May 26 - June 2

Puala Langkawi --> Kuala Perlis --> Kuala Lumpur

We’re leaving Langkawi and heading to the capital. The last big city we visited was Bankok, some eight weeks earlier, hence the prospect of walking around skyscrapers seemed as attractive as lying among palm trees. The plan was to catch a ferry going to Kuala Perlis and then a bus going straight to Kuala Lumpur. Easy.

We missed the ferry. There was another one arriving shortly but that left us with very little time to catch the bus. On top of that the ferry was late and even when it finally arrived it took the eternity for people to embark. After reaching Perlis we still had to find the bus station and, depending on whom we asked, it would take anything from fifteen to twenty minutes. The people had been embarking for half an hour before it finally head out. It was going so slow mainly because someone had a great idea to assign a specific seat for every passenger (like it made any difference, the trip was less than one hour long) and everyone took their time to make absolutely sure they’re sitting on the right spot.

At that point we were sure we would miss our ride. Then we met this guy from Belgium who was going to KL on business. He assured us we would make it on time to catch the bus. After getting off the ferry we followed him to the bus station which turned out to be…literally just around the corner. Who in the world would need 20 minutes to walk twenty meters? The man just laughed and said that if we ask a Malay any questions concerning time we should always divide the answer by four.

After reaching KL we headed straight for Chinatown. It compromises mainly of few very narrow streets and it was extremely crowded with people and stalls selling all sorts of things.
But what amazed me the most was that I had so many friends over there. “Hey my friend, shoes”? “Hey, my friend, a watch?” “My friend, food?” “Friend! Friend! Friend!...”. When did I meet all these people? Anyhow, we got a room in a Chinese hotel, which seemed comfy enough but it was lacking…windows. We enquired about them in the reception and learnt that sure, there are windows but only in the more expensive rooms. Wow, never thought that such an obvious thing as windows in rooms can be a commodity. We’ll do without windows then. (sorry Bill!).

The KL was a great experience. Think Bangkok light - cleaner and easier to negotiate due to great public transport system. And, contrary to what our guidebook said, walking could get us anywhere and leave a “sweaty mess”.

All of the above but there was one thing that took the cake. The Petronas Twin Towers. Standing almost 500 meters tall they successfully dwarfed all the. No matter how many times I saw I never had enough. They looked incredible, especially during the night hours. They looked glamorous to the point they didn’t seem real. It was like watching a movie with groundbreaking special effects. Unfortunately the tops were off limits for visitors. The highest one could go was the on the bridge level, hardly in the middle. We skipped this part, the view from the telecommunication tower provided much better view over the city. Besides only a limited number of tickets were issued very day, and they usually were all out early in the morning. Somehow we couldn’t be bothered.

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