Calming down in K.L.

After five days which, through flight delays, actually turned into six days in Japan, we flew to Kuala Lumpur with only one purpose in mind - relax. This was to be a swim, eat, drink, read, sleep type holiday, though we did do a tiny bit of sightseeing, but not much.

We began our stay with a night in the Ibis Hotel. Apparently it is the biggest Ibis in the world. We stayed here for one night at Christmas, too. We were given a lovely room near the top of the hotel and, as we arrived late, discovered there was just ten minutes of Happy Hour left in the hotel bar, so we dumped our bags and just made it. We had draft tiger beer and some snacks. We also took a look at the night time view. People were arriving and starting to do karaoke at the bar. They were not very good, so we decided time to leave. Oh dear, that was when we discovered our room was directly under the bar and the karaoke was even louder there. Fortunately it only want on to about twelve o'clock and we slept through a lot of it anyway.

Our Room.

View from the bar.

View from the bar.

Infinity pool at night.

Infinity pool at night.

In the morning, we had breakfast, swam in the infinity pool, took in the view from there and from our room, then headed to our next hotel where we would stay for four nights.

View from the hotel.

View from the hotel.

Our pool.

Our pool.

Our pool.

Our next hotel was the Renaissance. We stayed here for one night at Christmas and said how wonderful it would be to stay longer and just spend our days swimming so that was what we came back to do. This time though we had paid a bit extra for a suite and access to the club lounge. We expected the club lounge to do snacks, but they actually provided meals and drinks so we scarcely had to spend a thing all trip.

Our suite was huge and very clean and comfortable with more good views of the twin towers.

Our suite.

Our suite

Our suite

Our View.

The thing that keeps bringing us back to the Renaissance is the pool which is huge. We love it. We made very good use of it.

Our Pool.

Our Pool.

At our pool.

Although we were not intending to go out very much, we did that evening as we had friends visiting from Hong Kong, so we all met up in the Canopy Restaurant for snacks and drinks and spent a pleasant evening chatting together.

Drinks with friends.

We spent the next day entirely by the pool or enjoying our suite or lounge. While having dinner in the lounge, we got chatting to an interesting American couple who sold their home in the States, gave up their jobs and took up full time pet-sitting. They were using this as a way to see the world. What a great idea!

Enjoying our lounge.

Enjoying our lounge.

The day after that we went out to do a little bit of sightseeing. We began by going to Kampung Bahru. Kampung Bahru is a traditional Malaysian village, slap bang in the middle of Kuala Lumpur's urban centre. When the city centre was being developed, the village elders here held out against them thus retaining a little patch of traditional Malaysian calm amidst the rather ugly high rise developments of Kuala Lumpur. Apparently you can get very good food here, too though we did not try any.

Kampung Bahru.

Kampung Bahru.

Kampung Bahru.

Kampung Bahru.

Kampung Bahru.

Kampung Bahru.

Kampung Bahru.

Kampung Bahru.

Kampung Bahru.

Kampung Bahru.

Kampung Bahru.

We also returned to the colonial centre of Kuala Lumpur, but this time walked along the river looking at the confluence where the city began and the fountain filled gardens behind the Sultan Abdul Samad Building, as well as Merdeka Square. We were driven home by a huge thunder storm and just escaped getting soaked.

In the colonial centre.

In the colonial centre.

In the colonial centre.

In the colonial centre.

In the colonial centre.

In the colonial centre.

In the colonial centre.

In the colonial centre.

Next day we intended to go sightseeing again but it thundered most of the day so we just had an extremely lazy time enjoying our suite before flying back to Hong Kong the following day