We had had enough of the sketchy apartment so today we packed up and moved. We are going to a proper hotel, and its only costing us +£10 per night compared to this scabby place. Its remarkably cheap to get a REALLY nice hotel in Kuala Lumpur. We thought we would be smart and save a few quid with a cheap apartment, but you get what you pay for. Also, being a relatively cheap country, now is the time to enjoy some luxury. It’s our honeymoon afterall. We wont be able to afford it in more expensive countries.
When we arrived at Verdant Hill Hotel, we immediately felt more comfortable. All the lifts worked so we didn’t have to wait 15 mins (no joke) for one to arrive. The wall paper was all in good condition and had been put on the walls this century. The whole place was clean and fresh and potable water was provided. Much nicer. This one also has an infinity pool, YAY! On the 6th floor, BOO! But at least it’s clean and well maintained.
Beside the pool was also a restaurant, and being midday, I had some sort of curry noodle soup with chicken and prawns. Aimi had dry fried noodles with deep fried chicken. It seems the national recipe of Malaysia is deep fried chicken so it seems to be in most dishes. We’ve also noticed that there are loads of KFC restaurants here, which now makes more sense.
We stayed here as it was cool enough to concentrate and planned and booked some of our next journeys. It takes a bit of time to research and make everything line up. Especially if I want to try and buy plane tickets with extra legroom. Most travel agents, while offering a cheap basic price, don’t give this option which is almost essential for me.
Another of the benefits of moving location is that this hotel is a lot closer to a night food market. The street Jln Alor is absolutely packed with all sorts of different foods. It seems to have evolved over time so the shops actually take up the full pavement having built out roofs to cover it. There are then individual cart kitchens dotted around under the roof and each one seems to have its speciality. One is doing noodles, another fried fish, another rice and eggs. Then, as you get sucked into a seating area in front of one of these combination kitchens, depending what you choose from the menu, it will be made by that cart. I’m not sure if they are all independent, or that just how they divide up their cooking duties. Or if the whole place is 1 restaurant, but they are on carts presumably so they can be moved in and out of the shops hiding in the back. No idea how it works but its delicious!
So far, we have eaten at a whole range of places from the dodgy-est kitchen shacks all the way up to posh rooftop restaurants. None of them have given us uncontrollable shits. (We might be a little looser than back home, but some adjustment is understandable…) And the place we stopped tonight was no exception. It was a little grimey, basic and its just better not to look too closely at the food storage and prep conditions, but it has all been great.
After a proper meal, we walked back up the street and picked a few things out. We had some steamed pork ball dumplings. Aimi chose a shrivelled black one, for some reason, that was infused with charcoal. I had an “original” one and a chicken one, both very tastey. Then I got a bottle of sugar cane and lemon drink. That was incredibly sweet, but also refreshing as it was ice cold. The best bit was that they were using a petrol powered mangle to press and extract the juice of the sugar cane right there! Lastly we found something for pudding. A cart further up was making sort of top hat shaped pancakes with chocolate filling. We got 2 different ones, some candied fruit and ice-cream in a tub. It had started spitting rain so we gobbled that down and went to find a bar.
It just so happened a bar was showing the German Moto GP race. The time difference worked in our favour to enjoy watching it live. We got a bucket of Tiger beers and role-played how I would have tried to chat Aimi up in a bar. We met thru tinder dating app, so our meeting story is a bit undramatic. It was fun to play out a more exotic version <make sure you read that correctly]
On the walk home my engineering spidey sense alerted me to something cool. The hotel across the street from us has a robot parking machine! A couple had asked to retrieve their car and the operator, noticing my excited squealing, let me come into the back to watch the car being picked off the shelf, brought down to ground level and turned around ready to be driven out. It was so cool to see the machine work even if I did trip a light barrier in my excitement to get a photo which meant it needed to be reset! Aimi, by this point, had wandered off. No doubt if I had done this on our first date we wouldn’t be married haha!