Farewell Bangkok - Hello Kuala Lumpur

It was an early start for us today, with breakfast at 6 am and then checking out of the hotel and in the taxi and on the way to the airport by 07.30 am.

It was a bittersweet feeling, saying goodbye to lovely Bangkok, but there was also a little bit of excitement – the sort of feeling that accompanies you when you are going somewhere new and don’t quite know what to expect.

The flight was quick and less than 2 hours long, which gives you a hint of where we are, but for anyone who is not quite sure, we had arrived at Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, which is going to be our ‘home’ for a while.

The airport was very well-organised and civilised compared to some airports we have visited, and we were quickly and easily able to get a Grab taxi to our accommodation. R had put on a new eSim (for Malaysia) on his phone last night, so it was easy to activate it as soon as we landed, and hey presto, it worked. I will need to upgrade my phone at some point to be able to take eSIMs, but I dislike the entire process of changing phones, and my current phone generally works fine for my needs at the moment, so I’m not keen on replacing it just yet.

Anyway, back to our arrival. Kuala Lumpur airport is about an hour’s drive from the apartment, and it was a really strange drive because at times, it felt like we were somewhere like Borneo! By that I mean the trees were so tall and jungle-like. I’ve never seen anything quite like it in real life.

We arrived at the apartment complex around 3 pm, and check-in went very smoothly. We were delighted with our new accommodation. It’s a one-bedroom self-contained apartment (with kitchen and washing machine) with a balcony (on the 30th floor), but the best bit is the view from the balcony (especially at night!).

We quickly sorted out our bags and cases, then made our way to check out a few parts of the complex – the swimming pool is amazing looking, so I think I will enjoy that. Then we headed off to the nearby grocery shops to get some essentials, water, coffee, breakfast items, etc. There are several little shops beside the complex, although the choice is quite limited (and they are probably more expensive due to the convenience). However, we managed to get enough items to get us settled in to begin with. Once we had returned to the apartment to put these items away, we then headed out to get a bit of a feel for the area (and to get some dinner), as it was around 5 pm by this stage.

We didn’t really know where we were going and were just following our instincts, and we ended up at the Jalan Alor Food Street. It wasn’t too busy at this point, and cars were still driving down the road.

We continued and came across a shopping mall area called Lot 10. We were looking for a grocery store that sold ready-made meals. At this point, we already had the basics in from the stores beside the apartment, and now we just needed to get something for dinner that we could quickly heat in the microwave back at the apartment and then have an early night, as it had been quite a long day and we were getting a bit knackered by this stage. We managed to pick up a few chicken, egg and rice dishes and then started to head back to the apartment.

As we headed back via the route we had come (i.e. the Jalan Alor food street), we could see that the road had now been closed off to car traffic (it seemingly becomes pedestrianised from 6 pm) and the place was absolutely nuts busy. I mean, you could barely move – there were so many people walking in both directions, the side food areas were busy with people eating, buying or looking at food and menus. It’s a very touristy type of place, so not really our scene at all. The outside heat and humidity are very exhausting, so I don’t really know how anyone could enjoy eating in this type of environment. As we were walking, the heavens then opened up, too. So that was quite interesting, as everyone started running to try and get sheltered from the rain, and the food sellers were trying to cover up and protect their wares. The bonus for us was that, despite the rain, the street cleared of people, and we were able to rush through it quite quickly and back to the apartment (we both had brollies in our bags, so we were ready for the rain).

A couple of videos (if interested) showing our apartment complex and the Jalan Alor Food Street:

Once back in the apartment, we both had a shower, dinner, chatted to the kids back home, then watched a couple of episodes of Pluribus before we both collapsed into bed exhausted.

Day 50: 13 January 2026

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia