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Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia. Unfortunately, our cruise ship port, Port Klang, was a good two-hour drive away from Kuala Lumpur. As a result, most of the excursions today ran between 5-8 hours.
Gail looked at the possibility of taking a train from Port Klang to Kuala Lumpur, but we couldn’t make the time table work with our port schedule. Instead, we thought we would take the free Viking shuttle bus from Port Klang to nearby AEON Bukit Tinggi shopping mall. But when we got to the bus stop, we were informed there were two major separate accidents on the highway, including an oil spill and an overturned big rig. They “hoped” to get a bus here within the next half hour.
Gail decided that even if we could get onto a bus, we had no idea how long it would take us to get to the mall. So she decided to stay aboard ship today. (In addition, the heat and humidity were so intense, the heat factor was over 100 degrees.)
After lunch, Russell decided to take the shuttle bus on his own. The good news was that the two morning accidents had been cleared. The bad news was that the highways were still backed up. (He did not discover this until he was already on the bus.) The even worse news was that there was a new accident on the highway. (Again, he did not discover this until he was already on the bus.)
After 40 minutes, Russell finally made it to the shopping mall. He wandered around until it was time to take the shuttle back. Unfortunately, the driver was on a break and the shuttle would not come back for another half hour. Russell ended up barely making it back to the ship in time to prepare for his evening lecture. He won’t do that again!
Last year, we sailed the first half of the world cruise, disembarking in Singapore. Next year, we will sail the second half of the world cruise, embarking in Singapore. This year, we are sailing the entire world cruise. One of the reasons we were so casual about Kuala Lumpur is we know we will be back here again next year. Now that we know what’s here, we hope to plan a more meaningful visit in 2025.
