Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Of Buses and Trains

A short trip.

I was in Shah Alam over the weekend for the adidas King of the Road (KOTR) event. Happy to say that I completed the 11 km run after contemplating to just run half way as I was still a bit unwell. Yeay for me!

I have never been to Shah Alam before, so along the run I saw all the main landmarks, the Blue Mosque, the buildings, etc. I thought the landscape was very .. dry, bland; reminds me of cardboard? Vibrant and fresh are words that don't belong here. I felt that there's just something missing. I couldn't quite put a finger on it.

Anyway, the highlight of this trip must be the bus journey from LCCT to Sentral. We boarded the Aerobus (yellow) instead of Skybus (red) as it was about to leave. Approaching KL, around MidValley, the aircon started playing havoc by spewing hot air, and a little while later it gave up completely. The driver tried to get some ventilation by opening up the roof windows but that didn't help much. The situation was further compounded by the extremely slow moving traffic (we found out later about the street demonstrations). Decided to step off, then the driver thankfully had another colleague with an empty bus a short walk away in front of the traffic. We got off and boarded the second bus after making sure the air con was cool and working (it was).

Then the driver slowly inched his way out of the main road and started towards Bangsar. I thought okay, he must know a short cut somewhere. Halfway up Jalan Maarof, he asked whether this was the right road! whaaa..t?

I laughed and thought this cannot get any worse, half expecting someone to jump out and shout to us that we've been punked or something. It could be a chapter in a Lemony Snicket book. We wasted another good 30 minutes getting into Sentral, had a quick lunch and then took the Komuter to Shah Alam. Italic

This trip I made use of the KTM Komuter as well, so saved some money on transport. Taxi fares are sky high now, it really eats up into one's budget. I think I should write on 'KL on a Shoestring' one day.

My next KL trip will be to 'test that shoestring' :)

(Pictures are all in trouble-land. Hopefully I can salvage some later)

2 comments:

  1. Shah Alam is a "planned city", so things are quite boring there. Plus, you can't buy beer from the 7-11. ;p

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  2. LT - You are right about SA. So what's missing was its/her soul :). I think they later returned the beer :P. Will be interesting to see the outcome of this 'controversy'

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