Arrived safely in Kuala Lumpur and setting up camp at Hotel Fortuna - 87 Jalan Berangan, 50200 Kuala Lumpur, Tel 21419111 http://www.fortunakl.com
We spent 4 nights in KL, which would become our hub for exploring Malaysia. The train from Singapore was quite comfortable, but did stop at every town on the way in (except for the one where we were supposed to pass through some type of border crossing check). From the train window, we could see miles and miles of palm trees. At first it was quite a pleasant sight, but then it became a little repetitive. Apparently a huge percentage of Malaysia's rainforests have been replaced with palm plantations.
Getting around KL seems quite easy, expecially with the monorail right outside our hotel. But with plenty of airconditioned shopping malls, and excellent cheap restaurants right here, there's no need to venture far. There's even an Irish pub across the street! Unfortunately beer prices are almost on par with Singapore's there.
We were especially impressed with KL's incredible range of quality afordable restaurants. Right around our hotel we had awsome Thai, Vietnamese, Middle-Eastern, Islamic, Indian, Chinese, you name it. To say "Malaysian" food really isn't specific enough, I've discovered.
Kuala Lumpur is one of the few places where we could apply for an Indian Visa, so it was a convenient time and place to stop here. The Indian High Commission is quite an exciting experience in and of itself, with the crowds and "lines". It was a good way to prepare ourselves for our upcoming trip to India.
Of course, we also took in a few of the can't miss sights around town. On this first visit to KL, we took in the inter-city rain forest, a few towers, and an interesting Hindu cave temple.
The KL tower is located within the Bukit Nanas forest, which we completely circumnavigated on foot before entering the tower for our first meal of the day. They serve an awsome lunch buffet spread of local and western foods, up in the 360 degree revolving restaurant. Despite the smog, we had a spectacular view of the city. After lunch, we walked over to the Petronas Towers (Twin towers), just to check them out from below. You normally have to arrive first thing in the morning to secure first-come-first serve tickets that give you access to the high bridge that links the two. Lucky for us, we got there so late in the day (just before closing time), that they were able to slip us in due to so many no-shows. So, that's the trick... Just come around 4:30, and avoid the early morning lineup. Visibility, however, was pretty bad. As the smog cleared, clouds had taken over, and treated us to a downpour and lightning show from the bridge. Still a pretty cool experience.
On our third day in KL, we ventured through the rain to the outskirts of town, on the local bus (for a wopping 25 cents!), to visit the Batu caves. The site is mostly a massive limestone cave, filled with Hindu statues and shrines. Apparently it's the top Hindu pilgrimage site in Malaysia! Tens of thousands of Indians come here on pilgrimage every year! We also learned from a Pakistani tourist on the bus that it's possibly more colourful that anything you'll see in India. There were a couple of lower caves where we saw what he was talking about. Dozens of statues had been moulded into the cave walls, and freshly painted with vibrant colours. Unfortunately when we were down in one of the caves, a loud lightning bolt struck, scaring the crap out of me, and causing all the lights to go out! We had to use the camera flash to find our way out.
These few nights in KL were a little noisier that we were expecting. We had the fortune to be here during Malaysia's birthday month, referred to as Merdeka. For 2 weeks before their independance day (Aug 30), and 2 weeks after, the capital city has all sorts of celebrations. For a few nights each week, right outside our hotel room, they set up a stage with loud speakers, an featured various local performers. At first we couldn't figure out what could be making all that noise, so late in the night (past midnight). But when we decided to explore and find the source of the noise, we were able to appreciate it much more. Hundreds of people lined the streets, children and adults were dancing, groups in costume performed traditional dances on stage, tourists looked on in awe. I especially found it interesting to see a mother dressed in her full black burka, encouraging her children to get on stage to dance, while she took pictures with her cell phone.
Malaysia seems like a very colourful, eclectic, tolerant country, with an amazing diversity of cultures and religions.
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