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Kuala Lumpur--Interesting City
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We arrived in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia on Monday night and have been very impressed with the city. We began touring on Tuesday and have been going at it non-stop ever since.
Tuesday--July 1, 2008
Today-we began touring KL and did a whole lot of walking. KL is a huge city and we were warned that it is not pedestrian friendly. The warnings are absolutely correct. Crossing most streets means crossing six lanes of traffic and crosswalks are random and do not often make sense. Taking cabs is not smart to do in this city for long distances b/c it is a sure thing that you will be stuck in a traffic jam. The public transportation, however, is outstanding and the subway is an efficient and reasonably priced way to get around the city.
Our day started with a subway trip from the hotel to KLCC (KL City Center). Our original goal was to get tickets to the Petronas Towers walkway. The towers rise up 88 story's and are the headquarters for the Malaysian oil company Petronas. Al-Jazeera also broadcasts from the towers. When we arrived, tickets were already sold out for the day and we were unable to go up. We began a walking tour of the city center and wound up at the KL Tower. This is a telecommunications tower and rises 282 meters (925 feet) above sea level. This was actually a better panoramic view of the city than from the Towers and shows what an interesting city KL is.
From the KL Tower, we headed towards the Central Market. We never made it in the Central Market, but we did make it to Chinatown and the Times Square Shopping Center. Malaysians do love their shopping malls and they are filled with very expensive stores. We spent a lot of time walking and very much enjoyed what we saw that day.
 
Wednesday--July 2, 2008
Another heavy touring day--and a very hot day. While KL is not as hot as Bangkok, it is pretty darn hot and today was a scorcher. We started out by going to the Petronas Towers to get tickets to go to the walkway that connects the two towers. We were able to get tickets this day and made plans to come back in the afternoon. On our way out of the building, we noticed a red carpet and found out that the President of Bosnia was coming to the towers for a visit. We stayed and watched his procession enter the towers. After that, we went back to the park and garden area of Kuala Lumpur. We saw the National Monument which honors soldiers killed during the 1950 communist defeat. We walked by the Bird Park, but decided not to enter as we did not have as much time as we thought. We finally made it to the Central Market which is a nice market with lots of places to shop for souvenirs and other Malaysian items. After that we headed back the towers where we finally got to walk on the bridge that connects the towers. This was pretty phenomenal and we saw some really great views of the city. We ended our long touring day by going to a couple of happy hours where we made all sorts of friends.
 
Thursday--July 3, 2008
Today is our first day of just rotten weather. It is hot and it has been raining a good portion of the day. When we were in Thailand, it was rainy season there and it will often rain hard for an hour or so in the afternoon. In KL, it is dry season, but that does not mean there is no rain. Today, there has been a lot.
So far today we did a more extensive tour of Little India and Chinatown. They were pretty much what we expected, but we did get to go to a food market that was very interesting. We even saw a man kill a chicken (by ringing its neck) and begin to take out his feathers. Within one minute, he was chopping off pieces of meat. Talk about fresh meat. We also saw lots of entails and other funky stuff just slopped in buckets. I really wanted Melanie to take a picture of the buckets of guts, but she was too worried about pieces flying into her mouth while she was walking. She absolutely refused to talk while we were there. She was also stressed out b/c neat freak that she is, she was walking through the markets in flip-flop. There was some black smudge on her toe that she is saying was a little dirt, but I am pretty sure that it was a chicken's eyeball.
Anyway, the real highlight of the day was our tour of the Malaysian National Mosque. Neither of us has ever been inside a mosque and it was a very beautiful place. They provided us with robes so as to be respectful and allowed us to take pictures of the prayer room. There was also quite a bit of literature about Islam which made for a very good learning experience.
Tomorrow we leave for the Central Highlands which is considerable cooler and are known for their tea plantations, hiking trails, and casinos.
Reflections of Kuala Lumpur and the country of Malaysia
So far, this country has been an incredibly good surprise. Neither of us knew much about the country before our visit, but so far KL is our favorite city in Asia.
First of all, it is better organized than most cities in SE Asia. I do not mean as much in the design of the city which our guidebooks say is not very good, but there are less touts and people trying to scam you than in some of the other big cities we have visited. Harassment does not seem to be as common here.
Secondly, the architecture here is amazing. Some of the buildings are absolutely incredible and neither of us had any idea how nice it would be.
Finally, this is our first time in an Islamic country since our trip to Morocco in the summer of 2001 (prior to 9/11). I had been nervous about anti-Americanism in an Islamic country, but we have not experienced that. Not only that, but the people here seem to be genuinely nicer than many other places we have visited in the world. We have not had any negative interactions with any of the locals at all and look forward to the rest of our trip.
Where I stayed:
PJ Hilton
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