Sunday, July 30, 2006
Langa Township
We were a bit apprehensive about doing this tour, not because of any safety concerns but because we didn't want to just drive through on a bus and peer at it all through glass. There are probably better ways to spend more time with the people who actually live there but we didn't do too badly, and our guide did actually live in one of the local townships and obviously knew a lot of the locals.First stop was the home of the local traditional doctor. He wasn't around but we were allowed to look around the 'surgery', which actually looked a lot like a two car garage except that instead of car parts lying around there were items such as dried lizard skins hanging up. Most of the other bits and pieces weren't easily identifiable and it was probably best left that way!
Visiting one of the local 'pubs' was quite an experience. It was basically a large garden shed, inside which two local ladies were creating the local brew in something the size of an oil drum. There isn't really a price for drinks in these places, just a daily rate. So apparently you pay 5 Rand a day (less than 40p) and sit there and drink as much as you like (Yes Phil and Andrea, you read that right!). The price goes up at the weekend, to about 50p, but to be honest neither of us could say that we were great fans of the 'beer'. It was drunk from a can which looked like it may once have been produced by Dulux. In fact it looked a bit like what you'd get if you whisked up the dregs of a tin of 'Brilliant White' with lukewarm water, and had a taste which suggested that you'd made up that very concoction and chucked in a bit of Fijian Kava for good measure. Having said all of that it may still taste better than a certain inexplicably popular brew from the west side of the atlantic..... True!
As a result of our previous days of rest we'd ended up doing this tour on a Sunday. This meant that we were not able to visit the local museum which tells the history of the townships, however the alternative activity on Sundays is a visit to the local baptist church. As you might imagine this is a fairly lively event, and although the tourists were all seated at the back we were by no means left out. You may notice that there are very few photos of the service, this wasn't because we weren't allowed to take pictures (we were), but because most of the shots came out as a blur of motion! We did take a couple of short videos so we'll try to add in a link to those later. The minister started off by asking all those who were visiting the church for the first time to stand up, this included a few locals but it was mainly those of us at the back. Having asked each of us where we were from (the service was mainly in Xhosa but some parts were in English) he proceeded to welcome us all and invite us to join in. In place of songs sheets or hymn books they use an overhead projector, so it was quite easy to follow along, although to be honest our Xhosa pronunciation was not really up to scratch!
The proceedings followed much the same pattern as any other church service although one particular section brought home the fact that we were in a very different environment. Unemployment is high in Cape Town but we were told that it is over 40% in the townships. So when the minister asked for those who had found jobs or gained promotions during the past week to stand, they were very few in number but received rapturous applause and congratulations from everyone.
The rest of the photos are here.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Robben Island
Having already visited Alcatraz we weren't really sure what to expect here, although the first thing we discovered was that the tickets sell out just as quickly as those for 'The Rock'. One reason for this is that there are far fewer visitors on the island at any one time so it didn't feel so much like a theme park. There was also not quite so much to see here, it's more the significance of the place than the actual 'sights'. The first part of the tour involved driving around the island in an old prison bus, this did involve a visit to the quarry site where the prisoners used to have to work but also included a few stops to check out the wildlife on the island (Springbok, Ostrich and others). There was also a large colony of penguins waiting to see us off as we left the island. The final part of the tour did make up for the relative lack of things to see on the island and we were shown around one of the remaining blocks, which is largely empty except for the cell formerly occupied by Nelson Mandela. At Alcatraz the audio tour is great and includes sections of narration by former prisoners, here at Robben Island however they've gone one better, and so you're shown around by people who actually spent time here as political prisoners.
It was good to hear the story first hand, but given that South Africa is now focused on reconciliation and moving forward it's hard to tell how much of a 'sanitised' version of events we were given. There is however plenty of information back at the museum on the waterfront, with lots of detail about both the events during the time of apartheid and the results of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission's investigations.
More photos here.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Cape Town
It's fair to say that we weren't looking forward to arriving in Johannesburg at 7am after a ten hour flight. I'd read numerous tales of horrendous immigration queues followed by an airport full of people waiting to rip you off in one way or another. It turned out to be OK, the passport control queue wasn't as bad as the one in Macau, and we managed to make our way through the terminal without any problems. In fact the only 'problem' we encountered was the fact that it's winter here, and it's bl**dy cold!After a short internal flight we eventually arrived in Cape Town. Most of the hostels do free pick-ups if you stay a few days, so we had a driver to introduce us to the city straight away. Even though the world cup is over we still seem to get into football conversations wherever we go, this time though we're talking about South Africa 2010, and Cape Town is already well into building work and road construction in preparation for the big event!
I definitely think we're starting to get lazy (or tired) because we're not quite so keen on cramming ridiculous numbers of activities into a few short days, so although we really enjoyed Cape Town we definitely didn't see all of it. It also didn't help that the arrival of cold weather (or the after effects of the Singapore air-conditioning) left us both with colds during our first few days here. Our only other excuse is slipping into the laid back lifestyle, it's not exactly 'Fiji Time' but there's definitely a temptation to get up late and not do too much!
The hostel we chose was only a few minutes walk from the V&A Waterfront, which doesn't exactly look like the typical image of Africa but is a great place to waste a few hours when you should be hard at work doing proper sightseeing!
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Singapore: So Much Food... So Little Time
In the last few days before arriving in Singapore we have met a number of people from this island. Naturally we asked them from a locals point of view what we should not miss. All have said that there is basically nothing to do except shopping and eating. Wrong, Wrong, WRONG! Whilst this is definitely the place to come if you want some retail therapy and also suits the eating machines amongst us, it has so much more than that. Having said that, the only reason why Singapore doesn't appear at the top of the medals tables at major sporting events is because Shopping and Eating are not (yet) Olympic sports.It probably didn't help that we arrived in the middle of the 'Singapore Sale', which basically seems to be a huge event coordinated by all the retailers, to encourage both the locals and the tourists to spend more money. Orchard Road is the local equivalent of Oxford Street and it probably would have taken us a couple of days just to make our way up and down each side of the street and visit all the shops. In addition to this there just seem to be shopping malls all over the place, and if you ever tire of the shopping then every single one of the malls has at least one area dedicated to the other competition sport that takes place here. Eating.
Prior to arriving here Kuala Lumpur was holding the prize for the best place to eat on this trip, but after a few hours in Singapore things were looking uncertain. Eating in Kuala Lumpur is definitely cheaper, and the choice is almost as varied, but somehow it just seems impossible to avoid food in Singapore. The locals certainly seem to dedicate an awful lot of time to eating, and even in the relatively quiet suburb where we stayed there was a 24 hour food court on the corner of the street.
Somehow, in amongst all this 'sport' we actually managed to get around and see some other bits of the city. First of all we joined the steady procession of tourists heading to the Long Bar at Raffles for their Singapore Sling. If you're lucky (and you aren't wearing shorts) then you can sneak inside the main hotel building and have a look at the lobby. We didn't get very far though, as even with the proper attire we only managed to get a few feet inside before meeting 'Residents Only' signs. For the sake of the proper fee paying guests the Long Bar is conveniently at the other end of the hotel buildings, in fact it's actually about as far from the main hotel as it's possible to be without being on the other side of the street! It's all very 'traditional' and there are peanuts and local birdlife but, more on the bar and 'The Sling' in the next post.... I will say however that it glides majestically to the top of the "Most Expensive Round Of Drinks All Year" league (although the previous chart topper, The Peninsula in Hong Kong, may still win since we only went in there for Mark to see the gent's toilets!).
I (Nikky) was pleasantly surprised that there weren't tower blocks and sky scrapers crammed onto every piece of vacant land. It was just fantastic, a perfect balance of old and new, open spaces, greenery and a great waterfront full of bars and eateries. You would clearly need several months to try them all out and a heafty budget to boot. One of the most noteworthy problems in Singapore is the humidity but we had arranged for it to rain for the 5 days before we arrived so we could have our 4 days in comfort! If you don't believe us then you can just say that we were rather jammy! (Apart from the photos above there are also night pictures here).
So in this city with nothing to do apart from eat and shop, we found ourselves pretty busy. We spent the whole day at the zoo,
yup, a full 8 hours of wandering around saying "hello mate" to anything that would look at us ...... like a fully grown male lion is really going to be our mate! We tried it with the giraffes but they had other ideas. At one end of their pen is a raised platform so you can see what the world looks like from their perspective. The giraffes seemed to take pleasure is sauntering to the raised area so that everyone would race up the steps to get a better look and just at the moment you reach the top they decided to turn round and walk the other way. So you walk back down the steps and start walking towards them and looking up at them and just when you get near to them ... you guessed it , they head off to the raised platform! We swear at this point we could hear them laughing!One of the shopping centres here has what is allegedly the largest fountain in the world, and having trekked through about 2 miles of shopping mall we eventually found it. We were expecting it to be shooting water hundreds of feet into the air but that doesn't seem to be it's thing. In fact the water only reached two or three feet when we were there, but the reason people visit is because it's supposed to bring luck. Apparently walking around it three times will bring financial fortune, hence it is named the Fountain of Wealth. We joined the queue to walk around, but at the time of writing we are still waiting for the floods of money to arrive.....
Our accommodation here was a great place which we only found out about by reading someone else's blog (friends of people we met in New Zealand, thanks for the info Adam and Michelle!). It was more like staying at a friends house than staying in a hostel, so if anyone is heading for Singapore we can highly recommend One Florence Close.
So after four days in Singapore we would have to disagree with those locals who claim there's nothing to do here. In fact we got so settled in that we still missed out on several places that we could have visited (did we mention that the food was great?!). But once again it was time to move on so we headed off to the airport. Oh yes the airport, part-shopping mall part-amusement park, don't worry about getting stuck in Singapore airport for a few hours there is plenty to do! We don't have too much time to spare though, we're heading back to the southern hemisphere again, time to go to Africa.....
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Time For A Swim
After the 'excitement' of Kota Bharu we headed south to Kuala Terengganu, which turned out to be so fascinating that I later realised that we have no photos of the town whatsoever! There were a few day trips to the surrounding area, so we took a trip to the Kenyir lake and dam.The main reason for being here was as a stopover on the way to Redang Island where we had planned to get in our last bit of snorkelling. There are any number of islands off the coast of Malaysia where you can go for a little 'Robinson Crusoe' experience, or as close as the 21st century comes to recreating total isolation, so the jetty where we caught the ferry was packed with coach loads of tourists on the way to various islands (this, by the way, is not the jetty in the photo!).. The boat to Redang only comes and goes once a day, there are no phones (for public use, although naturally there is a mobile signal for those who just can't be out of contact!) and no internet (OK, now that's taking it a bit far!).
We had a great time snorkeling around the island, and the place we had chosen to stay was pretty good. It was kind of an 'all inclusive' resort but at a budget price. So there was as much tea, coffee, juice and water as you could drink, and free toast all day long! There was quite a wide range of fish to see around the island, but a lot of the coral seems to have seen better days. There is a 'Marine Park' area, but this doesn't appear to be particularly conservation oriented as they allow hundreds of tourists at a time into a fairly small area and also allow them to feed the fish with lots of bread! We saw a couple of very small Reef Sharks here (don't get too excited Andrea, they were only about 18 inches long!) as well as some larger fish. There were also a few jellyfish around. We had no idea whether they were particularly dangerous but we opted to avoid them just in case. The resort also had a digital camera with a proper underwater case that you could rent for the day, so we finally managed to get some half decent snorkelling photos. You can judge for yourself here.
Planning our trip away from the island proved to be a little difficult. Our plan was to get a bus directly to Singapore after being ferried back to the mainland, but there seemed to be a little problem. After the return ferry there was a 45 minute minibus ride back to Kuala Terengganu, which would get us to the bus station about 15 minutes after the daytime buses left for Singapore. This would mean that we had to hang around town for about 11 hours, before catching the night bus to Singapore which would take about another 10 hours. Strangely this didn't appeal to either of us. There were buses direct to Singapore from the jetty, but they were aimed at Singaporeans who had booked return journeys from Singapore to the island, and we were told that they were full.
The resort staff were actually really helpful with everything, except for our attempts to get back to town in time for the morning buses. We tried numerous attempts at arranging an earlier ferry, even offering to pay extra if they found us someone (anyone) with a vaguely seaworthy boat. So we had no choice but to buy tickets for the overnight bus and look forwards to 11 hours waiting around in a town that had so far turned up nothing worthy of even being photographed. Our last hope was that we could jump off the return ferry and run around all the buses looking for spare seats to Singapore, and as it happened that was exactly what we did. The minibus driver, having been tipped off to our plight, had already spoken to all the bus drivers and found that there were indeed a few spare seats, so after a brief pause to hand over the cash we were on our way.
One thing we can say is that the bus journey down the east coast of Malaysia is unlikely to qualify for any 'Great Bus Journeys of the World' competition. Highlight of the afternoon was the lunch stop, which turned out to be at a service station of sorts where there was a Chinese restaurant. Except that this was quite literally a Chinese restaurant, not a word of English on the menu, with no photos, and not a single piece of plastic food in sight! At this point we were exceedingly pleased to have been chatting with the Chinese speaking Singaporean couple in the seats next to us, as it prevented is from either purchasing completely blindly or dining at the fish cracker emporium next door!
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Kota Bharu
Our next stop in Kota Bharu was right across on the east coast of the country, and turned out to be one of the most difficult journeys we've had to make for quite a while. The problem was not so much the distance, but that it seemed as if we were the only people who had evered considered travelling from the Cameron Highlands to Kota Bharu. The alternatives seemed to be either a combination of night buses, which took about 12 hours to go all the way back to the west coast before making their way around the north side of the mountains, or a small minibus which went roughly in the right direction and might be persuaded to drop us off after a little negotiation with the driver!The hostel staff turned out to be incredibly helpful and managed to persuade one of the minibus drivers to drop us off at an intermediate point where we could get a connecting bus. This meant only a 7 or 8 hour daytime bus journey. Along the way we discovered that the reason for the lack of direct bus transport was that the (very good) eastbound road through the mountains has not been open all that long and nobody seems to have thought to run scheduled buses along it yet.
It did mean that we got to stop at a little town in the middle of nowhere and have a look around while we waited for the next bus. We'd met a few other people on the minibus but they were carrying on further to catch a train to the Taman Negara national park. The minibus driver helpfully arranged for us to leave our bags in the 'bus station' (a.k.a. concrete shed with barred windows). So we did this, and set off to walk to the village centre for lunch, just in time to see the two ladies from the bus station office drive off in a car without seeming to have done much to secure the aforementioned shed which now contained our luggage. We're obviously getting a bit more relaxed about the whole idea of losing our wordly possessions because we just shrugged it off and carried on walking (NOTE: There is also the fact that despite our luggage being lighter than it once was we have met very few people in Asia who have sufficient build to even carry our backpacks, let alone run off with them, even if they wanted to!).
So off we went to explore. We were in the middle of nowhere in a small town so we looked forward to being the only tourists about and having the place to ourselves for a couple of hours. We're also now in a more Muslim part of the country, so a lunchtime beer was pretty much out of the question, but the food choice was looking good and very authentic...... right down to the Halal KFC on the high street! And wait a minute...... some suspiciously familiar looking white people with backpacks strolling in the other direction.....
It turned out that the train station that the others were being taken to was at the other end of the high street from the bus station. So now we were no longer the sole explorers in a foreign land, but we did have lunch companions. You'll be pleased to know that on this occasion we didn't cross the palm of Colonel Sanders with silver, but instead dined at the local 'Roti Shack' which was far more satisfying, with it's lack of menu, aircon or even walls, but very friendly owners, good food, and almost zero cost.
The World Cup was now over, but the international language of football was still the icebreaker, although in a rather bizarre manner in this case. Right back as far as Tokyo we've grown used to variations on the following conversation:
Local: Where are you from?
Us: England
Local: Aaahh!!! Steven Gerard/Frank Lampard/David Beckham/Wayne Rooney!! (*)
(*delete as appropriate)
However, this time it was different. One of our 'van mates' took up the conversation:
Roti Shack Owner: Where are you from?
Van Mate: England
Roti Shack Owner: Aaahh!!! Trevor Francis, Kevin Keegan!!!!
We're still not sure whether he was simply a fan of bad 70's haircuts, or whether he was actually dispensing advice on the best way to rebuild our national team. Either way it kept everyone amused and may have contributed to the ridiculously small bill that we were eventually presented with.
After all that the actual bus journey to Kota Bharu was quie an anti-climax. The bus driver seemed reluctant to open the big luggage storage doors on the side of the bus, so our backpacks got to ride in the front row of seats whilst we sat down the back. The bus had an entertainment system of sorts, although the radio reception was so bad that it was quite a relief when the driver finally turned it off (or it broke). This also gave us more opportunity to listen to the increasingly loud grinding and juddering noises coming from various mechanical parts of the bus.
Now, the keen F1 fans amongst you may remember how (in the days before engines had to last more than one race) Murray Walker used to tell us all that the perfect racing car would be one that functioned perfectly for the entire race, and then fell apart as soon as it crossed the finish line. Well, if that's true then this bus was clearly designed by the finest engineers on earth, because the further we went the louder the noises got, and the more useless the brakes seemed to become.
Much to our excitement the bus never actually fell apart, although we did make one more unscheduled stop (at least for us). We've got used to toilet and meal stops on these longer bus journeys, but this time not everyone got off (although the driver disappeared). After a few minutes we realised that it was mid afternoon, and that we had actually stopped outside a mosque, which was where half of the passengers had gone.
Oh yes, Kota Bharu, that was what this was supposed to be all about. We eventually arrived in the late afternoon, and for once had no idea where we were going to sleep. We phoned the place at the top of the list in Lonely Planet, the one described as something like "the favourite backpacker destination in town". Well if this was the favourite then I really wouldn't want to check out any of the other places here! To be fair, the owners were incredibly friendly and it was absolutely the cheapest place we've stayed in. Less than six pounds a night for a clean double room with working air conditioning and a bathroom shared with one other (empty) room can only be described as a bargain, but after our long day on the road the lack of hot water wasn't really what we had in mind.
That night we checked out the food stalls at the local night market, with their numerous specialities which included a dish served with blue coloured rice (yes really). Then in the morning we just had time to have a look at the bird singing competition on the way back to the bus station. This appears to be a weekly event and involves the local men bringing their caged birds down to the park where they are all hung up in long lines and the singing is actually marked by other men with clipboards. No idea whether there are any prizes, but I was more interested in what the birds thought of it all, is it like going down to the pub to meet their mates once a week?
So that was it, after all that we only stayed in town a few hours, here are the photos. It wasn't a bad place, but I think we may have discovered the reason why there weren't dozens of regular buses waiting to bring us here in the first place!
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Around The Cameron Highlands
There are numerous hiking trails around here which range from a couple of hours to a couple of days (or longer if you get lost). The thought of a couple of days in mosquito infested forests didn't really appeal to us much (we must be getting lazy!) so we decided on one of the day tours around the highlands. Given our growing dislike of organised tours we didn't set off with high expectations but it was actually pretty good and not as rushed as others. We even got to wander off into the forest for a bit, albeit only for about 30 minutes.We started off at one of the tea plantations with a short tour around the processing area followed by a stop for tea and cake (of course). Remember the queue jumping German from the Petronas Towers? Well, of all the tea plantations, in all the world...... he had to walk into ours! Somehow I got the impression that he didn't like us much. What a shame!
Anyhow, the plantation was quite interesting, particularly the details about the harvesting. Some of it is still picked by hand, but even the 'machine harvested' stuff is done with a lightweight machine that is carried by two people. The pickers are paid by weight, so apparently they love rainy days, because they earn more when they turn in baskets of wet leaves. Fancy a job in the outdoors? If you're a good picker you can apparently haul in about 200kg a day. Assuming that the figures we were given are correct, if you manage this you'll earn the princely sum of about £5.50 a day. If anyone wants the address for applications let me know.....
After tea we set off to the highest point of the highlands, which is allegedly 6,666ft. As you can see from the photos of the day it was pretty cloudy so the view was hardly spectacular. On the way back down the hill we had a short walk in the forest where we got to see a few of the curious looking local plant species. Our guide seemed very concerned about local conservation and there were a couple of times when he showed us plants at the side of the road which he was keen to keep hidden from following traffic. Apparently some of these plants fetch high prices at market and are therefore rather vulnerable to 'poachers'.
The local butterfly farm was a bit of a disappointment, and in true South East Asian style was an unexpected extra payment we had to make. It did however provide Nikky with an opportunity to get up close to a Rhinoceros beetle, not that she ever realised that she wanted to do this before the man thrust it at her on a stick!
After that it was off to visit another 'hill tribe'. Again, it wasn't entirely clear how these people have come to be living where they do, but they do draw in the tourists because they are known for hunting with blow pipes and very poisonous darts. Of course the reason for the visit is because you get to have a go with the pipes. I'm not sure whether the poison tipped darts are really as deadly as we were told, but to be honest you wouldn't want to be hit even by an untipped dart as even with our amateur skills we managed to get them quite firmly stuck into the target.
There is one rather worrying side to the visits to these villages, which is that you are encouraged by the guide to take along small gifts for the children which you hand out after the main event. Now in theory this is a great idea, but unfortunately the 'gifts' take the form of either sweets or biscuits purchased from a nearby convenience store, so sadly the dental health of all the children seems to be suffering somewhat.
The final stop of the afternoon was to check out one of the other major local crops. Strawberries. There are quite a few farms where they produce strawberry jam, ice cream, cookies and milk shakes. You can even go and pick your own, although the phrase "Pick Your Own" isn't used here, they prefer "Self Plucking", which for some reason I found far more amusing.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Kuala Lumpur
This was one of the few places on our itinerary that we had actually been to before and it was lovely to have a bit of familiarity around us for a change. On our last visit we had a fairly hectic F1 motor racing schedule to adhere to so all we could manage on the sighseeing stuff was a half day charging around in a bus. This time we were able to see some of these things at a much more leisurely pace and see some new things that we don't already have pictures of!There is a pretty tried and tested walking route around central Kuala Lumpur, we know this because we met at least half a dozen other people clutching their Lonely Planets' and vaguely wandering in the same direction as us. It took us past lots of old colonial buildings which are wonderful and some beautiful mosques. It was during this walk that we stumbled across a huge tourism event which we decided to hang around and have a nosey at. Tourism Malaysia have a big campaign 'Visit Malaysia 2007' to mark their 50th Anniversary of independence next year. They want to really promote tourism in Malaysia and organised this event and invited people from all over the world to attend. There must be worse perks if you work for Thomas Cook! Basically it was a big procession with representatives from all the states of Malaysia in wonderful costumes and lots of dancing and stuff. It was really inetersting but after 4 hours standing against a railing it was getting a bit tedious so we decided to call it a night and comforted ourselves with the fact that we are a year ahead of the crowds!
The tallest building in the world for many years, the Petronas Towers are now referred to as the tallest 'twin towers' in the world, this is because someone came along in Taipei and built something bigger ..... what's that phrase about keeping one step ahead? There is also the KL tower which looks taller than the Petronas towers but is cheating because it is built on a hill! Last time we were here we went up the KL tower so this time we decided to join the crowds at the Petronas towers.
Great thing about the Petronas towers is that they are free but the downside is that you have to get up really early to be in the queue for tickets at about 8am (they don't open the desk until 8:30). Unless that is you are a big fat German ****** and come along late and just push in the queue ... but don't get Mark started on that! He, nearly sucessfully (along with some others) got him removed from the line but a slight confusion in the translation of "yes he did push in" from English to Malay and he'd got his greasy hands on the tickets. Worse thing was that we ended up with the same time slot as him so we had to keep bumping into him for the next few hours which was even more infuriating. Despite being in our rightful place in the queue at 8am our time slot was 9.45am which by all accounts is pretty good. Only a limited amount of tickets are given out and by the time we were coming back down the next available slot was 2.30pm and the queue was still long.
It is all a pretty slick operation and you only get a few minutes up in the air which is totally the opposite from our usual experiences where we spend hours gazing at the world below us. Nonetheless it is a great experience as you get to walk along the sky bridge which joins the two towers and at that point there is actually more above you than there is below you. Whilst you do get a good view, you are not really that high up at all, only the 41st floor, so if you want views, the KL tower is better but if you want dramatic architcture and something a little bit different including the funky feeling of looking down between the two towers then Petronas wins hands down.
One other thing that we did whilst in KL was a vist to Batu Caves a huge, and verging on the gawdy, Hindu temple just on the outskirts of KL. The caves are actually up in the hill so we climbed the 274 steps to get inside. With a little huffing and puffing we were greeted by thousands of monkeys who will eat anything you give them and even stuff you don't. One of the main festivals here requires the participants to stick all manner of pins and needles in themselves and march from somewhere in KL city to here thankfully it was the not the time of year for this festival because I am not sure how we would have stomached all the needles, not least of all survived in excess of a million people who climb the very steps over one weekend. On the day we were there though, it was all much quieter, just a small celebration being held at one of the shrines inside which we think was some kind of christening or something. There was alot of offerings of things like flour and other foods, and then washing it away. We were just thankful that we weren't the ones who had to carry the water up all those steps!
It was while we were in KL that the World Cup finally came to an end, but what a place to watch it. Despite the fact that Malaysia weren't even in the competition, and the minor point that the final didn't even start until 2am, it seemed like the entire city was out watching the game. There was a huge screen and street party just around the corner from our hostel, but we heard that there were at least two other similar events around the city centre. It was a bit difficult to tell who the locals were supporting, at times it seemed like they were just supporting whoever was winning, or even the team that happened to have the ball at that precise moment. But it didn't seem to matter as everyone had a great time, and at around 5am when the game finally came to an end the street vendors were still going strong serving food and drink.
The subject of food can't really go unmentioned here since it is quite possibly our favourite food destination from the whole trip so far. The food in Thailand was great, but here there are a far wider range of influences, so basically if you like pretty much any kind of Asian food come to Kuala Lumpur and you won't be disappointed. And you don't really have to find restaurants, just go out on the street or head for the basement of any shopping centre. Imagine if you will those somewhat nasty food courts you find in British shopping malls, where amongst others there are usually one or two vendors of over-priced, greasy, lukewarm rice & noodles. Now imagine that these places actually knew (or cared) what the stuff was supposed to taste like, and that they sold a main course for well under a pound.....
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