I’m not sure we actually got to see Kuala Lumpur at its best. We only had a night’s stopover in the city and the following day was consumed with picking up tickets and making accommodation arrangements. But I think it is safe to say, in this instance, that our journey into Kuala Lumpur (and getting around the city itself) was almost as long and arduous as our journey out of KL!
- Our journey from Singapore
We booked our train tickets from Singapore to KL, online by email. We were really impressed with the speed at which our booking was processed so I think this lured us into a false sense of security about the ease of everything else. We had to pick our tickets up the day before we were due to depart. So, on our second day in Singapore we headed over to the train station. Unfortunately, when we arrived we were told there had been a derailment a few days before and all trains had been cancelled. So we were told to call up the following day to check if our train was running and then, if it was, to pick our tickets just before the departure time. So we did and thankfully, it was.
We arrived to a bit of mayhem in the station, it was really busy. The first obstacle was picking up our tickets. We had to explain a few times (to a couple of different people) that we had reservations, we just needed our tickets. It finally transpired that if you don’t pick up your tickets the day before, your reservations are released (even though this wasn’t possible!).
After showing our frustration and a bit of back and forth, the ticket officer managed to “pull some strings” and get us a seat on the “fully booked train”, which now involved switching between two trains and a bus, an after affect of the derailment.
Not to worry though. The first train journey was pretty smooth, as was the connecting bus transfer to Kluang.
Our main problem was actually self-inflicted – because we had to get up early to call about the train and factor in some time for waiting in the ticket collection cue, we ran out of time to buy any breakfast or snacks for the six hour train journey! We also only had Singapore Dollars on us, so even when the train stopped sporadically, for lengthy periods of time, we couldn’t get off to buy anything (we crossed over the Malaysia border about 10 minutes into our train journey).
On arriving at Kluang, we were told our train was on the opposite platform. We made our way over to the pedestrian bridge to cross over, but instantly noticed that the locals just jumped over the train tracks to get to the other side (young and old alike, they were fearless!). We stuck to the bridge.
Once on the train we were moved three or four times by the train conductor (it was also at this point that we noticed an abundance of free seats on the train; no sign of it being “fully booked”). To be fair, he was trying to do us a favour, as he was keen to have us sit in an air conditioned seat, however, we soon realised that we were mostly warm and overheated from all the moving and lugging our bags around!
We did, however, get moved to first class, which appeared to be exactly the same as second class, only the seats were red and they were playing a muted version of Harry Potter on a small screen.
After a while the scenery started to lose its gripping appeal and we just couldn’t wait to arrive in KL. We stopped at so many places en route (for undetermined amounts of time) i’m not sure the stops were really offical, so we didn’t dare get off the train to stretch our legs, just in case. Some, confident locals did though and came back with purchases of fresh fruit and juice bags from little stalls. The fruit juice bags seem to be in sandwich bags with a little straw inside and a handle. I remember Laura and Katie telling us about these when they visited South America. One woman came back on the train with a bag of brown liquid, it really looked like cold gravy and from the look on her face while she was drinking it, I think it probably tasted like it too.
- Arriving in the city
We finally arrived in KL (eight hours later), thirsty and hungry around 5pm in the evening. We grabbed a quick bite to eat before looking up the route to our hostel. It said it was in easy walking distance of the station, so we planned to head there, dump our stuff and then walk back to the station to book our train ticket for the following day. Unfortunately, an hour later and after two stops for drinks, we were still nowhere near. We quickly found that navigating around KL was very difficult due to the different roads/traffic and lack of crossings. We stopped to try and get a taxi but even the taxi driver said it was too difficult to get to, so wouldn’t take us! After some more walking we finally found a route from the bus station at the bottom of the station. By 7.30pm we were in our hostel crashed out on our bed!
The hostel itself was fantastic. It was called the POD hostel, so we imagined we’d be sleeping in small sleeping cubicles, but it in fact it was just short for “peas in a pod” and this theme was obvious throughout the building (lots of lovely bright green walls and chairs too). Like the other rooms, our bedroom consisted of a raised platform on the floor with a mattress on it and no ceiling. It was to encourage a “zen like” feeling throughout the place. I think it just saved electricity really, as they had very little in the way of lights! Still, it was a funky little place with the nicest staff. We spent the evening planning our onward route to Bangkok over a couple of beers.
- Leaving the city
We needed to stock up on a few different currencies for our onward journey to Bangkok namely US dollars and some Thai Bat. We were a little alarmed to realise that at one point, there was an armed guard with a pump action shot gun standing directly behind us (we weren’t sure if he was there for our protection or the staff! A similar guard stood near train station ATMs).
In the end we opted for a bus from KL to Butterworth (our next destination) as the train times were a little awkward. The bus was much cheaper (about £8 each) and was actually quicker than the train in the end (about 4.5 hours).
Booking the ticket and paying for it online was absolutely fine, our next hurdle came when we had to pick it up.
We had to get the subway to the main bus station in the city. We are pretty confident using subways now, having done so with ease in America and Singapore but this subway unstuck us a bit. It seemed just as complicated and confusing as walking around KL so it took us a little longer than expected. This, I think, was due to the fact that competing subway companies don’t allow you to travel on different lines without continually buying different tickets. Anyway, when we got to the bus station, we made our way up to the ticket offices on the fourth floor.
As soon as we entered we were confronted by dozens of ticket touts trying to sell us tickets on their buses, all bidding for our business and as soon as they realised we had tickets already they didn’t want to know. We made our way through and finally found the counter to pick up our ticket. A short while later, after running around to find our platform (we were running really late – despite giving ourselves two hours travel time for a distance of around one mile), we made it on to our bus!
The bus was fantastic. It was classed as an “executive” standard, which is what your advised to look out for when you book a bus over here as it means it’s clean and a bit comfier. The seats were massive and reclined right back and the air conditioning was chilling. It was a great journey to Butterworth.
We did read, before booking our ticket, that buses can leave passengers behind during rest stops and in fact, we did witness this a couple of times during our journey, when we realised there were a lot of jackets and belongings left on the bus. So we decided to play it safe and stay on the bus throughout!
We arrived at the ferry terminal in Butterworth at around 8.30pm and after a little bit of a wait (in a huge pen with about 80 other people) we arrived on the island of Penang. The ferry is amazingly cheap (it works out at around 24p for a return trip) and we had great views of the Butterworth and Penang skylines at night. The only downside is (as with the trains) the ferries don’t seem to run to their set timetables. The Penang ferry is meant to be every 20 minutes, but it was more like every hour and seems to run on a schedule of “we’ll leave when we’re full”. Still, at that price, and with those views, you can’t really complain.
When we arrived in Penang, we were a bit wary about getting a taxi to our hotel. We had heard that a lot of haggling was usually required and we were too tired to bother! In addition to this, we only had about 17 Malaysian Ringgit on us (which is about £3). However, while waiting in the taxi cue we met a nice old taxi driver who agreed to take us to our hotel for 15 Ringgit. He was a really friendly chap and really interested to speak to us about Scotland. Apparently we don’t sound anything like Sean Connery though!
We finally reached our hotel at 10pm and crashed out on our bed!
