If you are a tourist planning on your first trip or just a casual trip but on a budget, I would highly suggest traveling to Kuala Lumpur. If you are traveling from the Philippines, only AirAsia has a direct route from Cebu to KL but there are numerous airlines offering Manila to KL route. The airfare is also affordable if you chose the budget airlines such as AirAsia and Cebu Pacific.
When I traveled to this country, I was with my classmates that's why the trip was more fun. We arrived in Kuala Lumpur on an AirAsia flight from Cebu. Like any other international airport, the floor area of the airport is quite huge and we have to transfer through a sky bridge to get to the immigration. From the airport, there are many options to travel to the city center of Kuala Lumpur like through an LRT, Grab, or bus. We took the bus because it only cost around ₱300 for the VIP type. The ordinary bus and LRT are way cheaper. The bus took us to the KL Sentral Station where almost all of the train lines converge. From there, I took the train to my hotel which was three train stations away.
I stayed at the PNB Perdana Hotel and it only costs around ₱11,000 for three nights. The price might sound pricey but my hotel room has a living room, kitchen, the bathroom has a tub, and there's a balcony. In Cebu, a room like this would cost upwards of ₱5,000 per night. The area in which the hotel is located is just one train station away from the Petronas Twin Towers. This is definitely the best hotel room for its price that I have been to.
Traveling to Malaysia also marks my third time to present to an international conference. The conference was held in Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation. This university is quite huge as well. Some buildings inside the campus were fairly new and we were told that the old campus was not that far. When we were there, I noticed that the school has students of different nationalities even though most of them are not exchange students.
The day after the conference, my classmates and I decided to rent a van to visit tourist spots around the city. We went to Genting Heights for a cable car ride, went to a strawberry farm, Batu Caves, and sightseing around the city. There are tons of places to visit in Malaysia but our time was limited and we were there mainly for the conference. Overall, I really like the city of Kuala Lumpur because it is clean and the cost of living is not that high.
