Day 3: Little India and a lot of walking

Sometimes I really suck at this travelling thing. Those who’ve travelled with me will know that I can be prone to indecision when it comes to picking a place to eat, so that a small hunger pang can often be a tired and hangry by the time I do find somewhere that’s just right. And I’m only marginally picky: I usually want somewhere that isn’t a chain or franchise, is serving a local cuisine, and looks like it won’t give me some sort of internal upset.

This morning I ended up walking way too far, got way too hangry, and missed breakfast entirely. I did discover a bunch of interesting things in the area, including the KLCC Bintang Bukit Pedestrian Walkway, which is currently #7 on tripadvisor’s list of things to do in KL. The charm of this 1.1km walkway is that it is both enclosed and airconditioned, that’s it. It has a 4.5 rating on trip advisor, and all you do is walk in aircon. Travellers should note that the centre of the walkway gets most crowded, as that is where the aircon is coolest.

I also had a day where both my own sense of direction and googlemaps put me on the wrong side of busy motorways.KL has some very impressive ones, and pedestrian overpasses can sometimes be few and far between, so a fair few of todays steps were retracing my path.

When I did finally find somewhere suitable for breakfast, it was lunchtime and after a grab ride to Little India, where I had a vegetarian curry selection served on a banana leaf. It was good, lots of great flavours, though could have been served a little hotter, both in spice and temperature. I also noticed that the locals next to me scored more pappadams than I did, but the food and tea came to about 10MYR, so less than $4, hardly worth complaining about. I also grabbed some deep fried jackfruit fritters and doughnuts as provisions for my walkings.

Little India felt weird to me. It seemed like everyone was working on getting everything ready for the huge Deepavali celebrations kicking off at the end of the month, so a lot of street stalls were yet to be set up, and none of the set up stalls seemed to be doing ay business. I don’t know if it was just me, but the whole area felt like when you turn up to a party at the time you thought it was supposed to start, but you’re actually 1-2 hours early, so no one is ready to deal with you, nor is the venue fully set up. That’s how it felt, unintentionally alienating, though from what I saw of the decorations, in just over a week a heck of a party will kick off.

And, I have to give a special mention to the drivers of Little India, who showed me time and again today that double-parking wasn’t good enough for them, only triple-parking would suffice.

After a failed attempt at what should only have been a 40 minute walk to the Bangsar Shopping Centre (see above wrong side of motorway) I took a grab instead. Now when you think of Shopping Centre, something like Carousel or Maddington Metro comes to mind, right? Maybe Chadstone, or if you’re a bit posh, Garden City. Bangsar ain’t like that. It’s swanky, very swanky. Valet parking, all the posh scent shops, swanky fashion, a display involving half a dozen new volvos, gourmet offerings in the food court. I felt somewhat underdressed in my long sleeve linen shirt and cargo shorts.

I was there to check out KL’s whisky shop, Single (Malt Whisky) and Available, just to see what they had. Suffice to say it ended up being about 2 hours of good conversation with Stephen, and a couple of tastings, before I walked out a bottle heavier. One of the things I read time and again was the claim that booze is more expensive in KL, and while this may be the case sometimes, many prices I saw today were comparable to Australia. I also found out that Single and Available has multiple shops in KL, including one that is 10 mnutes walk from my hotel. Big sigh at that.

Then it was a grab back to the hotel, before a quick callout on facebook had me heading off to Nasi Kandar Perlita, near the Petronas Towers, for a very good fish curry, dahl and vegetables, and biryani rice. I almost went the fish head curry, but it was priced at 80MYR, whereas my whole meal otherwise came to under 20MYR. I must check out other options for the fish head curry.

Then I had a wander around the Petronas Towers, which are pretty impressive on the outside, while a bunch of the lower inside is a big mall full of both top end brands like Michael Kors, and also the golden arches in the bottom food level.

Then I took what should have been a 40 minute walk back, including our #7 fave walkway. When I got to the end of the walkway, I felt like some dessert was in order so headed towards Jalan Alor, where a minor confusion over cross streets instead put me at The Whisky Bar. I was in 2 minds about stopping for a dram, but when I scanned the list and saw that they had the Longrow 7yo Gaja Barolo, a fabulous whisky that is almost extinct in the wild, and more importantly, whoever had priced the whiskies seemed to be unaware of the rarity giving this one the incredibly tag of only 49MYR. So I had to have a couple of drinks (the Longrow is a hefty 55.6% so felt it prudent to warm up my palate on a regular strength dram first) starting with The Macallan Edition No. 3 (okay, but not as good as Edition No. 2). The Whisky Bar is also right next door to where I’ll be dining tomorrow night, so I guess I should go back.

I finally got my coconut icecream and then headed back to the hotel, via some interesting street performers belting out Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”, making up for a slight lack of ability with an abundance of enthusiasm.

I’m pretty exhausted so it’s a good thing tomorrow’s a rest day, no wait, tomorrow is get up a bit earlier, sort my laundry, eat something, then do a cooking class for 4 hours, before dinner at 7pm. No rest for the weary traveller tomorrow.