Week 5 – Sunday 11th January – Saturday 17th January 2026
We have been away for 5 weeks, and now our stay in Kuala Lumpur is coming to an end. Our next stop is Vietnam, another regular stop for us in Asia. For most of last week, Hayley has had a difficult and stubborn cold, which required a trip to a doctor and some medication. She has been improving this week, but it’s still lingering. We are rushing around a bit now to tick off places to see and things to do.
Sunday 11th January
We have a quiet morning in, and H is feeling a little better today. It’s all go here again today. Last week, it was the world lion and dragon dancing championships. Today it’s the junior version, so more drum and cymbal banging! It’s also the finals of the cat show, festival thing.
We set out for a late lunch at our favourite place in town, the Capitol Cafe, after walking around Chinatown. It’s hot and humid and brewing for a storm. We get back home and just miss the rain and lightning.
Despite it being the end of the rainy season here, the weather has been pretty good for us with only the occasional rainstorm. They are prepared for it here and even have rental umbrellas at train stations.
We are doing another escape room, a futuristic one, Eureka, and we get out in time, only using 2 of our 3 clues. We pick up some Japanese food on the way back to the flat. Not a bad day.
There is a video wall here in the street, which is flat, but curves around a building. Using light and shade in the content can make it look 3D. Here is H’s favourite video.
Monday 12th January
Big day today. We are quite excited, we’ve booked an A320 simulator which is located at a small airport 30 minutes away. First, we have breakfast out. Traditional Malaysian breakfasts are usually a spicy chicken dish or kaya (a coconut spread) toast with eggs. Del has the Kaya toast, and H has the spicy chicken.
We make our way to the airport. We have a briefing before our simulation, which is in an airplane cabin mockup, and then move through to the cockpit. Del is on first. We will both do a take off, a landing and quick take off (touch and go) and then another landing.
The simulator is not a moving one, but as soon as we set off, the wrap-around screens make us feel like we’re moving.
Del goes through the many checklists of taxiing, pre-flight and take off, and soon we are rolling down the runway at 130 knots and lifting off. He flies between the small airport we are at and the main KL airport (KUL). Oh dear, Del’s first landing, it has to be said, is not going well as we bounce off the grass (‘pull up, pull up’) next to the airport. He quickly steers back to the runway and takes off again. After a quick fly past the Petronas Towers, he completes his second landing much more proficiently.
Next up, it’s H; she’s off. She brings it in ok and lands and takes off again. The instructor suggests that he throw some weather into the mix. Her next landing is in fog, and the runway isn’t seen until quite low.
This landing isn’t quite as slick as the first one, but it’s ok, despite the passenger’s coffee going all over the place. H decides that she wants to be a pilot, but maybe it’s too late now.
It’s a great experience, and we have thoroughly enjoyed it. We have even more respect for pilots now.
See the edited highlights here. It’s about 20 minutes long, but a good watch with a nice little gallery at the end.
We grab a cab back into the centre and visit the aquarium. We have only a few days left here and still many things to see. The aquarium is good, although a little crowded; we’re glad we didn’t go last week when it was even busier.
They have a good collection of fish and the best glass tunnel we have ever seen in an aquarium.
We walk back to Bukit Bintang, where we catch our local monorail and go back home. Dinner tonight is a sushi delivery with a bottle of sake while we watch ‘Downfall, the case against Boeing’ now that we’re pilots and firmly in the Airbus camp.
On a serious note, though, it’s a very sad, shocking and unforgivable story. Highly recommended if you get the chance to watch it.
Tuesday 13th January
After a day getting some jobs done on our own, we reconvene back at the flat and visit Brickfields or ‘little India’ as it’s known. The area has a completely different feel from other parts of the city, and interesting smells waft through the air.
We visit a vegetarian restaurant for dinner. Del has a butter masala with a vegetable paratha, and H has a masala dosa; they are both delicious and very different from the usual Indian food we are used to back home.
A dessert is recommended by our friendly server (who once lived in Greenwich), which we try: ras malai, which is paneer soaked in a saffron milk sauce. It’s delicious too. We walk around the colourful streets looking at the street food, clothing, and beautiful flowers on display, while sipping a masala chai tea, which costs roughly 18p!
Rain is threatening, and the humidity has gone through the roof, so we hop on a monorail and make our way back home.
Wednesday 14th January
Today we visit the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park. It claims to have the biggest free-flight aviary in the world. It’s only a short cab ride away, and when we arrive, we do see that, yes, it is very, very big, with smaller areas where you can hand-feed lorikeets.
We get swamped by them when we buy the food for a couple of ringgit. They land gently on us, then fight with each other and squawk in our ears, just chaos. We love them. There are all sorts of birds here and a lot of peacocks.
We spend a couple of hours wandering around and watching a bird show. H is so hot she’s craving some quality AC and a cold drink, so we have a quick lunch in the bird park restaurant.
We’ve had better lunches, but it’s ok, satay, nasi goreng and a fresh coconut each.
Thursday 15th January
H is feeling much better today, so tries some time in the gym and has a swim in the pool, it’s great to be getting back to normal.
We have been away for a month now, so H’s hair needs a bit of tending. We find a hairdresser who speaks English. 30 mins later, and after some miscommunication about hair length, H is out and has a shorter haircut than expected. Never mind, at least it will last longer.
Tonight we are taking an organised tour to see fireflies and ‘blue tears’ (a bioluminescent display in the water) in Selangor, which is about an hour and a quarter away. Our driver picks us up at 4 pm. He’s a local chap, very knowledgeable and friendly. He even takes us on a detour to see the royal palace on the way.
Once in Selangor, we are taken up to a lighthouse for a view of the Malacca Strait, very impressive. There are lots of monkeys here (long-tailed macaques to be exact), and some brave tourists are feeding them.
One woman has 3 of them climbing on her. We have a distrust of monkeys, so this is not for us. Sri, our driver, tells us we’ll be ok as long as we don’t have food or put our hands in our pockets. The monkeys are all over the car by now. We get out, and he’s right, they do leave us alone.
Next, he takes us to a Chinese seafood restaurant by the river, where we have an included meal.
We have prawns, spicy fish, sweet and sour chicken, veg and rice, and it’s all very nice as the sun sets over the riverbank.
As darkness falls, we board a boat full of Koreans and are taken up the river at very high speed. This is a thrill in itself, and there’s a lot of screaming and dramatics coming from our fellow travellers; however, we love it.
A few miles up the river in the middle of nowhere, we stop where the fireflies are in the bushes at the side. They are all flashing and look like LED Christmas lights! Nature can be very strange but beautiful. Next, it’s out to sea (at high speed again). When we stop, we are given nets to agitate the water to make the bioluminescence glow. It leaves pretty blue trails in the water.
We are now in the Strait of Malacca, it’s warm and dead calm, like a lake. The stars look spectacular here, too. Back at the dock, our driver takes us back for the 1-hour drive to the city and home. All in all, an interesting and enjoyable afternoon/evening out.
Friday 16th January
After a few chores at the flat, we head to a recommended restaurant in the city, but find it’s closed for Friday prayers. Nice timing! So we hop in a cab and go to the Capitol Cafe for the last time. Del has a delicious Bali chicken curry, and H has a Nasi Lemak, which is also delicious; their claim here at the Capitol is to be the best Nasi Lemak in Malaysia. It may well be true.
After a pleasant 30 mins on some massage chairs in a mall, we return to the flat, where H does some research and manages to shoehorn an extra trip into our upcoming Vietnam schedule. We will now spend a night in the ancient citadel city of Hue. We will take a luxury bus to get there and will be travelling back on the train, which is supposed to be one of the world’s most scenic train trips.
We are having our last Japanese takeaway feast tonight outside on our balcony.
A massive pile of sushi and a bottle of good sake. The city is lit up and looks beautiful. We will miss this view. As cities go, KL is one of the best!
It’s a lovely dinner. H has ordered some jellyfish (she hates them; they might as well make themselves useful). We had jellyfish at our dining in the dark experience two weeks ago, but we didn’t know it when we were eating it. After dinner, we make a spontaneous decision to go for a night swim on the 35th floor pool deck, with the infinity pool and the best view of the city. Fabulous…
Saturday 17th January
H goes to the gym this morning, finally being able to go and do a proper workout now that she appears to be clear of the cold, which seemed to last forever. Later we set off and go out for a brunch at one of our local favourite coffee shops.
Del has his favourite kaya toast and half-boiled egg, and H has a vegetarian laksa which she manages to splash on herself over her new, freshly laundered top.
Today is our penultimate day, so we are doing all our laundry and ironing, ready for leaving tomorrow. We have been lucky here in that we have had our own washing machine and have been able to easily dry our clothes, but from now on, we are going to be in hotels and using local laundries, so it’s a full reset of our clothes. We take turns keeping our eye on the washing machine, drying stuff and doing the ironing.
While we have been here, we have been taking advantage of the Rest N Go full-body massage chairs.
They are very popular here and can be found in all of the malls and airports. We have the app (there’s an app for everything now), and we have been getting good use of it.
With not much time and not much more to do, we set off for a Korean ice cream. There is a very popular brand that we like, and a stall has been set up promoting it. Simply scan one of their social media QR codes, follow them, and they will give you a free ice cream. Very nice. Very nice indeed.
We head back home to finalise the packing and clean down the flat. A sad time.
Tonight, our final dinner in Malaysia will be a Korean BBQ. We get a cab straight there and get a table for two. We are having a set menu. For some reason, because it’s a set menu, they cook the BBQ at the table for us rather than leaving us alone to do it.
Probably a good thing if they value their fire insurance. It’s all very delicious, with 3 different meats, chicken, mushrooms, and lots of dips and some kimchi of course. It’s quite a feast.
As a final closing to our last night here, we take a look at the Saloma bridge, which has a great view of the twin towers on the other side.
The bridge is listed as an attraction to see while in KL. The bridge spans one of the main arterial roads in and out of KL, very “arty’ and it changes colour!
Our walk continues right up to the towers for one last look before getting on the train and the monorail, which we end up paying three times for because of ticket confusion (that’s a whole 80p we’re out of pocket!).
Back at the flat, we are almost packed, the rest can wait until morning, for now it’s time to finish off the rest of last night’s fizz with a toast on the balcony to the night sky of Kuala Lumpur.
That was Malaysia. Next stop, Hoi An in Vietnam.
Leave a Reply