8 hour stopover KL
 

In early October this year, I have an 8 hour stop over in Kuala Lumpur. Incoming flight lands at 1.35pm and departing flight leaves at 9.45pm. This is a Monday. Is it worth heading into KL for a 'look see' or should I just check out the airport, buy a good book and have a good read?????<BR>

The airlines want you to be a good girl and go to your next gate and sit and stare into the air and wait peacefully until your next flight in 8 hours!

Pauline,<BR>On my recent trip to China, I had a couple of long layovers (5 to 8 hours). By all means, if you can get transportation, go see what there is to see. Not that you can't kill 8 hours at the airport, but what a waste of vacation/travel time! Personally, I will never let that happen to me again (I'm talking about scheduled long layovers - obviously, some things are beyond my control). I'd rearrange my entire schedule to prevent that from happening.<BR>You should have plenty of time to do that, too.

It's about a 45 minute drive by taxi from the airport to downtown - with no traffic (I left at 5:30am). Around rush hour, at least in the downtown area, the traffic is unbelievable. I don't think you will have enough time to make it worthwhile.<BR>

You would have enough time to take the train to KLCC(operational in Mar 2002)- that is the Petronas Towers, so that you can say you saw the tallest buildings in the world. No worries about traffic jams there.

Okay, well I can't say for absolute sure, but I don't think that train from KLIA is anywhere near finished, so don't count on it, even by October. Malaysia moves pretty slow with things like that. There are train routes that were meant to be finished years ago that are still being built.<BR><BR>It COULD be done, going right down town, honestly. Even if it takes an hour and a quarter in traffic, plus maybe an hour leeway for getting back to check in for your flight out, you still have four to five hours to poke around. Especially if you can hire a taxi driver for the whole time to chauffeur you around! <BR><BR>If you are going to worry about getting back to the airport in time the whole day, perhaps you could go into PJ or Shah Alam instead? Then you at the airport side of the city, rather than right in the core. Unfortunately I can't suggest anything really worth seeing in either... Shah Alam is pretty, and the Blue Mosque has the tallest minarets in the world (or some such claim to fame). Or shopping at Sunway Pyramid or 1 Utama.... or a seafood dinner out in Klang...<BR>

Thanks for the replies. I'll have to have a long think about it.

Pauline,<BR><BR>I checked into the KLIA train and it turns out it will be starting to run sometime in April, so you will definitely be good to go. The train goes to the new KL Sentral station - from there you can catch the Putra line LRT (and that will take you to KLCC, Chinatown, etc). So traffic isn't a worry and you can definitely go see some sights!!<BR><BR>Go for it!

Jen, <BR><BR>Thanks for the additional info.<BR>I'll have to do some more exploring on the web to see what there is to see in KL, in just a few hours.