Beginning the Work in Kuala Lumpur

We arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, KLIA, on Tuesday afternoon and the tropical heat was on us. From there we opted for a coach service, which although slower than the train was cheaper and we didn’t have to worry about finding our way to our small guest house. The house was located in Bukit Bintang, a busy, quite touristy area. There were many small stores and food carts, as well as fancier tourist hang-out places. And according to Wikipedia there are over 10 shopping malls only in this area.

The guest house we stayed in, Traveller’s Palm, was close to all the action but on a more quiet side street. It was recommended to us by a friend, and we were quite happy with our choice, mainly due to the warm-hearted owner and the friendly atmosphere. And the 4-year old daughter of the owner, who kept us entertained with her endless energy. The guest house had a nice small yard with some benches to sit on and to enjoy the basic breakfast served. In our room we had a shower (water pressure left something to hope for), while the toilet facilities were shared with other guests. There was air conditioning during the night which made sleeping easier in the otherwise hot and humid climate. One thing we did not have was windows, which meant we had to put our alarm clock on to wake up on a reasonable hour. Didn’t do this the first night, and woke up after 1pm which messed up our inner clocks for the next few days.

Food and shopping. These seem to be the main attractions in the city and we took advantage at least of the food part, trying out different Asian cuisines and letting our taste buds celebrate. We were lucky to have our friends as local guides for a day. They took us around the city by car and took us to places that we wouldn't have gone otherwise. We went to a local neighborhood and took a break in a restaurant where we were introduced to a strange looking but delicious local bread. After the break we continued through a big and busy local street market mainly just wondering about all the people and the things on sale, about all the colors and noises there. In the evening after some more driving and getting lost on the many highways of the city we ended our tour with a dinner in a nice Malaysian restaurant, located on a giant shopping mall of course.

Eating, shopping and checking out the mandatory sights Petronas towers and Batu caves didn't take that much time. This was nice because we already were supposed to start doing some work. We are quite dependent on having internet around so we first tried to get a prepaid mobile internet plan but didn't get it to work with reasonable amount of work and gave up. The wifis they have in cafes and restaurants are a nice extra but cannot really be relied on if you have to get some work done. Well, in our case anyway. In the end we mostly worked from our guest house with wifi: either in our smallish windowless room or on the small front yard. Anyways, we got our work done which was of course the most important thing.