Big City Blah

  Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Sunday, September 30, 2007

50 year celebration

Our last stop in Malaysia was Kuala Lumpur. I'm not sure if we were just sick of traveling, or if the night street parties, and morning construction at our hostel was making us grumpy, or if KL just really was as bad as it seemed. Whatever the cause, our time in the capitol city was the least enjoyable.

what do you think of KL?

The city was huge, unorganized, dirty, full of creepy people who were hassling us and following us around, the transportation was impossible, and the food wasn't up to par with what we had experienced over the week.

Frustrated upon arrival (and heat stricken) we jumped in a cab from the metro station to try to get to our hostel, which should have been less than a 10 minute ride. . . 45 minutes later we pulled up to our hostel. Traffic was horrid, our cab driver didn't seem to know where he was going, and to top it all off- he wanted us to pay for using his trunk! the audacity!!!

Batu Caves entrance

On our very first night in Kuala Lumpur, we quickly found out there wasn't much to see in this huge city. There were of course the infamous Petronas Towers (pretty from a distance) but other than that....not much.

Numbered Steps

We took a day trip to the Batu Caves, where one has to hike up 272 steps in order to enter a few caves that were discovered in 1892. Nice, but not as spectacular the guidebook made it out to be.

Petronas Towers

Summary of KL- boo, boo. Summary of Malaysia- FANTABULOUS! I loved the food, the culture, the scenery, the people- and the fact that nearly everyone spoke English (FLUENTLY!) I think what I loved most about Malaysia and Singapore though was that so many different races, cultures, and religions were able to coexist peacefully in the same area.

KL- night v iew

In any single train car, I could overhear conversations in at least 3 different languages. Chinese people spoke to Indian people, Malaysian people spoke to foreigners... it was all so welcoming and so un-homogeneous (which is what I'm blinded by in Japan.)

Coconut Hacker

YAY MALAYSIA!

Mama Monkey with Baby