Shamelessmack in Thailand and around

This is one of those blogposts where, to some readers, I am only saying the obvious. But, hey, it was a discovery for me and I reckon that for others who do not travel to Kuala Lumpur regularly, it may be useful infomation. So, please bear with me.

Very often, Air Asia gives excellent deals for travelling to Malaysia. In fact, I don’t recall ever using any other airline between Bangkok and the Malaysian capital.

However, Air Asia does not use the main terminal at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA); it uses the Low Cost Carrier Terminal – LCCT for short. As you can see from the diagram at right, the LCCT is on the opposite side of the aircraft parking apron from the main terminal. This means that the express rail link – the fastest way to get downtown – is out of reach since it connects only to the main terminal. There is a shuttle bus from the LCCT to the main terminal, but I think it leaves only every half hour and the distance (by road) appears to be about 12 – 15 km judging from satellite images.

(The express rail from the main terminal to the city takes about half an hour and costs 35 ringgit one way.)

One can hail a taxi from outside the LCCT, but that is going to work out to be quite costly. The airport is some 60 -70 km from the city centre and taxi fares will probably be 70 – 80 ringgit depending on your exact destination.  It doesn’t make a lot of sense to get a good bargain flying Air Asia and then losing what you’ve saved on the taxi fare.

So here’s al tip: When you come out of LCCT International Arrivals, turn left and walk past both Departures and Domestic Arrivals. Keep walking towards where you see airconditioned buses parked. There will be signs and no shortage of spruikers telling you which are the buses heading to KL Sentral, the main railway station. Tickets should be eight or nine ringgit per person, available from the staff member stadning near each bus.

A number of different companies operate the route and among them, you will generally find at least one bus leaving within 10 minutes.

The journey to KL Sentral takes about 60 -65 minutes with no stops in between. Reaching KL Sentral, you can transfer to a taxi for a shorter journey to your hotel, or to Light Rail (Putra Line).

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For your flight home, you can likewise catch an airconditioned bus at KL Sentral. Where to find the buses? Go to the east side of KL Sentral (i.e. the side facing Brickfields and Jalan Tun Sambanthan, get out of the airconditioned building and follow the crowd down an escalator to the road below.

You will find a line of buses with signs saying “LCCT”, as in the photo below. Unless you’re leaving very early in the day or very late, you will find a bus departing every 10 – 15 minutes. It should also cost eight or nine ringgit per head and similarly take 60 – 65 minutes to reach the LCCT.

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To maximise the convenience even more, I would choose a hotel within walking distance of one of the light rail (LRT) stations. That way, I merely change from the airport bus to light rail and zip to the hotel for just one or two ringgit more and avoid having to take a taxi even from KL Sentral. Here is a rough map of the two LRT lines together with the monorail line in yellow:

I have stayed in hotels along the Putra-Kelana Jaya line (blue in my map) as well as around the PWTC area on the Star line (green in my map). Naturally, I find the Putra-Kelana Jaya line more convenient since it passes through KL Sentral. To get onto the Star line, I’d have to change again at Masjid Jamek.

I would advise against staying along the monorail line (marked in yellow on the map above) There is no easy connection to the monorail at KL Sentral – there is (in 2009) a massive construction site in the gap between KL Sentral and the start of the monorail line – nor from any other point along the (blue) Putra-Kelana Jaya line. You may look at the map and ask, what about where the blue intersects with the yellow near KLCC? Yup, the lines intersect, but there is no interchange station!