Kuala Lumpur

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Wednesday 25th:
Best laid plans go to waste. We got to Kota Bharu after travelling first on a boat taxi, which then dropped us off at our main boat. This boat took us to the mainland Jetty where we got a Public bus. At the stop we had to change and get another bus, this bus dropped us off at Kota Bharu.

Is if that wasn't enough, all the buses out had been booked out.

The long and short of it is, we were stuck there for a night.

Note also - Kota Bhura has the town/city motto of...
'Kota Bhuru - The Islamic City.'
It was perfectly fine though.

So looking sad, as we watched all the half-filled buses go on their way, we all went to pizza-hut (which are always overpriced worldwide) and tried to find a room for the night. Matt and James sat and watched the bags in Pizza-Hut whilst Jo and Leanne went to find a room, eventually they came back with an 18RM double room that was reasonable, and that was that really.

Thursday 26th:
After saying 'Goodbye.' to James and Jo (they're on their way up to Penang.), we got on our bus down to Kuala Lumpar. That took the most part of the day, and after that we looked for a hostel. We went for one called 'Pudu Hotel' in the end, it's cheap (40 RM for a double), clean and pretty central. Although it can be a bit noisy at night.

Got duped by a guy at our hotel into eating at a cheap restaurant. It was interesting to say the least, but a bit bland.

Friday 27th:
We went to Times square. It's a giant shopping centre, 11 or so floors of it. It's like Meadowhall or the Metro centre only bigger, and instead of being spread out it's got 2 towers that go up forever (There are lot of twin-towered buildings here). It has a theme park inside with 15 different rides, an iMax cinema, a bowling alley and loads of other stuff, as well as a food court. And that's before you even get to the shops.

Saturday 28th:
After deliberating what to do, we decided to go and see the Petronis towers (The world's tallest standing twin towers). The big one you see in films, 2 two towers connected by a bridge. It was surprising to see that it wasn't just some dull business building. The bottom 6 or 7 or something like that are a giant shopping centre. Really impressive place, it looks like something out of Bladerunner or Batman. On the 6th floor is a museum dedicated to the Petrol industry (One of Malaysia's big industries is oil production). It also has a cinema and stuff like that.

After the Petronis towers we went over to the gardens to get some photo's, which we did, and were then sucked in by some magnetic force to Aquaria, the world's largest Aquarium (A very dubius and doubtful fact, we doubt Sealife Floride would be outdone). It was massive and had everything in there. It was sad that you weren't allowed to use flash for photo's, and that with the blatent national racism here, we had to pay more than Malaysian people - simply for being foreign. Those things aside, it was a great place. We saw sharks, manta-rays, turtles, jellyfish and loads of other stuff. See the photo's.

Being still early-ish in the day (about 2pm/3pm) we figured that we would walk up to the KL Tower. It was good excecise, but we now know that tall buildings that look close, just get further and further away the longer you walk toward them. So at 421 metres high, (Menara Kuala Lumpar ) KL Tower is the world's 4th tallest tower. After paying our 20RM we got in the lift, which sadly Matt timed (it takes less than 20 seconds to go metres up!). The view up there (from 276 metres high) is amazing, and they have binocular things (Like they had by the seaside in times gone by) Unfortunately they got hogged by some middle aged blokes trying to watch people in the roof-top swimming pools of buildings nearby. We didn't get chance to try the reverse bungee jumping, we couldn't find it, and it would most likely have been outside of our price range in any case.

Sunday 29th:
After following the directions in our hostel - for the bus to the Batu Caves , we got lost! So after getting the LTR (Underground/monorail combo thing) about 4 stops away, we asked directions and had to walk all the way back to the hostel - and past it in the other direction. So much for the directions our hostel gave us.

Anyway, after finally getting to the Bangkok bank, we got the #11 bus (2RM each) and got up to the Batu caves. What a let down that was.

The Batu caves are basically a set of caves about 11km outside of Kuala Lumpur. In the caves are some Hindu temples. They are quite impressive, and the monkeys that play, drink out of discarded pop cans and eat whateve people give them are fun to watch. However, after seeing Angkor Wat and several Buddhist temples, most Hindu temples seem a bit of a let down. The statues are all very plastic looking, painted very bright - which diminishes any feel of age. When you see a temple you want to see ancient, not plasticised. The other thing was the incredibly annoying tape set on loop (complete with crackle) of religious hymns/prayers - amazingly this music was only played in or around the tourists shops, including the one inside the caves, and not in or around any temple. It just felt cheesy.

Later we decided to go on a walk called 'Bintang walk'. It's all signposted as a tourist trail, all the guesthouses tell you to go do it. It was a good time-killer, but that was about it. Takes you past some posh hotels, some nice shops and not a lot else really, just dual carriageway after road and a lot of traffic. You do get one good view of Petronis towers and KL Tower, but that's the highlight really.

Monday 30th:
Today, as we estimated, was the last day here, so we decided to do the two walks in the LonelyPlanet guide book, and get all buffed up on culture and architecture (Yes we really are that sad, and a bit bored of KL by now. It's not exactly Hong Kong).

So first off was the 'Colonial district walk', comprising of:

1. KL Train station, built 1911 by a Brit called AB Hubbock, in a Moorish style.
2. Malayan Railway admin building ? wtf ? Also, Moorish style.
3. Pusat Islam Malaysia (National Islamic centre) A cool, groovy, blue glass Mosque.
4. Masjid Negara Another Mosque.
5. Pejabat Pos Besar (Main Post Office) Sent postcards here, it also houses the Petronis fountain
6. Kompleks Dayabumi Which had all these cool Islamic arches and decorations. You also get a good view of the KL Tower and Petronis Towers together from here.
7. Old City Hall
8. National History Museum Bit naff to be honest. But it had some interesting stuff in it, plus it had just started to rain, and it had a roof.
9. World's tallest Flagpole! At 100 metres tall, it's the world's tallest.
10. Merdeka Square Once used as a cricket ground by Malaysia's British rulers, in 1957 it's the place where Britain signed over Independence and gave Malaysia it's freedom.
11. Sultan Abdul Samad Building built by another Brit, named AC Norman, mix of Victorian and Moorish stytles.
12. Memorial Arches (Dataran Merdeka)
13. St. Mary's Cathedral another one built by AC Norman (1894). Makes a change from temples and Mosques. Gothic style.
14. The Treehouse Fountain Apparently a famous attraction, very doubtful.
15. Masjid Jamek AB Hubbock this time, built 1907.

Sounds like a lot, but most of the stuff is about 20 metres apart, so overall it was only about a mile and a half. So after that, we figured we could do another walk. Considering the start point was the same place as we were standing (by Masjid Jamek) we figured we would do the 'Chinatown Walk.', which went as thus:

16. Old Shophouses Not sure how old they are, but they're pretty old. The area is a South-Indian Chettier patch. The Chetty are people from India that moved to Malaysia so long ago that they're not really all that traditionally Indian anymore, facially or culturally. They are a bit, but they're also a bit Malay.
17. Medan Pesar Basically it's an old market square, now it's traffic jam central, the best part was some great old shophouses (Chinese Architect) built in 1906. Unfortunately they're about to be knocked down.
18. OCBC Building Overseas Chinese Banking Company. Cool, little 1938 Art Deco thing going on.
19. Federal Stores building 1905, just ahd interesting paint. Which is a point, why does nobody paint houses anymore, bricks just look crap.
20. Bank Simpanon Building 1914, just another one with funky paintwork.
21. Central Market Like Ronseal.
22. Guandi Temple The first Taoist temple we had seen. Taoist and Buddhist look pretty similar though to be honest.
23. Sri Mahamariamman Temple a Hindu one, see the plasticised figures, all 22 metres of them.
24. Chan See Shu Yuen Temple late 19th Century.
25. Koon Yam (Guanyin) Temple

And that was about it. We numbered them so photo's don't get confusing.

After that we came back, booked the bus to Melaka/Melacca for tomorrow morning, watched a DVD, did this blog, and then went to search for Chicken Satay.

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Photos

Jellyfish.
Evil. Matt hates them after Pulau Kecil. We can't wait to see a turtle chew one of them to pieces.

Durian.
Just realised, we've been in SE Asia nearly 3 months and haven't mentioned Durian. It's a fruit that is banned from most shops, hotels and so on. It smells like rotten fruit, tastes like a cross between Mango, Lychee, and something else, and has the texture of raw garlic. They're about the size of a melon.

Leanne by the theme park inside Times Square.
There are 15 rides! Inside a shopping centre. Aswell as an iMax cinema and bowling. It's unreal.

The world's tallest flagpole.
Again, by Merdeka square.

Times Square - Inside.
There are a few floors below this aswell.

Black-Tipped Reef Shark.
These are what we swam/snorkelled with out in Pulau Kecil.

Turtles.
Aquaria again.

Lion fish.
Aquaria. We have yet to meet this, in Australia and Fiji. They're deadly to humans.

Tubular tanks.
Aquaria.

Couple shot.
Next to Jaws's jaws.

View from KL Tower
That below, is Kuala Lumpur you can see there.

Chinese Dragon
From the multi-cultural show we saw.

Batu Caves.
Again, lots of stairs. And a Golden statue.

Batu Cave Temple.
If you've ever watched that event on Ripley's, where loads of Hindu devotees suspend themselves of hooks. This is where they do it.

View from Batu Caves
That's Kuala Lumpur you can see there.

Monkey drinking out of a can.
Batu caves.

The Cricket field.
Right next to Merdeka square, and the world's tallest flagpole.