Welcome to the second part of my SouthEastAsia trip report series. The first part lead me to London Heathrow on three legs from Strasbourg via Lyon and Madrid. Now for the first main event of the journey, the long-haul leg from London down all the way to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, with British Airways, operated by the Boeing 787-9.
Leg 4 - London Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur
| Route | LHR - KUL |
| Departure | 25.02.2016 18:50 |
| Airline | British Airways |
| Flight No | BA 033 |
| Equipment | B 787-9 |
| Registration | G-ZBKF |
| Seat | 42A |
I didn't have a lot of time here in London, so after arriving from Madrid I went directly to the B pier, where my flight would depart. It was still pretty deserted there at the moment:
At least the plane was already there, a shiny and almost brand new Dreamliner, registered as G-ZBKF, first flight only about 6 weeks earlier:
Boarding started right on time. I entered the plane, got greeted by the flight attendant and headed to the rear. I tried to make myself comfortable in 42A for the next 12 hours. However with the 3-3-3 seat arrangement on board of BA's dreamliner it was rather narrow. The aisle seat in my row was already occupied and I desperately hoped for an empty middle seat. Then after a short while I heard the welcomed words 'Boarding complete' on the intercom, and yes, the seat next to me remained empty. Otherwise this would have been one uncomfortable long flight.
Departure already in the dark, so no pictures from the first half of the flight. After about 1 hour into the flight service started, I took the Malay Chicken option with rice and veggies:
The food was quite ok, nothing special though. After the trash was cleared I played around with the inflight Entertainment and watched a movie, though I don't even remember which movie it was, so it probably wasn't that good. I even caught an hour or two of sleep during the flight.
The sun rose about halfway into the flight, but with the automatically dimmed windows on the 787 I couldn't really enjoy the view outside. Normally you can set the dim grade on the window individually for yourself, but the crew can override this and keep the windows in the whole cabin as dark as possible. So all I got was this dark blue view:
Still a couple of hours to go. Couldn't get any more sleep so I just tried to relax on board. The empty seat next to me certainly helped. Breakfast time then, I had the British breakfast, again the food was ok:
A cup of coffee with it was very welcomed at this point. Cabin view inflight as the flight neared its end:
Approach into KUL was quite scenic, we came in from the North and since the airport is located quite a distance South of the city we had great views over Kuala Lumpur. Fortunately by now the windows were fully clear:
The so-called Golden Triangle, the main business district, with the iconic Petronas Towers:
Continuing along the coast then towards the airport, flying parallel to an AirAsia airbus and over industrial areas and just millions of palm trees:
And so this flight came to its end, back on solid ground after around 12 hours in the air:
Cool to see a Biman Bangladesh Triple Seven on the way to the parking position:
Disembarking then, farewell to the crew, through immigration which was pretty easy and out of the airport. It was late afternoon with some lovely 30 degrees outside, and this felt pretty good after the cold European february. I was pretty tired by that time so I took a taxi into the city. You can prepay for the ride in the airport, the price is quite reasonable this way, and the driver took me directly to my hotel (after having to ask twice for the way though :-) ). And so I arrived in the Malaysian capital!
Visiting Kuala Lumpur
I had booked two nights here in this city, so one complete day to explore. And it was totally worth it, KL certainly is an interesting place, a mix of old and new, modern and traditional, east Asian and western influences, and still not yet too touristy. But before a day full of sightseeing let's start with a East-West-Fusion breakfast:
The KL monorail is a fantastic way to get around the city:
The area around Merdeka Square is the center of old Kuala Lumpur, and that's where I started the day:
The ubiquitous "I love KL" sign, there was a long line of tourist waiting to take a picture here:
Not for me though, instead I continued on to Petaling street, the heart of Chinatown:
There is also a Hindu temple in this area:
Interesting details here:
I really like these old shophouses:
But now enough of the old part of town, let's head out with the monorail and the Metro towards the Golden Triangle to visit the probably most famous building of the city, the Petronas Twin Towers:
With a total height of 452 meters (including the masts on top) these towers once used to be the highest building in the world. Still today the highest twin towers and still very impressive. Necessary paper work to visit the towers (tickets are often sold out early for the day, so best thing to do is go there early in the morning and buy tickets for the afternoon):
During the tour you can first visit the bridge between the two towers:
Great views from here already:
But let's take the elevator even further up to the observation desk on the 86. floor. There is an interesting model of the towers:
But the views are certainly even more interesting:
Details on the other tower:
The television tower of Kuala Lumpur, with 421 m height almost as high as the Petronas Towers:
Back down, the plaza behind the towers was pretty busy at this hour in the late afternoon:
On the way back towards the quarter Bukit Bintang where my hotel was located:
Then I got caught in a rain shower, and when it rains here in the tropics, it definitely is a true rain:
So I retreated in the nearest mall and spent some time there until the rain finished. And this was just a gigantic shoppers paradise, they even had a full scale roller coaster in the mall. I would have gone for a ride, but it was closed for that day already, too bad:
Chinese-Malay food for dinner tonight, delicious dumplings first, followed by a tasty glass noodles dish:
A little walk through Bukit Bintang and this street full of restaurants and food stalls, and of course one last Tiger beer before I headed back to the hotel for another short night:
And so my day of exploring the Malaysian capital ended. It was a great day full of interesting sights, full of contrasts, and also full of delicious food. I had a wonderful time :-)
Hope you enjoyed reading my report so far, the next part will take us on an AirAsia flight to Bali, a day of exploring the island and a tigerair flight to Singapore. Stay tuned!
CaptainRed
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