immigration and customs (what customs?) and booked a taxi at the stand. Taxi cost us 90 MYR to the city centre. If there were just 2 of you or you had no luggage you could go the budget taxi which would cost less. We had booked through Agoda at the Swiss Garden Inn. We're very happy with the hotel, breakfast was fantastic, staff were wonderful and the building site that our rooms looked onto was a great source of enertainment when we weren't out and about.
We decided to take the plunge and eat on the street the first night as everything I'd read about KL raved about the street food. We were just around the corner from Jalan Alor which apparently is one of the last original 'eat' streets in KL. It was really weird eating off the street because usually when travelling it is a big no-no but here, they are all very hygienic and it really is the best way to try local foods. We ate well although made the mistake of ordering a Penang dish which of course being in KL was crap. Other nights we ate Dim Sum on Jalan Alor and in Chinatown. Chinatown was definitely are place of choice to eat. We had the BEST chinese there. We ate A LOT(would have rolled home but didn't want to damage the handbags we'd bought) and it didn't leave us with that overfilled, yukky feeling that eating chinese at home does. Not sure what it was but we'd definitely do it again. We also ate at a fantastic vegetarian Indian restaurant in Little India. Little India itself was pretty boring, well the parts that we saw were anyway but the food at this restaurant (only proper restaurant we went to) was fantastic, even B, strictly a meat and 3 veg guy, enjoyed it. He also came around to eating noodles and rice every night....not that he had a choice in KL mind you. The shopping in KL was actually disappointing. We went to a few shopping centres and while they were massive they seemed to have the same stores on each level and some levels had hardly any shops open. The street markets sold loads of the usual guff (handbags, wallets, belts, sunnies, etc) and we thought they were much better quality than what you get in Bali. Us girls bought a couple of bags each and had to barter SO hard to get them for 45 MYR (about AU$18) each! We were happy to pay about $20 each as they are VERY good quality but this guy was really peed off at having to sell them at that price. We figured he didn't HAVE to say yes did he? Not sure if it was all an act or if we did get a really good price. We were happy anyhow. Our KL leg became more about the food than the shopping in the end. And boy did we chow down some food!
Another big thing we did while we were there was visit the Batu Caves during the Hindu festival of Thaipusam. Batu Caves are a naturally forming set of caves just outside of KL that are now a Hindu Shrine. There are 280 odd steps to the caves and they are marked by a ginormous gold statue. So the festival is over a few days and is marks both the birthday of the youngest son of Shiva and Parvati. Devotees go on a pilgramage to the shrine as an act of devotion. A lot of them also shave their heads and carry offerings up the steps. Apparently some of the hard core devotees even peirce their body. We didn't see any peircing but walking from the carpark to the entrance we saw loads of people having their heads shaved. There was hair everywhere and sooo many people. Once we got the entrance (of the festival not the caves) there was Bollywood music blaring and even more people. It was the hottest day we'd had yet and surrounded by so many people were literally dripping with sweat but it was such an awesome atmoshosphere. We were also almost the only Westerners there. We've got amazing pictures of the steps from a distance just crammed with people. We read in the paper the next day that the day we went there were approximately 1.7 million people there! Crikey! So glad we went though, it was an awesome experience. We didn't climb the steps but just wandered around for a while (slow moving with that many people).
All in all, we really enjoyed our 4 days in KL. It was the perfect amount of time. Long enough to comfortably do everything we'd planned but not so long that we were itching to move on. We also went up the Petronas Towers which I guess is a tick the box kind of thing. It was good, we ticked the box, took some photos and won't need to do it next time but recommend it for your first trip to KL. I'd like to go again, mainly for the food. I'd like to take a list of things to try over there. The food really is amazing, and so cheap. All 4 of us would have a BIG meal plus beers and softies for around AU$20 - AU$30.
Next part ... Bali