Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

 Vichet picked us up at 5:15 AM and 30 minutes later we were at the airport.

The Phnom Penh airport does things differently than I have seen before. Everybody watches the big board and at some point about three specific check in counters (out of the total of 43 in the airport) are designated to your flight (there appear to be no designated check in counters for specific airlines).

Immigration and security went very quickly and efficiently with no problems at all. Our flight left on time and although it was a rough, bouncy trip we arrived two hours later at Kuala Lumpur airport. I sailed through immigration but Caro was hassled by her immigration officer who wanted to see our return flight and the name of our hotel.

We have learned in the past that we need to get some local cash as soon as we arrive so we went to a money change place in the airport. YIKES! He would only take the bigger bills of our Cambodian money and gave us less than half value ( we checked with two other money change places in the city and they won’t change it all). I also changed $C100 and he took 8.3% from us.

We caught the express train into Sentral and there we had to switch to the LRT. We had some back and forth confusion as to how to get the tickets (have to buy from a machine) but it was not long before we were on our way to the KLCC stop.

We used google maps to find our hotel and actually it is really close to the LRT, it’s just we went out of the  mall/station building the wrong way.

We were checked in about 1:30 PM and after that we went to the shopping mall (which is actually attached to the LRT) and we ate some lunch. 

Early impressions are favourable. The whole country seems very clean (no filth on the streets like in Vietnam and Cambodia). The drivers obey signs and lights and we have no fear that our lives are in danger when we step off the curb.

We fumbled our way to the KLCC park and the location of the Petronas twin towers ( at one point they were the tallest buildings in the world.). Turns out they are super close and easy to get to.

After some quiet time in the room we ventured out again at 7:30 PM to watch the water fountain light show at KLCC park. The twin towers slowly lit up as dusk, and then sunset occurred. Without exaggeration I will say that those towers at night may be the most beautiful lit up modern buildings I have ever seen. It was surreal to look at them. 

By 8:30 PM we were back in the room.