You lookin at me? I don't see anyone else here!!
Trip Start
May 26, 2004
1
7
20
Trip End
Ongoing
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia
Monday, June 14, 2004
The next day was to become an iconic day in our travels. It started innocently enough. We headed to the Petronas towers. The tallest buildings on Earth. Although they looked well cool there is always something about little Asian men and large erections that is a little off putting. The place looks like a launching pad for a really big rocket. They are all metal and shinny and I reckon it must cost them a fortune in brasso and old rags to keep it polished up like that. Now Petronas is an oil company and a pretty big one. Below the towers they have the Petronas Scientific Expo
01-The Two Towers
. So in we went for a look. I don't know what was worse, the fact that it was like something out of the Simpson's ("What is the atomic weight of Hydrogen? You the red head in Detroit!" "Pepsi?", "Correct!") in that everything that could possibly be linked to petrol was, or the fact that it was primarily aimed at kids. Well actually I had a good laugh so I guess it was the rampant, biased commercialism!! By the end of the tour they basically had you drinking the shit!! Saying that they had dinosaurs and little toy digger trucks so it wasn't all bad. After we had our fill of the thinly veiled PR stunt we headed of for something to lift our spirits. We walked aimlessly in the shadows of the vast metal spires. I can't help thinking destiny held our hand and led us like an arrow shot straight and true to that fateful destination. Looking back I still get a bit teary eyed. It was a profound spiritual experience. We went through this section of outdoor bars and café's and we noticed a lot of people drinking in this one place. Over we moseyed to have a squidge. They all had a large tower of beer complete with its own tap. When I gazed upon that tower I felt a oneness with the elements. I felt what the primitive cavemen felt all those millennia ago when the first batch of the amber nectar was made. When they first got pissed out of their tiny pea brains and got their first glimmer of intelligence, a vision if you will, that one day a miracle of engineering would craft a vessel suitable for this most wondrous of liquids
02-Under the two towers
. The closest I got to this feeling prior was gazing upon the face of the 100 foot long reclining Buddha, thinking to myself dwarfed by the massive, holy artefact that I would love a beer, I mean really, really love a beer. When, in a dreamlike state we found ourselves seated before the tower we drank in its glory...literally. 3 Litres of Carlsberg 13 euro thank you very much!! Needless to say we got mashed out of our faces. We tried to leave after one but it wouldn't let us. Have another it sang to us with its sweet, sweet sirens song. We thought it would be rude not to oblige. After we managed to talk them into siphoning a large jug into the tower for the effect and finished that we had worshipped at the altar of the tower long enough. A 12 pack of Dunkin Donuts had miraculously appeared at some stage of the night so off we swayed back to the hotel. We stopped along the way to pick up some quality Tiger beer and jumped in a taxi. Unfortunately my attempt to sneak the aforementioned contraband into the room and therefore snatch a little dignity in my drunken state was hampered by first leaving the beer in the taxi and then dropping it noisily on the ground when I went to retrieve it. Holding my head up high, contemptuous of the disapproving looks we eventually managed to get back to the room and continue our nights drinking. Sweet dreams were mine that night.
The next morning brought reality back with a thud...........in our heads!! We ventured into the sun like a couple of Vampires covered in SPF 1,000,000. We kinda knew we would be ok but we weren't completely sure. We decided to have a look around the shopping districts just for a laugh. We saw plenty of Louis Vuitton and Prada but I got the impression that we wouldn't get as much for a score as we did in Thailand
03-The Tower of Power
. Noticed that if you charge a stupidly high price for clothing it doesn't matter how crap it looks some idiot will buy it for the label. Fiona started noticing, and eventually complaining that people were staring at her so after we checked that she was dressed, and respectable! - I told her it was all in her head. She was quite insistent si I walked behind her for a bit in the shopping centre and noticed it. We then went to McDonalds and she kept saying these kids were staring. I still thought she was being a touch paranoid but then some kid actually took a picture of her!! It was classic. He was sitting with his mother and brother,who were nervously giggling away but encouraging it, and Fi was MORTIFIED!!!We can only imagine that show and tell the next day!! Fi took a photo of the kid in retaliation (much to the mothers amusement - I think it evened out her embarassment!) but the damage was done. I started to notice it more as the day wore on. People would literally stop and stare! We actually saw this one guy pass on his motorbike 3 or 4 times in the space of 10 minutes. Then he would park up the road and wait for us to walk by, staring at us. Then he would jump on his bike again and do the same thing. He even started turning the bike around and driving past over and over again. The humour of the situation was starting to wear off for me at this stage. Eventually he left. What I couldn't understand is the place is quite wealthy and full of white people especially English so it's not like we were in deepest darkest Africa and the only honkys for miles. Actually talking about that, Fiona was warned in Thailand that crazy old Thai women would be pulling up her top to see if she had all the same "components" as they do. The person who told us this made out that it was an epidemic in the country but we were there for some time and it never happened once to Fi or any other girl there
04-Sober
. I have to admit to being a trifle disappointed!! Anyway apart from the staring we did manage to have a wander around and see some mosques and old buildings and stuff. It was quite cool as the area surrounding the two ultra modern Petronas towers has some really old buildings. It was a good contrast. After this our time in Malaysia came to an end. Again we had booked ahead while in Ireland and we had to haul ass to catch a plane to Hong Kong where a painful surprise awaited!!
Malaysian Beer - None surprisingly(strictly muslim country-with the towers being the exception of course!!!). While we were only there a short while, nothing jumped out at us. Made do with a hell of a lot of Carlsberg (doff my cap to Mr Kelly) and also Singapore's finest Tiger Beer which everyone who has ever been to a Chinese and wanted to look sophisticated (instead of ordering a "bottle of buuuuud") will be familiar with.
