Kuala Lumpur

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And so, off to Malaysia! We made a beeline to the capital city, on board a 'VIP' bus. If you've read all our previous blogs, you're probably thinking "VIP, a likely story". However, aside from the lack of toliet, we were really quite spoilt: treated to air-con, large reclining seats, thick tartan blankets, water and a goodie bag filled with sweets and snacks!

Arriving before dawn, we were accosted by a 'helpful' Indian man who preached to us about the benefits of his hostel until we finally cracked, and found ourselves creeping into a dormitory in the dark for a few hours rest. Later that day, Amanda and Michael checked into the upmarket 'Dragon Inn', while the two of us headed for the similarly named, but not so pleasant 'Red Dragon hostel'.

We met later up to go shopping, and took the city's rather congenial metro to KLCC (Kuala Lumpur city centre) mall, next to the mighty Petronas towers. We split up, and the two of us had a very disappointing afternoon in this large, bright, noisy shopping centre. Unable even to withdraw cash or to purchase a single bar of soap, we were left feeling as frustrated as John McEnroe after a bad line-call. This is not what travelling is all about. Unable to cope with city life, we were reduced to visiting one of the ubiquitous McDonalds restaurants, and we didn't even feel adventurous enough to face their showpiece 'Prosperity burger', just Big Macs please!

On our second day, we went to check out the renowned Kuala Lumpur cityscape from the KL Menara tower. From the observation deck, we were treated to an impressive audio/video tour as we took in the excellent panoramic city views. This was followed by a quick Malay culture show, with smiling, brightly decorated people doing a jolly, clapping kind of dance.

Well, it was time to push on, and we spent almost the entire next day attempting to organise a tricky, but action-packed two-week adventure in Malaysian Borneo. This turned out to be more work than we had done in many months, and let's just say that it was a big shock to the system. We left that night, drained but pleased to be escaping the rain and the madness of the city, and excited to be later landing in unknown territory.

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Photos

A view of the Petronas Towers
These skyscraping monsters were until quite recently the tallest towers in the world (apparently).

Comments

[june & graham]

size matters!
Call that a blog? We've seen postcards bigger than this blog! Please write more and oftener.

[Jimmy]

Smiling in the face of adversity.
Loved the VIP bus photo of you both behaving like mischievous children-David all smug and smiling having spent all his pocket money on goodies and Liouse in hysterics,like she's done something her parents shouldn't know about, cheers me up no end considering the last blog depicting all those nasty injuries. hope(hummm) the lack of soap didn't result in you getting many a cold shoulder(read between the lines i'm being extremely cryptic). There's nothing worse than a McDonalds 'deflated' burger. Sorry you had such an awful time. Great aerial views of the city with the towers dwarfing everything in sight. cant wait to see your next blog on '...landing in unknown territory.' Going back to thee smiling photo above, i'm still laughing. To me the best photo to date. Love you heaps, Jimmy.