An ordinary life in an extra-ordinary place
Archive for October, 2008
Having bitched about the limited vocabulary of the GPS, it wreaked revenge by directing us through a particularly jammed section of KL, before spitting us out on the toll road heading north. After a couple of hours we were in the foothills of the Cameron Highlands and climbing out of the heat and into cooler air.
It was in 1885 that James Cameron, leading a colonial government survey, discovered the plateau at 5,000 feet which became known as the Cameron Highlands. Having discovered it, he felt the overwhelming urge for a celebratory cup of tea. Failing to find a tea shop, vasts tracts of the highlands were immediately requisitioned for tea plantations. And they are still there today.
Off to the airport with she who must be obeyed, who had wangled two days away from work using the equitable strategy of not receiving any salary for the time off. We fly Air Asia on the grounds it is a fraction of the price of Thai Airlines. It departs on time, arrives early and is not full, so no complaints.
The downside of flying Air Asia into Kuala Lumpur is that you arrive at the low-cost terminal which is somewhat basic and does not offer a train into town. We check out the bus companies and an eager young lady assures us that their bus leaves every 15 minutes and the next one leaves in 7 minutes. This is bollocks and we sit in a scruffy bus for nearly half an hour before we are finally wheezing and smoking our way into downtown KL. Once at the bus terminal, we fail to find a taxi prepared to use a meter and end up paying around 200 baht equivalent for a journey that was probably worth half that.
My son’s partner, Jackie, had done considerable research into the holiday, such that the hotels had been chosen with care, and each location had already been marked with a wide variety of restaurant options. The hotel chosen for the KL stay was the Mandarin Oriental, and very smart it was too. We had a view of the Petronas Towers which was a pretty cool thing to have outside your bedroom window.
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