Arrive to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

We arrived back from our last big adventure to Eastern Europe on 17 September 2022 (click here to check out that blog).  It has been almost 7 months, which means it is time for us to travel again. We left Florida and drove to Tim's mom's house in Ohio to visit with her for about 10 days before headed to Cleveland airport.

We left her house at 2:00 PM on Monday, 10 April (time hack).  Here we are awaiting the first leg (Cleveland to Chicago). As you can see, Tim is not looking forward to the long trip ahead of us.

We arrived in Chicago 1.5 hours later, and had a 3 hour layover.  We then boarded the longest leg of our flight, Chicago to Doha, Qatar.  Tim is really not looking forward to this leg.  Oh...when we were waiting to board the flight, we met a group of guys that were actually on their way to Katmandu to do a hike to Everest Basecamp...WOW....that is definitely on my bucket list.

Check it out.  We have over 7,000 miles to go, and it actually took us exactly 13 hours.  I think this was our longest flight we have been on.  We flew on Qatar Airways which was actually very nice.  Good food and drink, great entertainment system, and pretty comfortable seats.  I think we each managed to get around 3-4 hours of sleep.

We arrived in Qatar just after 5 PM local time. Before they opened the doors of the plane they made an announcement to tell us that we were not permitted to eat or drink in public until after sunset because it is Ramadan...interesting.  

We had a very long walk to our connecting gate and came across a actual Bazaar in the airport...check it out!

Although we were told not to eat and drink, we, along with others in the line to go through security, guzzled down our water so we can take our empty water bottles with us.

Our final leg of the trip was Doha, Qatar to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  After the last 13 hour leg, the 7.5 hours wasn't too bad, although I think we only got a couple hours sleep at most.

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 8:15 AM local time.  I had done some research and knew exactly where (just before immigration) and which (Digi SIM) SIM card to buy for my phone.  For 50 Ringgit (MYR) I purchased a 30 day SIM card with 30 GB of high-speed data.  That is $11.32...wow!

Unlike most of all our trips, we are actually meeting friends here, so we took a Grab (Malaysia's Uber) to the house they are staying.  It was a 1 hour drive ($16 USD) and we arrived at the house at 10:35 AM (time hack).  Total travel time from door to door was 32.5 hours!!

It was really nice to be able to go to the house and relax since we won't be able to check into our hotel until after 2 PM.  Peter and Susan (our friends from Canada) introduced us to Kim Mai and Winslow (our new friends from Malaysia).  Kim Mai made us lunch, we took showers, and felt a lot better.

We still had time after lunch till we could check into the hotel, so it was decided that it was time to dive right into the local cuisine.  First stop...fresh durian.  We traveled Southeast Asia back in 2013-14, but durian wasn't in season then.  So, this will be our first taste of it.  Everything at this point that I know about durian is that it is very stinky (smells like dirty feet) and it tastes better than it smells.

As soon as we left our parked car, the smell was in the air, but dirty feet...not really.

This was a gourmet durian "restaurant" and had many different varieties.  Winslow picked the more traditional D24 and the stronger tasting XO.  Since these are more gourmet, they were not inexpensive.  For the 2 durian, the cost was 140 MYR or $32 USD.

A man delivered them to our table and hatched the open to reveal the prized fruit.  Here is mine and Tim's first taste.  

The first bit was strong...odd...weird.  But the next bites tasted better and better.  If this is an acquired taste, it only took us 2 bites to acquire it.  Here is the description on the wall of the durian varieties we are eating:

• D24 - At first glance, you may thing that "Sultan" is a rare durian breed.  In fact, it is the most common and economic one.  The pulps are thick and large while the texture is smooth.  The pulps have sweet taste with milky flavor, but not as fine and rich as Musang King.  As compared to Musang King, Sultan tastes a lot fainter.
• XO - XO is the subspecies of Sultan, which is also the most unique durian breed.  Although it tastes similar to Sultan, the shell is thinner and the pulps are smaller.  The pulps are milky white with the small of a mellow wine.  The texture is firm when held in hand, but it tastes soft and velvety.  it also has the taste of bitterly wine flavor, which is well-loved by people who like the bitter flavor of durian.

I like the D24 better.  It was a bit funky, but with a sweet, almost mango flavor.  It kind of had an aftertaste of oak aged wine or brandy.  XO was less sweet and had an even more oaky, brandy flavor which is why Tim enjoyed this one more.

We also got a fresh coconut to wash our durian down with.  I don't like coconut...at least none that I have ever had...but this was delicious!

After the durian experience, it was time to check into our hotel.  We arrived around 2;30 PM and was sleeping 15 minutes later.  This was only going to be a nap or else we wouldn't be able to sleep through the night.  Our friends picked us up at 7:15 PM and we were off to our next eating adventure.  We went to the corner of a building with multiple venders inside and had some awesome Chinese food.

We ordered Steamed Teow Chow grouper, deep fried squid, ginger onion clams, eggplant, and a special noodle dish.  There was 7 of us and the meal, including drinks, cost 250 MYR ($57 USD) of which $5 USD was for the beer...there seems to be a sin tax on beer here making it a bit expensive.  Oh well...I guess we will be paying much of this tax. (-:

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and plan on getting a good night's sleep.  Tomorrow morning we pick up a rental car and head north to explore what the county has to offer.  The plan is to return after 4 weeks and then explore more of Kuala Lumpur.

So far, after only 12 hours in this county, i know that we are going to love it here.  The food, although it is only the first day, is amazing.  And...the best part...it is going to be awesome traveling around with some great friends.