It took an hour to get to the hotel in the city center from the KL airport. Even at 1:30 am, Gurmit, the Four Seasons Guest Experience manager, was waiting to greet us at the front door of the hotel. We were immediately swept up to our one-bedroom deluxe apartment without having to stop to do any pesky check-in formalities. This accommodation was a leap of an upgrade from a city view room that Nelson Hilton, Regional Director of Marketing, had made happen for us. We paid US $299 per day for the city view room and had a wonderful apartment with a kitchen and a washer-dryer! By around 3 am we were asleep.
Our first morning we went to the breakfast buffet at Curate Restaurant and we were astounded by the gargantuan buffet and the diversity of the offerings. It was indeed an amazing buffet breakfast. Later on our first day, we unpacked, met all of the Housekeeping staff and managers, and personalized the apartment. Sheila Ali, the Hotel Manager, came to meet us even though it was her day off. Swady Othman, the Guest Experience Executive, known as Didi, was always around to help us too. During our first week, Nelson Hilton came to chat with us at breakfast. He was charming and we were grateful for all the upgrades he arranged for us in KL and Langkawi. The General Manager of the hotel, Blaise Montandon also introduced himself and chatted with us at breakfast. We really, really liked that!
We spent one week in Kuala Lumpur before hopping over to Langkawi to have a beach vacation at the Four Seasons there. We explored the KLCC (Kuala Lumpur Convention Center) park, the Suria/Isetan shopping mall near the hotel, Chinatown, Brickfields Little India, hiking at Taman Tugu forest park and more. We sampled the diversity of the ethnic cuisines and looked forward to much more sampling when our visit would be five weeks. We also sampled the food at the Executive Lounge that Nelson Hilton made sure that we could use. It was a lovely space and we even had the evening food offerings for dinner one rainy night.
The one thing we wished that the hotel had was a Jacuzzi set at 39° C (102° F). We even spoke to Sheila, the Hotel Manager, and Kevin, the Chief Engineer, about it. It wasn't meant to be.
Our first (and second) impressions of KL were very good. It was a more orderly city than Bangkok and appeared cleaner and calmer. The city didn't seem to be a noisy one either. "It seems quite a bit like Singapore, without the perfectionist approach to sanitization," as our friend Ellen said. When we took a Grab car to go to dinner, the traffic wasn't typically terrible. The drivers appeared to follow the rules, even the motorcycles. If there was a "no smoking" sign, we never saw people smoking. We were impressed at the fluency in English of the people we talked to around town. It made our stay easy. Every once in a while we got to say a word or two in Bahasa. Although our visit was during the northeast monsoon season, we were able to get out during the day without rain, most of the time. We decided that we should just go out, no matter what the weather. The temperature during the day was usually in the 80s F (around 26° C), with humidity around 80% (even in our hotel room, the humidity was around 70%). We loved the ethnic diversity we saw as we looked around: the Malay, Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Korean faces were a refreshing change from the few different faces we see in the US.
Although the majority of women were wearing headscarves, they were colorful, not typically black. The clothes they were wearing were pants or long skirts and they were colorful. There were women in black abayas and wearing a hijab but not the majority. As far as COVID was concerned, very few people were wearing face masks. As the Festive Season approached, more people were wearing masks. COVID cases began to increase as the holidays approached and soon many/most people were wearing masks.
Audre loved that the water was potable. If she ruled the world, drinkable water would be available, free, everywhere. One thing we didn't like: there were too many very overweight people around and many obese ones too. Also, we didn't like the weather, either it was gray or scorching.
We celebrated Thanksgiving at the Four Seasons Kuala Lumpur where they had a gargantuan buffet. We started with oysters and Japanese Hokkigai clams and sashimi. Then we progressed to the mud crab, slipper lobster, and ginormous river prawn. Later we had turkey, stuffing, and sweet potatoes. Dimitri then sampled the Indian offerings. We didn’t have any of the salads or the vegetables. Lastly, we tasted each of the desserts and chocolates. It was unbelievable and it cost US $50 per person! Malaysia was a very affordable place.
After our return from our two weeks at the Langkawi Four Seasons, we were given a warm and genuine welcome, particularly by Blaise Montandon, General Manager. He arranged for us to have a two-bedroom executive park view apartment overlooking the KLCC Park! It was such a luxury! Blaise maintained the per-day price as we had arranged it with Nelson Hilton. We paid for a standard city view room at the Four Seasons and lived in a two-bedroom apartment there for US $383.94 inclusive per night. Kevin, the Chief Engineer, installed an extra ceiling light in the master bathroom when we complained that it was dark and the gray-tinted mirrors made seeing difficult. Everything worked; even the air conditioning system kept the set point temperature. But, there was no heat at all and one day when Dimitri was freezing he had to go outside to warm up!
We used the kitchen, having lunch at our apartment many days with all of the leftovers from our dinners out. We liked the Four Seasons fitness/gym and used it at least once a week. Part of the personalization of our rooms at Four Seasons worldwide is having yoga mats placed in the rooms. We did our stretching and toning using them in our rooms, everywhere.
Amrin was our principal housekeeper and he took very good care of us. He left us lovely notes and gifts from time to time. In short, we didn't want to leave without him. When he was re-deployed Amera or another staff member took care of us. Because of our Four Seasons "profile" all of the housekeeping staff knows our preferences and quirks. In addition to the Elite benefits we got, because we own a unit at the Four Seasons Vail, Nelson Hilton arranged for us to have Executive Club Lounge benefits. Often we used the lounge for a snack and even for dinner when it was raining. One of the Executive Club Lounge benefits that we loved was to have two complimentary pieces of laundry/dry cleaning per day. BOY, did we use that benefit. With 35 days of those benefits, we returned to Vail without any dirty laundry!
In our apartment, we had two large showers. Hardik had plastic stools brought so each of us could sit and soap up. What a luxury!
Each night we would go to a different restaurant--some Michelin Bibs, some recommended by FS staff members. Two were even Michelin One Stars. Have a look at our restaurant reviews. The roads around town were very good. We even used the city buses and the subway, easily. The subways were clean, modern, and easy to use. There were even clean toilets and elevators for us (in addition to escalators). NY City: take note!
The city was generally clean even in the poorer neighborhoods. In Brickfields, the Indian area, we saw people sleeping in the streets. So we assumed that the city has its share of homeless.
The architecture around KL was interesting. We felt that we were seeing only a small section of the large city but we enjoyed what we saw. Audre found a building that she thought looked like a Dubuffet sculpture.
We did sightseeing and we went to shopping malls. Audre thought that life in KL centered around family, home, restaurants, sports, and shopping malls. Maybe that's the same worldwide but outdoor activities in KL didn't seem to be a priority like in Colorado.
The Four Seasons tower was right next to the famous Petronas Towers. During the day we thought that they were ugly but at night the silver metal sparkled and was kind of nice. We never went to the top because from the Four Seasons, we had a good enough bird's eye view.
Our second stay in KL was five weeks and our rituals became well-known to the staff. We would go to Curate for breakfast around 8:30 or 9 am. If it hadn't been for Olivia and Chef Rose, our breakfasts would have been much less enjoyable. The staff, usually Sha, would bring us our choice of freshly squeezed juice - orange, guava, mango, watermelon, or carrot. They would bring us our water and, each day, also a bowl of exotic fruit, including Audre's favorite jackfruit and chicku, mangosteen, rambutan, longan, mango, pomelo, and even snake fruit--all fruits that we love but can't get at home, or easily. Then we would cruise the buffet selections which included Malay, Indian, Western, Japanese chawan mushi, quiche, frittata, congee, Asian noodle soups--made to order with a selection of ingredients. Of course, there were pastries and breads, as well as salads and fruits on the buffet. We learned to ask for our hot breakfast items, rather than taking them from the buffet. Executive Chef Junious Dickerson wanted to make us special things so we wouldn't get bored. We were indeed spoiled.
Generally Chef Rose would check in with us in the morning. We would also have visits from the hotel's Director of Food & Beverage, Hardik Shah. He gave us recommendations for outside restaurants to visit. We also had visits at breakfast from Belal Nader, Assistant Director of Food & Beverage. He also provided us with suggestions for restaurants. These recommendations were invariably very good ones.
One day we hired a car and driver and went to the new administrative city of Malaysia called Putrajaya. It is a planned city on an island south of KL. It was well planned and we vowed to visit again to bike around there on the many bike paths.
Another day we went to the Botanic Garden and took a little golf cart tour around it and the surrounding area. It was perfect because after walking in the heat of the day, both of us were drenched. We didn't go to the hill country north of KL although we were told it was much cooler there.
We did visit the Royal Palace and it was a joke. All you could do there was stand in the scorching heat at the closed gate and look at the magnificent palace and grounds that were closed to the public.
We also visited Merdeka Square where independence from the Brits was declared and walked the lovely River of Life promenade by the river. We were amazed when we learned it ran 10k. We went to the Textile Museum and learned about the traditional kebaya clothes that women wear (and that our hotel manager, Sheila, wore on some Fridays).
Dimitri and I felt triumphant after our return visit to Putrajaya to bike around. Dimitri figured out the subway and bus system sufficiently to get us to Putrajaya on public transport. It was very well designed and built, with lots of parks and open spaces (and few people on the Sunday-equivalent here). On a Saturday, we got there by subway and bus, rented e-bikes, and tooled around the humungous botanic garden, where, as an extra treat, an orchid festival was going on. We found a seafood restaurant on the lake that surrounds the island and had two delicious mud crabs. Of course, it rained while we were biking—KL is in a tropical rainforest area. In our backpacks, we had saranwrap-like ponchos which worked amazingly well. Against all odds, but with Google’s directions, we found the public bus for our return. Oops, it was raining again so we dripped our way through the Four Seasons Kuala Lumpur back to our apartment. It was so much fun and at 82 and 77, we were jazzed that "we still got it."
Of course, our soaking caused a relapse of our colds and soon we lost our voices and we got conjunctivitis. Oh well, with age comes infirmities.
Our park view allowed us to watch the nightly Symphony Lake water and light show. As the holidays approached, the lights became more colorful and the show more fun.
Kuala Lumpur decided not to have the fireworks show from the KLCC park on New Year's Eve in solidarity with the world's population oppressed by war.
We consulted with the Concierge Staff, particularly Conde, Tim and Narain. Narain, by the way, was our first concierge who was a member of Les Clefs d’Or Malaysia. When we needed doctors appointments, the Concierge Staff made sure we had them and got to them. It was fun to have staff greeting us by name and making sure all was well with us. Dimitri mastered the Grab taxi system and we used Grab to go to dinner. Coming back to the hotel was always a nice experience--the front drive staff greeting us by name and saying "welcome home".
One day Chef Junious Dickerson sent us up an appetizer table of caviar! What were we saying about being spoiled?
We enjoyed our no-rush visit to Kuala Lumpur. It is an easy city to navigate and we did.
Delighted to read your notes!
ReplyDeleteCannot wait to see you in January,…
Bill and Billie