Finally we were in Kuala Lumpur, which in Malay means "muddy confluence" - the name comes from the two rivers Gombak and Klang, which were the major gateways to the city in the 1800s.
We landed at Sepang's KLIA2 - that's the year-old low-cost terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport...
A fleet of Air Asia X Airbus A330s is docked at the aerobridges here...
KLIA2 is the home base for Air Asia...
An explosive growth in the low cost segment prompted the Malaysian authorities to conceive KLIA2...
KLIA2 was built at a cost of USD 1.3 billion and is the world's largest LCC terminal with a capacity of 45 million passengers a year. It has a dedicated 4 km runway (KLIA's Runway 3) and, hold your breath, a 141.3 metre tall ATC tower...
The terminal has 80 aerobridges... almost on par with Delhi and Changi!
That was our flight into KLIA2...
KLIA2 currently serves the Air Asia family, Lion Air, Malindo Air, Tiger Air, Cebu Pacific, Jetstar Asia and Mega Maldives...
With ASEAN promoting freer trade and travel, there is a conducive environment for growth of low-cost travel in South East Asia and KLIA2 has been built with this vision of an open ASEAN region...
The queues at immigration were very long. But verifying the visa and stamping the passport itself barely took a minute. The immigration stamp clearly said it was valid only for "West Malaysia and Sabah". Since we planned to visit Penang as well, I asked the immigration officer for a clarification on this. The Malay lady responded with an officious and terse "No problem!" reply!
Apparently, if you need to travel to Sarawak and Kuching, your passport will be stamped again... These states maintain separate immigration policies - that is understandable as Malaysia has a unique political system - it is a federation of distinct kingdoms and federal territories...
The arrival board at KLIA2 is all about Air Asia, it seems like they enjoy a virtual monopoly over the Malaysian LCC space...
The terminal itself had nothing at all to boast of and was very unimpressive. It's simply functional and is hardly a destination airport like the way Hong Kong, Changi, Delhi or Mumbai have evolved...
However, the main KLIA terminal, 2 kilometres from here, which caters to full service carriers like Malaysian Airlines, I am told is a lot better...
KLIA2 has a retail space of 35,000 square metres, called KLIA2 Gateway, that accommodates a total of 220 retail outlets...
It was here we stopped for a Subway sandwich and picked up a Maxis SIM card...
We had made online bookings on KLIA Ekspres - a high speed train that connects KLIA and KLIA2 with KL Sentral in downtown Kuala Lumpur...
That's when a comedy of errors began...
Our KLIA Ekspres booking voucher was saved on our iPad. I showed the attendant at the ticketing counter our booking voucher. The guy stared cluelessly at our iPad for nearly 5 minutes...
"Sir, I check with boss!" the guy told me in his rudimentary and heavily accented Malay-English - I had read how the education system here was in tatters after successive governments imposed and enforced the Bumiputera policy of encouraging "sons of the soil" and anything local. Naturally the ethnic Chinese and Indians felt marginalised and a collateral damage was the use of English...
I waited another 10 minutes and my impatience and irritation was growing by each passing nanosecond. Then came out Mr. Boss, a stocky Malay. His smile, revealing his pearly whites, disarmed me.
"Sir, we need printt-outt!" he croaked and smiled - probably he was trained to max-out his smile.
"Yeah, but the voucher on the iPad should be okay!" I responded taking a cue from my Singapore experience where we had used vouchers from the iPad and that was perfectly okay.
"No Sir! Company takke only printt!"
"Then please help me with a printout."
"No printer here, Sir!" he smiled again.
He then directed me to the Plaza Premium Lounge, from where I could get a printout. I was thoroughly irritated and to top it all it was warm and humid and sweaty... KLIA2 is a LCC terminal afterall!
So up I went to Plaza Premium Lounge where two Malay women were at the lobby, who told me printing would cost 3 Ringgit a page. I obviously had no choice and so I requested one of them for a printout - there were three pages in each voucher of which only one each was required, I instructed her accordingly. But she was in a different orbit - she printed 6 pages! What the hell? Why should I pay 18 Ringgit. The lady realised her mistake and charged me 6 Ringgit only for the two pages I needed.
Clearly I was in a different orbit... this is obviously a city of "muddy confluences"... And clearly this is not Singapore!
I finally collected the KLIA Ekspres tickets and headed to Subway where Neeti was waiting for me. She was worried as I had been away for nearly 45 minutes and had left my phone behind with her. Finally we proceeded to the train platform and in 10 minutes we boarded...
The journey from Sepang to KL Sentral takes 28 minutes, covering 58 kilometres with the train touching a maximum speed of nearly 160 kmph on the way...
We passed by fields and plantations, all of them lush green... Clearly this is a nation blessed with resources...
The texting epidemic has spread to Malaysia as well!
We passed by an expressway...
Malaysians have developed an enviable high quality road network through the country...
We finally enter Kuala Lumpur...
We finally reached KL Sentral...
KL Sentral was chaotic... a chaos grander than what you see at Mumbai's Churchgate!
7 metro and monorail lines converge at KL Sentral and the oddest part is different metro lines have different gauges... I am told a lot of these lines were the outcome of political decisions rather than sound technical thought...
As I ran around looking KL Sentral looking for a city travel pass, I came across a soon to be opened Cafe Coffee Day outlet, which was enough to remind me of home! Well doesn't this look like Churchgate?
My quest for the city travel pass called RapidKL drew to a nought... No one at the ticketing counters knew about it...
How come the city attracts tourists?
Finally we crossed over from the chaos of KL Sentral to the relaxing modern confines of our hotel. We just had to cross Jalan Stesen Sentral for that...
Traditional artworks...
A view of the KL Lake Gardens... Indeed placid and serene, an oasis in the midst of a muddy confluence...
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