Guided tour of KL
Trip Start
Jan 29, 2008
1
26
32
Trip End
Mar 04, 2008
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
We checked in and got ourselves organized. S was feeling pretty lousy from too many days of pain, pain killers and beer so I ventured out on my own to try to find food and an Internet cafe, and maybe a travel agent so we could book a flight out of here. When I got downstairs, Roland, the taxi driver, was already there calling our room. I told him we should do some sightseeing so he took me out to the Batu Caves. This was really cool. It is a massive limestone cave that the Hindus converted to a temple
Overlooking Kuala Lumpur
. I climbed up 272 steps to get into the cave and there were spider monkeys running around everywhere. A lot of them were babies clinging to their moms. Super adorable.Roland had told me he would be back for me in an hour but I looked at the steps and said 45 minutes would be plenty. Well I got to the top, looked around, and got back to the bottom again in less than 25 and he wasn't back yet. Since I had some time to kill I walked around the temple grounds which were really nice. Roland turned up shortly thereafter. He got out of his truck to take my picture for me in front of the temple and then he got out his very nice camera and took a photo of me in front of his truck. He took a couple more for me on my camera as we stopped in places around the city.
From the caves we headed back to the city and made a brief stop at the King's Palace. You can't actually go in to the palace and the King was in today so the gates were all locked up but you could peer between the bars and see an immense palace sitting aloft boundless gently rolling hills of perfectly manicured lawn and gardens.
Roland took a picture of me with the guards. There were two mounted guards at the front gates and two foot soldiers. As I was standing next to one of the mounted guards his horse got a little curious and gave me a little kiss.
We left the palace and did a drive by of this beautiful train station, then went to the famous twin towers. Roland took me to a great spot a bit of a distance from them so I could take a good picture of the entire thing
View of KL
. He just pulled over to the side of the road so I jumped out and as soon as I did a guy approached me with his camera. There was a bus behind us and you could tell these guys were on a tour with the bus. The one guy asked if I would mind and showed me his camera. I thought he wanted me to take a picture of him and his friends in front of the towers. I said "no problem!" and reached for his camera. Instead he hands his camera to his friend and puts his arm around my shoulders. His friend took the photo and he thanked me. As I started to walk away I was stopped by another guy in the tour group and saw there were more lining up. I took seven or eight photos with these guys, and they were all giggling the whole time. As soon as one finished I tried to walk away but another guy would jump beside me and put his arm around me for the next photo.I finally got away and took a few quick shots of the towers before Roland and I moved on to the base of the towers. As we were driving there Roland asked me if I think men find me attractive. I said not really at home, only in Asia! I explained that I think I stand out amongst all the darker featured people. He agreed the blond hair (um hello, it's RED!) made me a bit of a spectacle here.
We then hit the bank and I did a beer run to try to help knock off S's hangover. I also picked up some Milo because it's a good pick-me-up and S has got me hooked on the stuff. I wonder if I can find it back home.
I got back to the hotel and he was still looking pretty weak so I went to find the pool
Steps into Batu Caves
. While I was down there I met another guy, Karim, staying at our hotel. He is visiting from London. He was quite friendly and asked if I wanted to swim, which I did, so I went back to my room to get my suit and my roommate. But S was still too groggy to swim so he stayed behind and I took a couple beers down to the pool. It turns out my new friend doesn't drink, he just smokes like a chimney. So I drank the beers and he smoked several cigarettes and I had a really nice swim.I was getting pretty hungry by this time so I went back to get S and we crossed the street to the Chinese food restaurant that Roland had recommended to me. The sweet and sour chicken was really good but the lemon chicken was extremely bony and chewy and overall, disgusting.
After dinner we booked flights to Bangkok so we can meet up with Cindy and Robert tomorrow. Hopefully they are checking their email! Roland came to get us a little later and take us to an Irish pub because we wanted more Guinness draft. It is not so easy to find in Kuala Lumpur. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any kind of beer served anywhere in this city. We had to drive 15 minutes to get to the Irish pub.
On the way to the pub Roland took us on a bit of a sightseeing tour that we didn't know we were getting. He pointed out all the hot spots and drove down busy streets and you could tell he loves his home. It was really nice of him to show us a little more of KL.
We got to the pub and decided to try every beer on tap
Batu Caves
. We didn't get through them all and the last two beers we had didn't taste right so that was disappointing. Again we wer facing expensive beer prices. The Guiness was $10 a pint and I think the Kilkenny was even more. I spotted a Pizza Hut across the street so I ran over there and wolfed down a pepperoni pizza which was pretty damn heavenly. S stayed at our table at the pub and ate pub food. I couldn't bring the pizza back into the pub so I just ate it near the pub. As I was doing so two friendly taxi drivers started talking to me, asking where I was from and that sort of thing. I offered them some pizza but they declined.
The first beer we had at the Irish pub was a Kilkenny on tap and it was the best Kilkenny I've ever had. But then again I was pretty thirsty. I had told S about Kilkenny before and he was eager to try it. We had tried at the Irish pub in Georgetown but they didn't have any left, so this was the first chance he had since I had mentioned it.
While we were at this pub a Malaysian girl tried to pick us up. At first I think she was trying for both of us but gave up on S and just tried for me from then on. We managed to shake her off after awhile.
Roland came back for us before the pub closed and he's picking us up tomorrow to get us to the airport. He takes such good care of us!
