Travel Diary – Towers, Forests and attack of the monkeys

After a fab few days in Yas Island (you can read our adventures over here and here), we arrived in Kuala Lumpur mid afternoon on Monday.  As is the way with travelling, sometimes life doesn’t go as planned.  With a long delay getting our travels started in the city, followed by my niece falling ill yesterday, we ended up having a very slow start to our time in KL.

We are staying in the Impiana Hotel in KLCC which is a perfect location to stay in central KL.  We can easily walk it to lots of major attractions and have lots of amenities to hand.  The children have loved their breakfasts and relaxing by the pool.  A change of plans did mean that we got to have a few lazy days to catch up and ensure that the little adventurers weren’t too overtired during our trip.  Every cloud and silver lining.  Doc’s sister was also in KL whilst we are here so we met up with them yesterday evening, which was a lovely way to spend a few hours, so we visited Times Square Shopping centre and headed over to China Town.  The little adventurers were gutted when they had to go their separate way!

I have been to KL twice before and each time I arrive, I totally love the Petronas Towers.  They are really a feat of engineering, immaculate, stunning and a sight to behold when they are all aglow at night.  Being married to an engineer, you learn to be wowed by anything that people have been able to construct and calculating all the intricate details which make such a project possible.  I love sitting at the feet of the towers and just admiring the view.  We are due to go up the towers tomorrow and entry, though no longer free, allows you now to also visit the observation floor at level 86, so it will be a first for us all.

We discovered the FRIM canopy walk through Globalmouse‘s trip to KL last year.  It was very much on my list of things to do so we set off this morning bright eyed and bushy tailed.  I may have misread the post expecting it to be a 30 minute walk up the hill and not realising that strenuous nature of the walk.  Things have also changed since Nichola visited last year as the number of tickets have greatly reduced and now reservation is required at least the night before.  In addition, a guide is also required for the walk, we attended the noon tour and were able to share the cost of the guide with other guests and the children made friends with the elderly ladies and teenage girls in the group.

The walk up was exhausting, we were sweating, flustered and generally totally exhausted however the canopy walk was stunning.  I didn’t realise that we would be this high up and nor did I realise it would be as beautiful as it was.   I couldn’t be prouder of my little adventurers, they were amazing, they clambered all the way to the top and climbed down without a complaint or whinge and were actually full of joy and excitement as they ran around the canopy walk.  I was on the other hand holding on for dear life!!

Batu Caves

This was on my wishlist on my previous visits to KL so we decided to add this on to the end of a visit to the canopy walk.  The views of the caves are stunning but our visit didn’t go quite as planned.  We had heard lots about the monkeys which live on the site and how they are naughty and mischievous they were being on the constant hunt of things to steal.  However, we didn’t realise that the monkeys actually come up and can and would grab you.  A monkey approached Maya and then decided to attack Zayn.  Luckily Zayn was not hurt but the monkey was really aggressive and it was a scary experience all round, leaving poor Zayn very upset and totally petrified of the monkeys for the rest of the visit.

The caves are beautiful and it has a very peaceful, serene feel to the area.  I am glad we visited but would tell families especially those with young children to be aware that the monkeys on the steps are not afraid and you could keep a tight hold of your children!