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Published: December 22nd 2006
View from KL tower
Looking at Petronas towers, as seen in the hit movie Entrapment (it had Catherine Zeta Jones in a catsuit if that jogs your memory)! About 500m up I think...Well, here we are in Kuala Lumpur (KL for those of us who are down with it), our 3rd big city out of 4 destinations so far!
Where to start...?! KL is a crazy place: very busy and hectic with noisy, dirty traffic and dodgy goods a plenty. And then you leave the area round the bus station and find a very cool city instead packed with shops, restaurants, bars, markets, great food and great people.
Another great thing is it's not raining here and the temperature is scorching again. (The rain in Melaka was almost making it a tad chilly, nearly had to consider putting a jumper on!) Our hostel is great, free brekkie, DVDs a-plenty, free tea and coffee and fruit all day, great staff, games, fab location with lots of restaurants nearby and walkable around the whole city. Ten on ten.
We've done our usual walking the entire city (all good training for the mountain next month), which is a great way to see the sights. We went up the KL tower, which is slightly bigger than the Petronas twin towers, and gives an amazing view across the city. There aren't many skyscrapers so you
Up the KL tower
Shiny happy Laura again! can see for miles- on a clear day you can see Melaka where we were a few days ago!
We also went to the Batu caves, which contain a Hindu temple along with some hungry monkeys! The temple is amazing and requires climbing about 300 steps in the hot weather but is well worth it. On the way up the steps there are people who sell banana's to give to the monkeys but they can be quite vicious if you taunt them (the monkeys not the sellers), and we saw some chase a guy who had about five bananas in his hand up the steps. Amusing in a glad-that's-not-me kind of way! His friend had a video camera so keep an eye on You've Been Framed...
We've also done a bit of shopping, not too much because we can't carry it, but some of the prices are too good to turn down (albeit for goods that aren't necessarily 100% official...). Like other big cities here there are also the giant Versace stores etc but at least we now have options more in our price range!
Today we've been to an interesting museum about Islamic arts, which doesn't
The City Forest
In the middle of KL is a mini rainforest! We're smiling in the pic, but def weren't the next day once we realised we'd been bitten to buggery! sell it very well, but you'll just take our word on this one! And had a nice cold beer this afternoon; beer here isn't really very cheap but that's good as it helps reduce the chance of blowing the budget on a 'couple of couples'!
We're off early tomorrow morning to the island of Penang, hopefully for some beach and sunshine. To quote Homer Simpson, I'm looking forward to having a cold beer on hot Christmas morning!
Merry Christmas everyone!
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Gaily
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Hello My Lovelies - A very merry Christmas to you! Save Ferris! I love that shirt Luke. Am very much enjoying reading your diary entries - laura you look very chique in the photos. Applause to you - thats very difficult to manage with a backpack wardrobe! Sounds like your having a splendid time. Keep safe. xx gail