Kuala Lumpur March 2024
By Helen
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When making our travel plans in 2023 we had about 6 weeks between dropping off Skippy in Perth and heading back to Canada. We had found the best value for flights was with Air Asia PER-KUL so had booked the flights to depart near the end of March. During our travels in Australia and New Zealand we discussed if we wanted to spend time traveling around Malaysia or would we prefer to settle somewhere for a bit. Not surprisingly, settling somewhere won since we had been on the go for 6 months. Our friends, Ness and Ian, have a condo in Hua Hin, Thailand and had offered to let us stay previously but the timing never quite worked. We had often discussed checking out the area to see what it was like, we’d never been before and had heard good things. We got in touch and the dates worked, they wouldn’t be using the condo and we were welcome to stay. We could do a quick KL dentist visit, easily get flights to Bangkok and from there it was a short 3 hour taxi to Hua Hin. This would give us just under a month in Thailand before leaving for our flights to Canada. While we were traveling our retirement extensions for Thailand had lapsed but we could enter visa exempt(30 days). So we had a plan.
The problem with booking flights so far in advance is that the flights are often canceled which is exactly what happened. While waiting for the rain to end in Franz Josef, New Zealand we were advised our March 23 flight to KL was canceled. Talk about timing! They could book us on another flight later in the week, but that didn’t really work because we would no longer have Skippy so we would have to spend longer in Perth which wasn’t ideal as the hotels in Australia are quite expensive. It also limited our time in KL so we wouldn’t be able to see the dentist. We spent several hours looking at options, eventually finding a flights for the same day but with a different airline. We tried to book it but the website didn’t work and we couldn’t process the transaction. We found out later the airline had a horrible safety and service record so we got lucky!
We found a flight to KL with AirAsia about a week earlier and were able to change it with no fees. We changed Skippy’s return date and our dates for the airbnb in KL, both easily done. This gave us 37 days in Thailand so the visa exempt entry didn’t work as well. Having extra time in KL meant we could head to the Thai Embassy and get a tourist visa so we would be stamped in for 60 days and wouldn’t need to visit immigration. We were also able to find flights for BKK-TPE and we could book with EVA Air, which connected our tickets through to Calgary, YYC. The downside in all this meant we wouldn’t be able to visit friends in South Australia, which was disappointing. It felt like a lot of maneuvering, but in the end we got it done. Ness and Ian were super helpful, sending documents to make getting the visa easier and arranging the ride to the apartment in Hua Hin. So everything was sorted for a nice stay.
Our flight to KL was smooth. It took us a while to navigate the airport between walking from the gate, getting a SIM and getting a Grab taxi but we made it to the Airbnb without issue. I only made the entry alarm at the building go off 3 times per day. We had a decent Airbnb that was walking distance to the KLCC Suria Centre, the dentist and Thai embassy. We decided we needed a walk so went to KLCC to grab some breakfast for the morning and check out the food court for dinner. Funny, just after we sat down with a meal it started pouring. We ended up wandering around for an hour until the rain ended since we didn’t have umbrellas. We had an appointment at the Thai embassy for the next day so we were up early and went with documents in hand. It took maybe 20 minutes for them to make sure we had everything, we paid and were told to pick up our passports the next day. When we went back for pick up, again, it was really quick and we had visas in hand.
The rest of our time was pretty uneventful. When walking to the embassy we had found a great coffee spot so had that sorted for the daily, sometimes twice daily, fix. We went to the KL City Dentists ho were great again and we both had successful cleanings. We managed to get some basic breakfast items at the grocery store. We did some chores like laundry and getting our duffle organized. We ordered Grab food, splitting between My Biryani House and a couple of donair places. Went to see Dune 2 in a pretty empty theater, a great movie. There was a Decathlon nearby so we walked over to check that out, stopping at the local Samsung store so Paul could look at the phones. Otherwise we spent time just walking around and enjoying not having to drive. Next stop Thailand!
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