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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