Kuala Lumpur - Diversity, exclusivity and more

On Monday November 3rd, we flew from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur with award-winning budget flight company Air Asia. The experience had much in common  with flying with Norwegian: well-priced, friendly staff and on time. We like!

We checked in at Berjaya Times Square hotel in the area of Bukit Bintang near to all major sights. The building is a huge, two-towered complex that hosts our hotel, apartments, University of Hospitality, 7 storey shopping mall, cinema multiplex and an indoor amusement park with world's biggest indoor roller coaster(!).

The transition from a sleepy fisher's village in rural Thailand to the largest city in Malaysia took some time. We spent an entire day in the mall just reeling from the change of scenery, but eventually got revved up to our more normal, urban explorer traits. Max surprised us by requesting sushi for dinner, which he literally got on a conveyor belt. That boy can move some salmon! We passed a small stall for cheap toys and Max argued his way into a cheap orange "Transformer" that could be either a Mini Cooper or a homocidal spacebot. We expected boredom or total structural failure within the hour but it is still going strong and is among his top 3 items currently, so it actually was great value for money. Go figure.

KL feels like an immensely large city, sprawling in all directions with plenty of skyscrapers both in the central areas and also in more remote satellite areas. Things are built tall here - we wish they could inspire Stockholm more... The cultural diversity is impressive - people of all colors wearing all varieties of regional and/or religious clothing. We see everything from lightly dressed white women to presumably not so white women hidden behind all kinds of burkas.

The variety of different cuisines is also staggering.  We have eaten lebanese, japanese, hongkongian, chinese, american, indian and malaysian food. All of these have been very good, with a small exception: we boldly went for a traditional malaysian dessert, the Air Batu Campur, or "ABC". It is concocted from shaved ice, sugar, condensed milk, palm syrup, palm seeds, red beans, corn, weed jelly and algae. It looked nice when it arrived but as you can probably guess, it tasted anything but. After two spoonfuls of shaved ice with syrup, we were told by the waiter to mix it before eating. We did, and the result can be admired here.
We know fully well people are starving in the world, but the ABC remained uneaten.


We explored Chinatown with its markets and food stalls. A myriad of copyright violations were on sale, back to back with dried fruits, spices, soaps, intricate woodworks like chessboards and cheap, flimsy plastic toys. And of course a host of KL-specific souvenirs, where most of them sported some illustration of the Petronas Towers. A perfect place to get a cheap travel watch. A nice Rolex Submariner caught Magnus attention and is now happily ticking along with surprising accuracy on his wrist, all for 150 MYR (=300 SEK).

When venturing into the wilderness, it's helpful to carry a proper map. Ours was rubbish, but luckily we did not go to the actual wilderness, but the Perdana Botanical Gardens, fairly centrally located in KL. A nice park area with many attractions, like the Butterfly Park, Orchid Park and the Bird Park, which claims to be the "worlds largest free-flight walk-in aviary". The map we had of the place lacked some key roads and had a very variable scale at best, so we failed to find a single reference point. By sheer luck we stumbled upon a souvenir shop (not marked on the map) owned by Omar, a very friendly fellow who offered us a better map with some hand-written improvements (including his own shop location), and chatted with us for a while as we took cover from a short rain shower.




Finally on track, but short on time, we made it to a restaurant located inside the Bird Park aviary, where we had an agreeable meal accompanied by a big hornbill bird and his rather intrusive minions, the white egrets, that got up close and personal in the hope of getting a free meal. Saga, our little animal lover extraordinaire was of course riveted!

 Saga got a bit moody later though so we handed her Max orange Transformer toy. Then she had a fit of rage, that usually means that everything within reach goes flying down on the floor. Now she flung the toy away with immense force hitting Magnus' soda can, sending both can and toy over the balcony rail and down into the bird park. Magnus, still reeling from the unexpected incoming fire, had to make a speedy expedition downstairs to salvage the spacebot from utter ruin, to the tune of a crying Max. Expecting the worst, he found it to be in mint condition next to the dented soda can. It's maybe time to give some credit to those toy stalls...









We ended the Botanical Garden adventure by paying the Butterflies a visit. It was a wonderful place consisting of a beautiful, netted-in park packed with free-roaming butterflies of all imaginable colors, lots of small streams and pools filled with fish and tons of various flowers and orchids. Well worth a visit! On the way out there was a rather comprehensive display of live and dead insects, offering plenty of eww moments.

Our last sightseeing day offered an interesting combination of high places, a representative of an oppressing government, stardom, a small baked goods binge and a huge playground. It was finally time to visit the iconic Petronas Towers. Over 450 m tall, they make quite an impression on the KL skyline, and they are really cool to see up close. It's base consists of a concert hall and a very swanky mall with one of the better multicultural food courts you can imagine. After providing hungry kids with less exotic foods, Magnus started looking for something more challenging than the omnipresent pizzas and burgers. The vegetarian indian food stall served proper Masala Dosa, a dish rarely found in Europe but frequently enjoyed by him on his India odyssey some years ago. It came served with the obligatory coconut chutney and sambar plus a bonus curry that knocked our socks off. More than happy, we made our way down to the basement and the entrance for the tower visit.

First stop - the skybridge, connecting the two towers at the 41st floor. The view was already impressive at this level. We wanted to have a groupie photo so Magnus asked a respectable looking guy with nondescript asian features accompanying an older asian guy if he could take a picture of us. He let out a small laugh but happily obliged. While handing the camera back, we learned that he was the aide of a minister of Myanmar - the older guy. The minister immediately took a liking to Max as he explained he had a grandson the same age. The grandson was also crazy about cars, he told us after noticing the Mini Cooper/Spacebot thing in Max's hand. Face to face it was a polite and pleasant old man, which made it all more surreal considering the government he represents.

Next stop was the viewing platform on floor 86, that offered an even more impressive view plus binoculars that gave an interesting insight in the decor of the more swanky offices and conference rooms in the nearby towers. Saga became the star of the entire floor when she started exploring on her own, with hosts of asian people posing next to her while their mates were snapping away. The Myanmar minister carried her around for a while and took some snaps of his own. Every time Saga fired of a smile, a great "d'aawww" sound resounded and camera shutters chattered.

Back on terra firma, we went for a snack. It's baffling how much desire a simple mixture of flour, water, baking soda, salt and butter can instil in a person, but Auntie Ann's Pretzels did just that. Freshly baked, they tasted like heaven. I realize as I'm writing this that it starts to sound like a commercial - ouch. Remember kids, eat your sprouts and broccoli, and stay away from drugs and pretzels that leaves you begging for more. We enjoyed this treat with questionable nutritional value on the steps to the big Petronas Park, offering a large fountain spectacle, running paths and an absolutely huge outdoor playground with a pretty large wading pool for kids to boot. All free - thanks KL! Some hours later, we dragged our kids away from it to hunt for dinner.

We got ourselves a babysitter for two hours and snuck away for an Exit Room game. The idea is that you get locked inside a room containing clues on how to get out. Then you try to figure it out before the 45-minute time limit runs out. Very cool! It was both fun and frustrating, especially as a major clue at the end relied on compass directions, and the designers had mixed up east and west (one of the tools left in the room was an actual compass so it was easy to prove them wrong). Luckily, we were allowed some tips from the staff so we ended up getting the exit open and went to the number 1 spot on the leaderboard. Go Team S&M!

To summarize: KL is a great visit! A great multicultural metropolis vibe, insanely diverse shopping, crazy cheap food and friendly people. Pity it is a wee bit too remote for just a shopping weekend, going from Stockholm.

Next stop, Bali!

Last days in Huay Yang

Back online after some computer issues! Here comes a recount of our adventures from the final days of the Huay Yang part of our honeyquarter journey.

Huay Yang Waterfalls

Part of the thai-burmese border is naturally formed by the Tanao Sri mountain range, encompassing 1670 km of densely forested granite peaks, older than the Himalayas. A 160 square kilometer area in that mountain range close to Huay Yang was made a national park in 1991, the Namtok Huay Yang National Park, which apart from emerald green jungle also is home to a very nice tiered waterfall.





Soaked in mosquito repellent and wearing proper shoewear for the first time in three weeks, we set out to explore it. We had packed plenty of bribery snacks to lure Max along the way and Saga was comfortably seated in a carrying harness. Once Max saw the mouth of the forest path, he immediately took point and kept the pace for all of us.

The forest was absolutely beautiful with well kept paths, including tree-root shaped waste bins at regular intervals. Apart from the vegetation, there were plenty of various bugs running around on the path, keeping Max busy for quite some time.

The waterfall tiers are separated by some distance and altitude and we did not expect to be able to see all of it with our young co-explorers along. The tiers were all quite different in character - some wide and some narrow. Some with large pools suitable for swimming, filled to the brim with fish.

We found ourselves in the midst of the jungle with a picturesque waterfall in the background, gorgeous forest all around us and a large amount of butterflies playing in the sunlight that filtered through the forest canopy. Very much worth the walk.

Our youngest explorer did what any explorer worth her salt would do - take a nap mid-adventure.

After the fourth tier, the path got a lot steeper and the vegetation thicker. Max spirits started to wane and we were all soaking wet from sweating, so we decided to make it back down again with some fresh mosquito bites and a great experience. If you ever pass through the Huay Yang area, do not miss this one!

Tap Sakae village

We spent a day in the nearby village of Tap Sakae. We were told that the buildings would have some degree of cowboy western design resemblance, and that turned out to be true. It had a nice main street with said building types, shops with varying levels of esoterica, like one that sold live decorative fish in old jam jars, plush toys, electric fans and other, more unidentifiable things.

We also stumbled upon a small coffee shop that apart from serving great ice coffee also retailed café-related stuff like paper cups, napkins and condensed pre-sweetened milk in tin cans. And they had some nice toys for Max and Saga to play with while the parents enjoyed a quiet moment with their frappes and small cashew-stuffed pastries from the adjacent bakery.

For lunch we went to a well frequented local restaurant that served one dish, and one dish only: stir-fried chicken with steamed rice. And as so often, when you venture into the non-touristic venues, the food was simple but delicious.

We got company!

At the beginning of our final week in Huay Yang, Satu's bridesmaid Tiina with her family Daniel, Erik and Matilda from Stockholm arrived and we greeted the jetlagged bunch with a surprise evening visit and a home made banana pancake breakfast the following morning. The following days we spent with beach hangout and shared dinners.

They gave us a wonderful wedding gift earlier this year in the form of a gift certificate for a tête-a-tête dinner at the best resort in Huay Yang, with babysitting included. After a nice long day at the beach, it was time to redeem it. We booked a beachside duo aroma-massage to be followed by the dinner. Tiina took care of the kids and Daniel drove us to the resort with our saleng. We arrived just on time and could just lay down on comfortable matresses while the therapists started working skillfully with jasmine scented oil. We held hands, closed our eyes and listened to the ocean gently lapping at the beach while feeling a soft, warm evening breeze.

One hour later we were gently nudged into consciousness, just in time to see the sun set behind the coconut palm trees.

The following dinner was enjoyed at a specially dressed table by the beach, where we had a nice steak, allowing ourselves a small pause in the chili-laden local cuisine. We finished off the evening with some tiramisu and espresso while gazing at a blood moon waxing over the ocean. That feeling when an evening is so perfect that it almost feels staged.



And the kids have had a great time playing with Erik and Matilda and were sound asleep when we returned with the resort's taxi service. Thank you again, guys!!




We finished our first chapter of the honeyquarter journey with lots of lazy pool-time, beach hangouts and playing in the heavy surf (belly-surfing is fun, albeit an effective way to involuntary swallow seawater) and a snorkling trip to a well-hidden lagoon an hour south of Huay Yang that allowed us to revisit the Green View resort in Bankrut to get some quality espressos while our friends explored the temple with the golden buddha.

The last dinner in Huay Yang was easy to pick - we revisited our favourite restaurant Jack's Beach Resort and had one more Paeneng Curry, and got lovebombed by the staff when we told them this was goodbye. There were lots of hugs and waving from the lovely people when we made our way to the saleng for the final trip to our house in Thailand.