Day 1 – Entire day spent travelling. Flew
out from Heathrow on Malaysia Airlines
A380. First time with this airline. Seats are spacious, entertainment system is
top notch and strangely enough the plane takes off when it’s taxiing relatively
slow. Still amazed at how something that size (4 huge engines, 494 passengers)
glides so smoothly through the air. Anyway, we departed around 10am and with
time difference landed just after 7am Malasian time (8 hours ahead). We had
booked everything, including transports with Kuoni and our driver was there to
pick us up once we cleared customs. Would have been easy enough to jump in a
taxi I guess but when you’ve been on a plane for 12 hours, I guess you just
want to get where you’re going as quickly and easily as possible.
Day 2
Arrived At Shangri La Kuala Lumpur and it
was the most impressive Shangri La I’ve stayed at to date. The welcome,
reception, staff, room, health suite – all amazing and top notch service. Our
room wasn’t quite ready but we’d expected that so dropped our bags, declined
the use of the hotel’s facilities and headed straight of to the city centre.
Petronas Twin Towers was the first stop and we toyed with the idea of
purchasing tickets for later that evening, but, as we had a lunch reservation @
Atmosphere 360 in the Menara Tower, we decided to give it a miss. And just as
well because after eating lunch (282 metres anove ground level – http://www.atmosphere360.com.my/)
we were zonked and fell asleep. Didn’t wake up til 1am. Went for a quiet stroll
across the road from the hotel and found people dining, clubbing and the city
still very much awake!
Next stop Batu Caves.
Believe me when I say that if you can’t fit this into your trip to KL, don’t worry. The place was filthy, (crowed as it was Thaisupam) and generally unimpressive. For the first time in a long while tripadvisor travellers have let me down! But as we were there, we climbed the two hundred and odd stairs to the cave, which was just as garbage laden as the outside so we decided to venture no further.
From there night market. I like the night
markets in Aisa. Not because they’re laden with fake goods but quite simply
because – they are open at night, when it’s cool! We walked around, ate there,
but not at the Nandos we spied in the distance.
It had been a long day of walking so I
headed straight to the health suite on our return to hotel. Ah, a midnight
sauna, just what my tired legs needed.
ARRRGGGH - Just came to upload this blog and have lost all the changes ... so here's a summary!
Day 4 – As our chauffer pick up was before
1pm, it didn’t seem worth it to make the effort to go anywhere – especially as
I was going to be spending another leisurely morning at the Lemon Grass buffet
breakfast! I reined myself in a little from yesterday. My stomach knows no time
but eating such carb heavy meals at breakfast didn’t impact well on my ability
to stay awake during the day. And so I lazed in the sauna and steam room until
departure to Borneo.
The flight was uneventful but couldn’t say
the same for our arrival at the hotel. For as much as we loved SL in KL, we
disliked the Shangi La Tanjung Aru in Sabah. Well, on first glance that is –
the rooms aren’t really of a five star quality. Still, the rest of the resort
is pretty great; the pool being particularly amazing and this from the girl who
isn’t a fan of pools.
Day 5 – My husband said I tried to kill
him, making him walk almost an hour in 30 something degree heat to find a
supermarket. I just fancied getting a feel of my surroundings … and everything
looks so much closer on a map! Back at the hotel, they’d prepared another room
higher up and that night we visited the nearby night food stalls. Great food,
lots of fresh fish cooked to order and cheap. This became our nightly dinner
spot.
Day 6 – Spent most of today at the hotel.
Took a cocktail making lesson. Had dinner at the hotel – their way of
apologizing for room quality. Compared to last nights meal at the food market,
it was a let down. But I did sample the sweet corn ice-cream on offer – hmmmm,
not something I’ll be scouring supermarkets back home for. Couldn’t bring
myself to try the yam ice cream.
Day 7 – woke up early to do some bird
watching with Paul. Not particularly interested in birds but worth doing. Then
later that morning I took his Aqua
aerobics class before our visit to our
resort’s sister hotel - Rasa Risa – to visit the orangutans sanctuary. It’s a
rehabilitation scheme to re-introduce orangutans that people had domesticated,
back into the wild. They were great to watch and very cheeky. One even broke
park of a wooden fencing while sowing off. The place was swarming with mozzies
so thick you could see them. Needless to saw we were covered from head to toe;
sweltering in the heat but better sweaty than bitten to death! We got
our first real bit of rain today, which is a real blessing as it’s meant to be
rainy season!
Day 8 – visited 2 islands - Sapi, Mamukan.
The first was nice for snorkeling. While those around me were busy admiring the
beauty of the various species of fish, I found myself more interested in trying
to decipher which ones were edible. The
second was a much longer stretch of beach. Nice, and though not as beautiful as
the kind of beaches I’m accustomed to :) a beautiful and peaceful place to
relax. River speedboat - can u believe they let me drive it ....kindda. After day of total relaxation, walked around the entire
city centre of KK. Started near, a city centre hotel, walked to clock tower, observatory,
night market etc. couldn’t find a taxi, roamed got to familiar area then to realised
it’s where we had started!
Day 9 – Visited a church we happened upon during our
walk to supermarket on first day. Lunch on beach then visited the Mari Mari cultural village in the evening.
Day 10 – Water aerobics with Paul - he made us laugh, especially when it came to Mrs Wong - the pregnant white woman. We went into town for some gifts and sweets. Watched the sunset while enjoying a cocktail and met some cheeky local kids.
Day 11 – Our final day. Finished packing, aerobics, we used the water slides and water war game unashamedly! Lunch at fish place and bid farewell to Jose. As promised he had written out the recipe for the sweet and sour sauce I'd fallen in love with (not that gloopy stuff you get from Chinese restaurants in UK). And one of the ingredients ... MSG! Our final cocktail making lesson. Used the sauna, steam and jacuzzi right up until we were collected for airport to the point where I boarded the flight with wet hair! (I'm sure my mum would have some stern words about that).
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| Jose - our favourite market chef! |
And if you haven’t had your fill of fish
while on the island – well there’s the chance to purchase seafood from the
airport – just not if you have an onward flight to the UK!
