LCCT Kuala Lumpur International Airport 101

First time travelling abroad with Airasia to/from Kuala Lumpur? Know what to expect here!

If you’re travelling to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia using low cost airplane, such as Airasia, you will be landing in LCC Terminal (low cost carrier terminal) KLIA. It is located about 15-20 minutes from the main KLIA terminal building. To transfer from/to main terminal to LCCT, there are buses every 20 or 30 minutes, the bus fare is 1.5 RM. From LCCT, the bus departs from in front of domestic arrival. From main terminal KLIA, the bus departs from bottom level (bus terminal). 

International Arrival

Until further notice, international tourists coming to Malaysia don’t need to fill any immigration form. Once disembark from the aircraft, just follow the aircrew (or just follow the crowd) to the terminal building. If you just transit in Malaysia and will continue your flight elsewhere, just turn left once you’re inside the terminal building. But if you’re going to enter Malaysia or need to get your baggage first, you will need to pass the immigration on the second floor. The escalator up is right in front of the terminal building’s door.

After the immigration, turn right and take the escalator down. You will see several  kiosks offering SIM card. Turn right if you have check-in baggage, go straight ahead if you only bring your cabin luggage with you. The officers randomly ask to scan the passengers’ baggage. If they don’t ask and you don’t have anything to declare, just walk on. Then you will see the kiosks to buy taxi ticket or to rent cars. If you want to take taxi from the airport, you need to buy the ticket here. They have fix rate for each destination zone. They offer different types of taxi: the budget/regular one (for up to 3-4 persons), premium taxi (up to 4-5 persons), and van (up to 8 persons). The budget taxi fare is ranging from 60-150RM, depending of the destination zone. On the left side, there are kiosks selling bus ticket. Actually the ticket can also be bought inside the bus, so it’s not necessary to buy it there. The cheapest way to reach Kuala Lumpur is by using bus to KL Sentral. KL Sentral is a terminal hub where you can continue your journey using MRT, LRT, monorail, bus, taxi, etc.

Outside the departure hall, if you are using taxi, go left to the front of domestic departure hall to find the taxi queue. Budget taxi is the red-white color, premium is black or blue. Give your ticket to the officer and he will show you which taxi you will use. If you want to use bus, you will find the busses a few steps after the passing the domestic arrival. Find the bus that goes to KL sentral. The red bus (skybus) is owned by Airasia, the bus fare is 9RM to KL Sentral. You can ask the driver about the payment. Usually he will let all the passengers have a seat first and then he will approach the passengers one by one to collect the money. The yellow bus (aerobus) is usually parked in front of Skybus. The rate is 10RM to go to KL Sentral. IMO, this yellow bus is more spacious. But either bus is comfortable.

If someone is supposed to pick you up on the airport but he/she is not arrived yet, there are a lot of chairs in the international arrival hall. If you’re hungry, there are a lot of food stall (kopi tiam, McDonalds, Marrybrown, Dunkin Donuts, vegetarian Indian food, etc). Toilets and praying room is located near Starbucks. Phone booths are also available there if you need to make phone calls.

International Departure

To get to LCC Terminal, you can use bus from KL Sentral. Skybus fare to LCCT is 10 RM. The journey takes about 75 minutes. It is recommended to take the bus 4 hours before departure time. If you prefer to take taxi, the fare is about 75RM from KL. If you are close to Nilai, you can take KTM to Nilai station and continue to the airport using a feeder bus, this probably is the cheapest way to get to the airport.

In the airport, if you want to eat before you go, there are several choices such as Nasi Lemak (in Taste of Asia) or fastfood (McDonald’s or Marybrown). I prefer Marybrown because its menu is similar with McDonalds with cheaper price and sometimes less queue.

In the international departure hall, there are a lot of Airasia Machines if you need to do self check-in or print your boarding pass. There is Airasia sales counter as well if you need any assistant. You can find several weight scale if you need to measure you baggage weight before check-in. If you have check-in baggage, you need to pass the scanner to get to the check-in counters. If you only have cabin baggage, just walk to the left and you will find document check counter, after that you can continue to immigration on second floor (Make sure your flight is from gate T. I found that some flights to Singapore are from gate Y which is in the domestic departure area). Some officers will check your ticket and passport before letting you take the escalator up to the immigration.

After the immigration, there are several duty free shopping stalls. You can also use massage chairs for 1RM/3 minutes. The departure gate is on the ground floor so you need to take escalator down. The toilets and praying room are located between chocolate and perfume shop. The recommended cheap halal meals in the area are Hot n Roll (3-6RM for roti pita/paratha/crispy wrap), bread in Baker’s Cottage(3-5 RM for bread, 9RM for tuna/chicken croissant), or instant noodles in Pusrawi minimarket behind the Baker’s Cottage (only 3RM, add hot water, and voila!), or Chicken Pao. All the food stalls are selling mineral water above 2RM per bottle (500mL), except 2 places which sells it for ‘only’ 1,5RM: Pusrawi minimarket (behind Baker’s Cottage) and Pau/dimsum stall (next to Baker’s Cottage).

While waiting, you can also find place for charging your phone/laptop, ATM, money changer, bookstore, etc.

Royal Belum Rainforest, Perak

Travel on: Mid January, 2014 for 3 days-2 nights
How: by private car
With: husband and his friends (total 13 people)

Type: ecotourism
Total cost: 1000 MYR for 2 persons, including permit, boat rental, chatel, food (self cooking), car fuel n highway, guide to waterfall & rafflesia and visiting indigenous people.
When I write this, 1 USD is about 3.32 MYR.

Royal Belum Rainforest is said to be one of the oldest rainforests in the world, even older than the amazon. It is located in state Perak, north Malaysia.

To enter Royal Belum, we need to obtain permit first. My friend arranged this for us a week before, so I don't know exactly the details to obtain this permit, but as foreigner, my husband and I only provided a copy of our passport.

We left Klang around 3.30 a.m., stopped several times to refuel and sholat subuh, arrived in Gerik around 8.00 a.m for breakfast. We arrived in Pulau Banding jetty in around 9.30 a.m. Then we waited for our friends there.

The car is left in Pulau Banding port, parking fee is 10RM. Then we took jetty to Sungai Tiang, which took less than half an hour. We used Belum Temenggor Adventure Crew as guide for this trip (package include rental boat, chalets, tour).We stayed in Sungai Tiang campsite, which has five chalets (each has one king bed, attached bathroom), two single chalets (two single beds only), public toilet and bathroom (separated for male n female), public kitchen (you have to cook and even bring your own cooking amenities), hall, and a lot of huts. No restaurant, no network coverage, no TV, no hot water shower, electricity from generator only for evening which are fine for me since it was only three days and I came with my husband anyway.

There is alternatif other than campsite, we can rent a house boat. But the price does not make sense for me (4k MYR per night plus 1K per night for two boats). For price like that, I would expect to get a luxurious yacht, not a bamboo/wooden house boat.

When we arrived in Sungai Tiang campsite, the ranger has not come yet so we could not enter our chalets. So we cooked and had our lunch first. When the ranger came about four hours later (around four in the afternoon), I finally see inside the chalet. My first impression was: it was dirty. The floor was very dusty, the bedsheet n pillowsheet had stains here and there, the toilet seats was dirty, the bathroom floor was dirty. The place had just been renovated about three months before, so everything can still be considered new. But I was not happy to have to mop the floor first (and even swop it with lots of my wet tissues) and brush the toilet before using it. I covered the pillow with my clothes when I sleep. Okay may be the others did not do these, but I am very sensitive with cleanliness. Things like those can ruin my mood.

Each has two single beds

Each has king bed and bathroom with shower

This place is fantastic for people who like lake fishing. The lake is artificial lake, made by damming up the river. But it is a very huuuuge lake. For those who don't like fishing, like me, there's not much to do here. Fortunately I bring my book. I just read the book, sitting on the bench on the lakeside. My husband's male friends went fishing all the time, leaving their wives behind just to cook and chat. Again, fortunately, my husband doesn't like fishing, so he spent time with me chatting and reading side by side.

The second day after breakfast we took our boat to the trekking area to see the waterfall and rafflesia flower. The trekking was light, took only 20 minutes (maybe less). But I got stressed because on our way there, there are soo many small bloodsuckers ready to jump on you and suck your blood. Some were sticking on my feet but I realised it and cleaned them off before they suck anything. My husband did not realised them sticking on between his toes, and ended up surprised by blood on his feet. The baby leeches have some kind of anti coagulation agent so even when they stop sucking blood, the blood keeps on dripping. It did not hurt, but I think it was disgusting. The waterfall was okay, and seeing rafflesia on its nature habitat was nice.

After that we visit a village of indigenous people. They already use modern clothes, sing modern songs, use boat to travel to the city, and some can speak Malay and English. The house was still using thatched roof and bamboo/rotan floor. They use net for fishing and blow pipe for bird hunting.

The next day after breakfast and preparing lunch, we cleaned up everything, put everything on the boat, and went to another waterfall to swim there. We had lunch on the rocks beside the waterfall, cleaned up everything, and got back to the boat, back to Pulau Banding port. The journey back to our home near KL took about 6 hours driving, including one stop for refueling and one stop for sholat.

The place is nice for two days-one night trip only (if you don't like fishing), nice for retreating from daily routines, and the scenery was amazing. The weather was nice, cold at night. But overall, I rate this trip as 'just to know only' because of the leeches and dirty room. Nice experience, but once is enough. Well, I'm not a spoiled city girl. I have been undergound caving, waterfall rapling, rafting, body rafting in the river, etc. But I just can't stand leeches, and dirty room/bedsheet/bathroom.