Two weeks in Malaysia in September 2017 (page 3 of 3)

Good evening Servane, Thank you. Yes, you're absolutely right, we're arriving at KLIA1. I'm looking into it closely. Have a good evening

What's recommended is to allow a 3-hour gap between your arrival time at KLIA1 and your departure time at KLIA2.

You’ll need to: - Disembark the plane and enter the airport (5 to 10 minutes) - Go through immigration (it’s pretty quick, but it can take 10/15 minutes including the tram ride) - Collect your luggage (sometimes just 5 minutes, sometimes a quarter of an hour) - Find and take the shuttle to KLIA2. I’ve managed it in 40 minutes, but never in less than 15/20 minutes) - Check in your luggage again with AirAsia at KLIA2 (10 to 30 minutes) - Go through police checks - Walk to the terminal (it’s no small feat: depending on your departure gate, you might have up to 2.5 km to walk!!!). They’ve installed moving walkways because everyone was complaining (there are 42 now), but the minimum time is between 6 and 18 minutes if you walk briskly with luggage that doesn’t slow you down.

All in all, you should plan for about 2 hours if everything goes smoothly, but given the number of "transfers" (that’s the official term, meaning potential bottlenecks), it’s better to add an extra hour, making it 3 hours

going through immigration (it’s pretty quick, but it can take 10/15 mins including the tram ride)

A few years ago, YES. It seems like checks are stricter now—at KLIA in 2016, we waited over an hour, and in 2017, our friends waited over an hour too. Don’t overlook this when entering Malaysia via KL during peak season, of course... and during "rush hours" in the morning.

I’m bumping this thread for future travelers and adding an "unusual" section 😉 -- The elevators made by Chinese companies: since the number 4 sounds like "death," it’s banned. So we stayed on floor "13A."

-- Apartment entrances: you have to take off your shoes everywhere in Malaysia before entering a living space. Hence these kinds of "cages":

-- Western-style toilets seem to be a fairly recent thing. In more remote areas, you’ll find squat toilets (though not necessarily dirty). There are signs to explain how to use these "alien" contraptions properly.





-- And instructional posters with photos to show what to do with the hoses/showers that replace empty flush tanks (before taking this photo, I tried flushing, then—being a bit clueless—I turned on the tap) (so I left with soaked shoes).

-- In hotels/guesthouses, an arrow on the ceiling will point toward Mecca for prayer:

-- Dogs, explosives, and "indecent behavior" are banned on public transport . That’s how we joked for 20 minutes about the fate of a Chinese couple holding hands on the train .

In the same vein, there are train cars reserved for women and children. And apparently lesbians too .

-- French (or something like it) is so chic (St. Tropez, its Eiffel Tower, its red buses):



-- And the cherry on top: in a mall, a shop that’s "neither for nor against, quite the contrary":

I'm bumping this for 2018 travelers! :)

Hi, thanks for your travel journal! Where did you stay in the Perhentians? Thanks