Trip To Malaysia - Shopping

The Sungai Wang Plaza
In the afternoon and later in the evening.





Hello,

Coming back to the trip to Malaysia I start where we left off in our last post.
After the lunch at Sagar we were given the option of either going back to the hotel for rest or take a trip for the shopping malls of Kuala Lampur.

Except for a few elderly couples the rest of us opted for a visit to the shopping malls. We had heard a lot of the Malaysia shopping festivals and were hoping to get some good buys.

Our guide Mr. Homi gave us the idea that the things to buy in Malaysia should mainly include ladies handbags, chinese silk dresses or dress material and shoes. He made it clear tough that shopping would not be a major attraction as the electronics was available at much cheaper prices in India.

So we were dropped at the Bukit bintang and the Sugai Wang Plaza which was considered the middle class shopping malls of Kuala Lampur.

The mall is huge with a large number of outlets. In contrast to the Suria KLCC shopping mall which is located in the Petronas Towers, the Bukit Bintang and the Sungai Wang Plaza does not have big name shops. Selling local and international goods the shops are small in size, more or less in the style we see in India. Fakes of branded items are available. They say it is better than fakes made in China.

There are several shops selling electronic goods like cameras,mobile phones, laptops and other items but we did not get to see anything that could attract our attention. At one shop when I asked for the calculator to work out the price of a particular Nokia mobile in rupees the shopkeeper helpfully suggested to refrain from doing the hard work as the prices in Malaysia would be higher. Once we had it from the horse's mouth we stopped looking at the electronics.

Mayank had by now started insisting on buying a pair of 'converse' shoes. So both Mayank and I started looking for shops selling thses shoes while Radhika and Ruchira went their own way looking for clothes in special chinese design and handbags.

When Mayank fixes his mind on something he makes sure that we reach the conclusion and therefore we did manage to find out the only shop in the plaza that was selling 'converse'. A kind of canvas shoes, I was made to understand that the shoes were in the design used by Basketball players in USA. I fond it strange as they are quite bulky. Anyway, no option. We did a quick calcualtion in rupee and found that it would be almost the same price we pay in Kuwait. Now that his shopping was done Mayank insisted on completion of his next agenda 'a burger at McDonalds'. As usual I obliged.

We were waiting for Radhika andRuchira at the exit and it transpired that they had already finished their tour, buying just one of the chinese dresses and a handbag. They said that the handbags were good but as both of them are shoppers who buy according to practical needs they restricted themselves to the two items. This too according to them they could have done without.

We had completed our shopping trip that included a cursory look into the malls located next to the plaza as well by 6.30 pm and it was now time for us to make our trip back to the hotel before starting for dinner.

We had the option of taking a taxi which wuld have dropped us directly in front of the hotel or take the metro rail where the station at the destination was some distance away from the hotel. Mr. Tanwar and his family had also finished their shopping at the same time so both families opted for a metro trip.

As expected the efficiency was impressive. The stations look clean and well kept, the trains run on time and the ticket vendors are efficient. Most of the stations are also associated with a particular brand and therefore we get in at say 'Toshiba' and get down at 'Sony'.

The walk down to the hotel from the station where we got down turned out to be longer than what we had thought and therefore the ladies were bundled into a taxi while Mr. Tanwar, his son Bhanu, Mayank and I walked it. We had to cross narrow alleys to reach the hotel and these alleys were as clean as the alleys we have in Mumbai Colaba. Nothing better.

The dinner at Aryan, another Indian eatery was OK.

We were now ready to move out of Kuala Lampur and proceed to Al Famosa Restort. This was to be a one day stop before we made our onwards journey to Singapore.

Malaysia is actually not a shoppers paradise as it is made out to be. Of course you can get some good quality fakes of ladies handbags and carry bags, but that is it. Bhatia and family purchased the Petronas Tower T shirts and they were wearing it at the dinner.

Best wishes,
Manoj

To be continued....