Globe-trotting Adventures and Mouth-watering Eats: A Little Trouble in Kuala Lumpur

All right. We're off the train. We've got our bags. Now, where's the exit. The station was awfully dark down there. When in doubt, follow the people, who brought us upstairs. Were there escalators going up? Of course not. I believe there were only escalators going down. And when you need an escalator to go down, you'll find one that goes up. In Indonesian we say, 'itu la hidup' or such is life. So we hauled our luggage up the stairs one step at a time. The first thing we needed to do was find the facilities, which is never a pleasant experience, unless you're at the Terminal 21 Mall in Bangkok, where the restrooms are something else. Then we found a currency exchange counter on the Main Concourse where we traded US dollars for more Malaysian Ringgit. Then to the Monorail Line, which I didn't see any signs for. KL Sentral is a very big station, and to be honest with you we didn't spend much time looking around in it. We just wanted to get to our hotel. I asked a security officer how to get to the Monorail, and he said to go down two levels, continue straight and I would see signs for the Monorail. So we did just that. But man, was this a journey within itself!

It's all a blur to me now, but I remember we had to walk along a very long, narrow, dirt pathway in a dark tunnel that led us to a covered pathway outside. There were a few but very small signs that said, 'KL Monorail ---->' which we followed. But imagine walking this, luggage in tow with a bunch of people walking towards you while it's raining! Here we were sweating and dragging our luggage through muddy puddles, struggling to reach this damned Monorail. At the end of it all, we still hadn't reached it but found ourselves at an intersection. It was raining very hard by then and somehow, some way we made it across the street still confused as ever. Where was this train? I stopped and asked three more people, and they all indicated it was just a few hundred feet more to my left. Seriously? We trudged forward and finally arrived at the Monorail station. Interestingly there were NO signs. So this was obstacle #1. And yes, we had to trudge up more stairs to access the train. >___<

It only cost us RM 1.60, or about 50-cents USD per person. Waiting for the train to arrive however, reminded me of waiting in line for a popular ride in Disneyland -- there were so many people, and even more once we got inside the Monorail. We were shoulder to shoulder against strangers and completely surrounded by high schoolers clad in their navy blue and white uniforms. Good thing we didn't have to go far to get to our stop at Imbi.

The Monorail stop shot us out at a foot-bridge that was connected to a huge shopping center called Berjaya Times Square, which I didn't know at the time, but is Malaysia's largest building with 7.5 million square feet of space.

Berjaya Times Square Complex

I knew that our hotel was located next to the mall, behind it actually, and I knew what street it was on, but I failed to find out ahead of time just how exactly we were going to get there. This is a big tour director no-no. It sounds silly, I know. But this was an enormous 10-story shopping center and we all seriously did not know where to go. We might have been on the second or third level, and here we were with our luggage literally walking in circles trying to find an information desk, an exit, a knowledgeable person, anything. We felt silly as hell wandering this labyrinth of a mall with our bags and I'm pretty sure we looked very funny. Finally, an information desk whose clerk I must have visited three times because we were so confused! We then exited the mall, turned left, passed a gorgeous, luxury hotel of the same name, and then came to a stop to think. Wait. Do we turn left or right? What did the info guy say? Where is Lorong 1/77A? Where are all the street signs? What good is a street name when there aren't any street signs? Where are we? Are we close? Where is a map when I need one? I couldn't believe how difficult this was. I felt so stupid. Clearly, this was obstacle #2.

I was pretty flustered by this point, but no one was more frustrated than my mom, who demanded we take a cab. I told her it was way too close to take a cab, it would be so silly. But I went up to the cab stand and asked anyway, and the guy looked at me as if I were ridiculous, "What? You don't need a cab. You can walk there. Just go behind the mall this way."

We went past the cab stand, turned left, then left again down a street that looked exactly like a photo of the hotel I remember seeing on www.tripadvisor.com. I kept yelling, "This is it! This is it! I see it, it's over there!" Boy was I so relieved. We all were. We were soaked, exhausted, and hungry. FINALLY, we made it to our home for the night. I look back now and think, geez, why didn't I just call the hotel and ask? What a dummy. What a whirlwind. More to come from KL!