The flight to KL was an easy when compared to our other trips. And as a bonus it arrived early - the part that wasn't a bonus: we lost 1.5 hour of time, but as a result the days are longer. The silver lining in the cloud.
We took a bus to Chinatown after grabbing a quick bite to eat in the airport. With not much time to spare, we opted for noodles from a nice grocery store that looked like WholeFoods. The walk from the bus station to our hotel was pretty easy although the the heat was killer. We arrived mid-day with the sun beaming down on us. It was extremely hot and humid. We checked in, looked at the room, saw the 3 inch cockroach, felt the stifling heat and noticed that the fan from the 50's was merely pumping in hot air from the hallway. This wouldn't do; I had to agree with my Jonny Ball. We needed to find somewhere else.
A short walk around the corner and we found a lovely little oasis of a hotel. The "Bird's Nest Collective" situated on the second floor had walls decorated with fine art, wooden doors with painted animals from Malaysia, and a groovy chill out roof top patio. AC and a private bathroom - sold! The best RM80 we have spent yet.
Anna and Paul, bless their souls, agree to come to meet us in our zone - it's been a long travel day even though everything went relatively smoothly. Chinatown was founded in 1857 and was formerly the Old Kuala Lumpur. It became Chinatown because the first inhabitants were the Chinese, they naturally congregated around the Market Square. The four of us are hungry and thirsty and so very excited to see each other; all three of us give Jon a run for his money with stories to tell. Sitting in the night market area, bright flourescent lights above us and red Chinese lanterns hanging from every wire, awning and pole we were like kids on Christmas morning telling each other what we got from Santa. We sat for a while chatting, 'glowing' (aka dripping with sweat) until we realized that Anna and Paul needed to catch their train. Off they go. Selamat malam!
As we left, Jon starting feel the tinge... What's that? Food issues already? Up during the evening, he didn't really feel like going out all day in the hot sun, but he did. I was also not so good, but not nearly as bad as Jon. Crack open the blister pack of Immodium; thank goodness we brought some. Seems like that fancy-dancy Whole Foods look alike was not so good after all.
Thursday was a good day for touring around the town roughly following the tourist map's outline. It's was hot we were running from shadow to shade to buildings with AC. We visited the National Textile Museum which was built in 1905. It had an Islamic style faced and onion shaped domes derived from Moghul architecture. Along the top were the smaller bulbous domes. It really reminded us of buildings in India. The textiles inside are also similar to India, and now that we know, Burma. One exception is the use of batik. There are many ways to perform this ancient handicraft, and it seems that the Malays have been doing it very well for centuries. Our next stop was the Music Museum. Again, not surprisingly, we see that some of the instruments are like what you would find in India. I guess I hadnt't really expected that. Pretty interesting. Our last stop in this area was to photograph ourselves in front of the "I 'heart' KL" sign outside of the City Gallery. Apparently this stucture has become an icon of the city, we did see t-shirts and other souvenirs with the "I LOVE KL" sign on it. It was nice to have our group shot there, but it was way more interesting to watch a group of four Japanese girls in sunglasses and sun hats while they posed and take numerous shots of one another. Oh to be 19 again!
We walked through Merkeda Square where Malaysia claimed independence in 1957. We continued on into the park, Perdana Botanical Gardens established in 1888. Thinking it would be cooler under the trees and amongst the greenery, we trudged along, and along, and along. The Banyan trees along this road were planted more than a century ago. As beautiful as it was, the road seemed to go on forever and poor Jonny was feeling so poorly. We finally came upon the park entrance and a small eatery area. Even though it was so hot, we decided to stop and eat. All I could think of was getting a cold drink, Jon had one before we even sat down. We had a traditional Malay lunch with a very delectable chilli sauce. Feeling rather Malay myself, I ask the owners how they made it. Well, I got all the secrets and some! Tips on how to make it spicier, how to ensure it isn't too watery and then the talk moved on to Canada. The male of this duo used to work for Air Malaysia and was in Vancouver a few times. What a nice couple. We chat and then it is time for us to mosey on.
We continued to walk through the park but decided against visiting a Bird Park (enclosed zone with different species of birds), we know that when we get to Borneo we will see lots of wildlife, truly wild. By the time we hit the bottom of the park and closer to Chinatown we are all (except Anna) hot and tired. Really hot; it was 35 or 41 with the humidex - whew, that's warm! From the park to Chinatown there were train tracks and two or three major roadways, ok, they were really highways. Crossing would be easy, I grew up crossing Coxwell Ave without the use of intersection lights, much to my mother's chagrin. The four of us stood at the edge of the road, one of us on the watch: "One, two, three, GO!" And the four tourists ran across the road, scared but laughing histerically when we reached the other side. We did this at least three times and then to make matters worse, the 'other side' did not necessary have a sidewalk, we were on a main thoroughfare after all!
That night we decide to go to "Helipad Lounge Bar" which is, as it's name suggest, a helipad on top of a building, which conveniently gives a nice view of the Petronas Towers. Imagine being 36 floors up and on an open air roof top. Yes, open. No bars, no safety rails. The only thing providing a demarcation of the edge were the belt lines that they use for ques at the movie theatres - yes, that belt that pulls out of a post and looks like a seat belt. That was it! No wonder I got the 'hobby-jibbys'! We sat up there, took photos of the buildings and enjoyed the fresh air. It was pretty nice to be out in the open air above the city as it's evening lights came alive, what wasn't so neat was the approaching lightning storm. We enjoyed our G&Ts and headed for food.
Anna had the smart idea to eat in the food court of the Pavilion, a luxury and more imprortantly air conditioned mall. We set out in different directions to 'forage' for our dinner. Jon, a bit ambitious came back with a piping hot bowl of Malaysian spicy soup with chicken and noodles. Ambitious because he wasn't yet over his E.coli infestation. In his words, the spices will either "kill me or clean me out!" ....time will tell.
On Friday, we decided that we should head to Batu Caves. Conveniently located at the end of a train line, we arrive there in the heat of the day but think this will be ok since caves are cool. True enough, inside the cave was cool but climbing the 272 steps to get there brought on a major sweat. In an attempt at humour, at the top of the stairs and the entrance to the cave there is a prohibitive sign with NO EXERCISE written in bold letters. As if!
There are many people around the caves as this is an important sight for the Hindu people. Like a carnival environment, there are vendors selling everything from CDs to jewellery to deep fried snacks. Operating as a shrine since 1890 and an important sight for the Thaipusam Fesitval, there are lots of people here. The main entrance is guarded with a Lord Murugan statue, standing at 141 feet tall, I wouldn't mess with this guy. It definitely makes a good impression. At the top of the steps, the cavern has a few sites for worshipping but compared to the caves that we saw in Burma this is not so impressive. It also had litter and an unpleasant odour - not our favourite sight to date.
Back in town we do the Malay thing and head to a restoran and grab lunch. Curry, roti and iced tea - perfect for a hot and sticky afternoon. We strolled through the Central Market to see if there was anything that we needed to buy. We did find chopsticks and Anna bought a sarong. We left each other and planned to meet at the Skybar on the top floor of the Traders Hotel for 7-ish.
With this being our last chance to see the Petronas Towers and the park, we did a quick freshen up and headed out. The towers are huge at 1483 ft or 88 stories. The towers were completed in 1998 and are built by Islamic principles, each tower having an eight-sided star floor plan. There is a sky bridge linking the two towers at the 41st floor which you can go up to and check out the city. Rather than do that, we meet at the Skybar and enjoy a cocktail. The view is stunning, and as we arrived just past seven we got to see the building light up and the sky turn from blue to black - a great contrast to the sparkling buildings.
We had dinner on Jalan Alor which is a street filled with tables out on the street, much like we saw in Yangon except this time the chairs are adult sized. We had a nice Thai dinner as we sat 'glowing' in the street. We made it an early night as we all had a travel day on Saturday. Hugs goodbye to Anna and Paul, we'll see them soon!
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