Day 70: Kuala Lumpur bound!

Claire: Malaysia wasn't in our travel plans but as usual we left booking things a little too late (we're trying to embrace a free-spirited life) — so when we came to book our Cambodia > Thailand flight the cost was double what we'd had in mind. We looked at buses / trains / boats but it ended up being half the price to fly via Kuala Lumper. So we did! With a little 2 night stopover in between, because it'd be rude not to right?!

There was a slight panic just before we booked it... Do we need injections? Not that we haven't had already. Is our insurance valid? Yes. How do we get a visa? We don't need one. What currency do we need and where do we get it? One of the millions of cashpoints. What plug sockets do they have? 3 pin. Let's go!

The flight was just a couple of hours from Siem Reap and with a speedy train into the city we were in our Airbnb apartment by 3pm. Having known very little about Kuala Lumper 4 days ago we'd turbo-researched and decided we quite liked the sound of the Bangsar neighbourhood and this apartment had a little balcony too with ace views over the city.  

Exploring the neighbourhood we stumbled across APW, a creative warehouse type space filled with co-working spaces, cafes and markets. It was really ace and actually reminded us both of London. There's a total mix bag of people here too — it seems KL is very multicultural, especially compared to the other cities we've visited in SE Asia.

I'm still not drinking alcohol as my belly isn't 100% right so it was a soda water and burger this eve followed by an early night. Tomorrow is gonna be a loooooong day exploring... so much to see!

Gav's day 70 takeaway

• Failing to plan is planning to fail.
• But luckily I have Claire Hartley, a world atlas, travel agent and satnav all-in-one.
• And so despite barely knowing Kuala Lumpur was a real place a few days ago (I thought it was fake like Narnia and Timbuktu), we are now here and staying in one of the best bits it would seem. Sorted.
• Although we've also established it's not so cheap cheap as we've been used to!
• I know Timbuktu is real, don't worry.