Kuala Lumpur : Batu Caves, Genting Highlands, and Petronas Tower in just one day

On our second day in Malaysia, we decided to visit the top 3 places on our priority list around Kuala Lumpur area. We took our breakfast at the hotel before 7 o'clock and by 7:30 we are already on the road. On this day, we will visit Batu Caves, Genting Highlands and Petronas Tower in the evening.
Every stop is just short but in this trip, we are really not into a relaxing pace, we want to cover as many places as we could.

From our hotel (Hotel Sentral Pudu), we walked towards Hang Tuah Station and took the LRT Line 3 or 4 to Bandaraya Station. From Bandaraya it is another walk towards Bank Negara Station and then from Bank Negara, we took the KTM Line2 train to Batu Caves. We reached Batu Caves by 9:00am and spent an hour exploring the cave.

The pigeons greeted us near the gate of Batu Caves. And a beautiful pond on the left side just before reaching the gate.

And finally at the foot of Batu Caves...more pigeons :)

Okay, here's our selfie before we start the 272 steps ascent to the Batu Caves Temple. Guarding the temple is Lord Murugan Statue, the tallest Hindu deity statue in Malaysia, and second tallest in the world.

By the way, shorts are not allowed for ladies inside the temple but it's okay if you're wearing shorts, there are wraps for rent just before you start the ascent, I think the rent is just 3RM.

We have to stop several times along the way to take some rest and enjoy the view below.

The view from above is just so fantastic.

After an hour of exploration, we took the KTM Line2 train from Batu Caves towards Putra train Station. Then we walked from Putra Train Station towards PWTC train station and from PWTC station, we took the LRT Line again (3 or 4) towards Plaza Rakyat station. We will catch the Go Genting Bus from Pudu Sentral Terminal which is just a short walk from Plaza Rakyat station. By 11:30am we are already on board Go Genting Bus for an hour and a half ride towards Genting Bus Station in Genting Highlands. Genting Skyway is just above (3rd floor, I think) the Genting Bus terminal.

We are excited for the 15 minutes cable car ride towards Resorts World Genting Highlands.

That is Genting Skyway Terminal taken from the cable car.

The famous Genting Skyway (2.10 mile long) with the forest below, cable cars travel at ~6m/s.

The fog was so thick when we reached the summit and it was very very cold. I regret wearing a shorts.

We just explore the area, took some photos, had a short rest and lunch and we head back again towards Kuala Lumpur. We did not explore the rides as we don't have time and it is not really part of the itinerary, we don't like rides, we're afraid of speed and height :). We just really want to experience the cable car ride and see this highland resort. These are some photos we had on Genting Highlands:

We left the resort at 4:00pm, took the 15min cable car ride to the Go Genting Bus terminal and we're able to catch the 4:30 bus back to Pudu Sentral Terminal. From Pudu Sentral, it is just a short walk to Plaza Rakyat Station, then we took the LRT line (3 or 4) to Masjid Jamek and another LRT (line5) to KLCC. Around 7:00pm we are already in Petronas Tower, we still have enough daylight for a day view of the tower, sunset in Malaysia is ~8pm.

And the night view of the towers:

This wraps our day. For the full details of the itinerary, please refer to my blog last April. Thanks.

Melaka Guide : A Day Tour From Kuala Lumpur

Melaka is a historic state in the Southern region of Peninsular Malaysia. The state is abundant with heritage buildings, ancient landmarks and colonial structures. Melaka City was listed as one of Malaysia UNESCO World Heritage Site together with George Town in Penang. Melaka is famous for the  imprints of British, Dutch and Portuguese forces left behind in forts, museums, churches and towers.

I am a UNESCO site enthusiast and in my not so frequent trips to some new place, I always search for any UNESCO site nearby that I could visit. So yes, on our first day of our 1 week Malaysia trip, Melacca tops the list :). We arranged our Melaka day tour from Kuala Lumpur on our own and it was very easy. All information we need is available in google, and the very good transportation system of Malaysia did help a lot.

Our hotel is in Pudu area near Bukit Bintang and we are walking distance from Hang Tuah and Pudu LRT station (LRT lines 3 & 4). We are so excited on this trip as this is the first day of our Malaysia exploration. We have read that there is a bus from Berjaya Times Square Hotel (a short distance from our hotel) that goes directly to Melaka and so after our early breakfast, we walked to Berjaya Times Square Hotel to try to get the ride. First lesson learned : bus tickets are purchased either online or from the ticket booths in the terminals (except for local buses and city buses). We know that the bus tickets can be purchased online but we don't know that we cannot buy it from the driver. We have no choice but to proceed with our other option, to go to (TBS) Terminal Bersepadu Selatan Bus Station.

From Berjaya Times Square Hotel, we walked towards Hang Tuah and took LRT Line4 to Bandar Tasik Selatan (BTS). The TBS Bus Station is a huge building, very organized, the first modern bus terminal I've been to so far. It is located just across the BTS train station and accessible via the walkway that connects BTS train station and TBS bus station.

TBS as seen from the connecting walkway

The walkways that connects TBS and BTS. I appreciate that Malaysia is blind-friendly. There are yellow lines as guide for the blinds everywhere.

TBS Bus station has a sentralized ticketing system, I feel like I'm in the airport actually and not in a bus terminal.

Centralized Ticketing System

We bought our ticket to Melaka for just 10RM each and waited for about 15 mins for the bus to arrive in the assigned gate (just like in the airport).

waiting are

The bus would bring us to Melaka Sentral (local bus station in Melaka) and the trip took us ~2.5hrs.
From Melaka Sentral Bus Station, we took the local bus (Gate 17) to bring us to Dutch Square and the fare is only 2RM each. We reached Dutch Square at 11:30am, took some pics on this famous red square but did not stay long as we are already hungry so we cross the bridge to the other side of the river to take our lunch. Melaka City indeed feels like a European city center because of the presence of the river (except for the hot weather of course). I always love the feel of city centers in Europe coz I love nature and seeing a clean river in the midst of the city is so relaxing.

Dutch Square

Christ Church Melaka...an imposing structure in the Dutch Square. All red and all European air.

I love Melaka :)

The river dividing Melaka City

Right after crossing the bridge is the famous Jonker Walk. There was no crowd but on weekend nights, the street is close for the night market. We walk around to look for a good restaurant but it was very hot, the one restaurant we wanted to try is close, and so we just settled for Famosa Chicken Rice Ball.

After lunch we started with our Melaka City Exploration. We cross the bridge back to Dutch Square and use below map as our guide.

We walk up the little hill at the back of Stadthuys towards St. Paul's church at the summit and down to Porta De Santiago.  St. Paul's Church is a historic church building in Malacca, Malaysia that was originally built in 1521, making it the oldest church building in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. It is located at the summit of St. Paul's Hill and is today part of the Malacca Museum Complex comprising the A Famosa ruins, the Stadthuys and other historical buildings.

St. Paul's Church at the top of the hill

It is amazing to be standing in the midst of the ruins of this very old church.

Behind the ruins, there is a path leading down to Porta de Santiago. We followed the path and passed thru some old dutch graveyard.

The old structure behind is the St Paul's Church atop the hill.

Porta de Santiago is a small gate house of A Famosa, a Portuguese fortress in Melaka. It is among the oldest surviving European architectural remains in Southeast Asia.

Porta de Santiago as seen from St. Paul's Church atop the hill.

Porta de Santiago

When we were at the top of the hill in St. Paul's church, we saw this huge old ship in the distance and so we decided to go and explore the area. We found out that it is a Maritime Museum. The Maritime Museum or the Muzium Samudera is a replica of the Portuguese ship which sank in the coast of Malacca while on its way to Portugal. The replica is a staggering 34 meters in height and 8 meters in width. The main focus of the museum is the maritime history of Malacca and the golden ages of Malacca’s Sultanate as the Emporium of the East.

Later, there are other places we have checked like the old streets of Melaka with historical small establishments or buildings. We also passed this cute windmill and fort, I don't know the name, I forgot to check :) .

And to end our Melaka visit, we tried the famous Cendol. 

It is good but I still prefer our own famous halo-halo in the Philippines :).

We walked back towards the end of Jonker Street where it joined Jalan Tokong and there is the waiting shed for a bus that would bring us back to Melaka Sentral, then back to Kuala Lumpur. at Terminal Bersepadu Selatan.

-------------end of our Melaka Adventure ------------------