Reaching the Heights at the Hilton

It was another fine Kuala Lumpur morning only, this time, we were in the Hilton hotel watching a misty equatorial sun slowly rising.

We, my delectable wife and I, were twenty three floors up, without a mobile phone signal and experiencing the inconvenience of no free wifi. Everything in the Hilton was, of course, expensive. Even the bottled water (Tau), which it said on the label that you need to rehydrate, was expensive. RM33 (think the equivalent of £33 if you are in UK), and a mini tube of Mr Potato (Hot and Spicy) RM16 (£16).

Balanced against the luxury of the hotel room's bathroom suite,  which included an actual bath as well as a comfortable shower, the fact that I had to repair the toilet flush pales almost into insignificance, almost, but not quite. 

The was a brief moment of discomfiture, however,  when my wife wanted to exchange bath robes (brown and black batik), because her's was too big, and mine too small.  Having exchanged robes we discovered them to be the same size. The flip down seat in the shower was a nice idea, but I couldn't quite grasp the necessity for a mini television screen in the shaving mirror pedestal.

Breakfast cost a veritable arm and a gammy leg, but the international display of foods was worth it. My plate was a United Nations all on its own with Malaysian, Japanese, Chinese and Western fare clamouring for me to devour them, and I did.  The coffee was not so hot, both figuratively and in actuality, but passable.  The Hilton Kuala Lumpur seems not have have caught up with European hotels where coffee capsules ensure a fresher coffee taste and greater variety. My wife found blackberries, having only recently come across them in Port Lligat, Spain. All was well with the world until, of course, we had to pay.

It was a freebie. My wife's cousin sister, and yes there are such things in Chinese families, gave us a complimentary voucher so we could experience how the other half live, sans breakfast. And they live well,  believe me they do if the Hilton is anything to go by. Breakfast was more, much more than we would normally pay for diner, even when feeling flush at the beginning of the month.

As a slight aside, and as a an adjunct to my mini diatribe,the level of English grammar has sadly declined to a drastic level, in Malaysia.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the 5 star Hilton hotel we had stayed in. Over breakfast we encountered a number of food signs misspelled. Grilled Tomatoes was Grill Tomato,  whereas Scrambled Egg had become Scramble Egg. It is a small matter, but perhaps indicative of declining English language use in this now severely post-colonial country.