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Published: April 10th 2006
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KL Tower
the fourth largest telecommunications tower in the world Hey hey. Me and Wils arrived in Kuala Lumpur in the late afternoon of 8th April. The first thing that strikes you when you get off the bus is how modern everything looks. In the 1990s their was an economic boom in Malaysia and since then in KL high-rise buildings have been spurting up by the bucketload. Before i start telling you of all my Capital adventures can i just give a personal message to Andy: Before you start getting excited Andy by the title of my blog, i should inform you that I used such a title because Oompa Loompa rhymes with Kuala Lumpur not because all of the women out here are orange! I know you like a bit/shitload of fake tan on your women but i'd hate to think you spent all your money on getting the next plane out here just because you misread the title of my blog and thought KL was a fake tan paradise- Your best bet is probably Carlisle's various Kebab shops at 230am on Saturday Morning!
Right back to the story!Our hostel was pretty good, you had to get a lift up three floors to reach it, but when you do
View from the Top
View of the Malaysian skyline from KL tower it has a big lobby area showing films and sport all the time and it has loads of rooms. Our hostel is located next to Chinatown, probably the biggest Chinatown we've seen so far. There are a multitude of places that sell Chinese, Indian and Muslim food as well as the Western option if you want to play it safe (Mcdonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Nandos)! Our first meal was at an Indian typed place where we just pointed at chicken dishes in sauce and hoped they weren't too spicy (Generally the English spoken by people in restaurants is very good but sometimes no matter how slowly and coherently you speak the message doesn't get through, so you just chance it!)
We went for a few drinks at night and had a snack at a Chinese, about a quid for 6 skewers of satay chicken. Just before midnight we delved to the level of going to Maccy Ds- but to put a positive spin on it at least we sampled three different types of dishes on our first day in the culturaly diverse capital of Malaysia- So really it was the culture vulture in us that obliged us to go
Biggest of a big bunch
No not me! The Petronas Towers in the background dominate KL's skyline- they have recently lost their status as the world's biggest building to a building recently constructed in Taiwan to McDonalds. Ahem.
The next day we were woken up by a familiar face and voice entering our room- It was the elusive Jonny! He'd just arrived from a night train journey which took him about 12+ hours. It wasn't much longer till Bull was back in the mix either- Apparenty he'd been on the same night train as Jonny but they'd never seen each other (bully was in one of the sleeper beds on the train whereas Jonny was, to quote John Lennon, "in the cheap seats")
Jonny decided to catch up on some sleep whilst me Bully and Wils decided to explore. Kuala Lumpur is home to the second largest building in the world, The Petronas Towers. It is an amazing site but its hard to gauge how huge it actually is because of the numerous skyscrapers around it. We decided to perhaps leave the Petronas Towers till another day and instead headed for The KL Tower (The 4th largest telecommunications tower in the world- not the greatest tagline in the world but it was enough to persuade us to visit!)
To get to The KL Tower we had to go through a forest in
G-Force X
It was in this ball typed thing that i was projected hundreds of feet into the air, 135km/h in 2 seconds-was awesome. the middle of the city, we spotted several monkeys in the trees above but managed to avoid any snakes or scorpions (to be honest it was a footpath all the way through the forest with signs giving direction so i would've counted myself very unlucky if a snake slithered by us)
The Kl Tower looked pretty cool, we got a lift upto the viewing point in it- this was a circular room that offered views of KL from all vantage points. We had headsets that made us look like we were out of Top Gun or summat which guided us through the different sites that we could view out of the window. Kuala Lumpar from this height just looks like a sea of skyscrapers, varying from the huge to the massive. We spotted the national stadium; Merdeka Gardens, where Malaysia had gained independence from the British empire in 1957; and the Petronas Towers, not that you could miss them! The Petronas Towers are basically two huge towers next to each other that are joined about a quater of the way up by a bridge, when you visit you can only go as high as the bridge so as it happened our view from KL towers was higher than if we'd went to Petronas.
After soaking up some skyline we headed back down to ground level again. Outside the Tower was something called the G-Force X, this was a metal sphere with two seats in it that was connected by metal chains to two huge metal rods at either side of it (the idea was that you sat in the sphere and were catapulted skyward at 125km/h!). The screens in the Kl Tower advertising the "Ride" were enough to tempt me to give it a go- Was about 9 quid for a few seconds of a rush but it was well worth it! After the initial rush of being catapulted up, apparently you feel the G-force equivalent to that felt by 15 Jumbo Jets or summat, you do a few 360 spins and get a view of the KL Tower from something near its level- Was about 2 minutes in all, but its the first 5 seconds that take your breath away- It was awesome! After finding my way back to ground level again we headed back to the hostel.
The night time consisted of a few games of snooker, followed by heading out to this Reggae bar to watch Robbie fowler lead the mighty reds to a 1-0 victory on his 31st birthday (Happy Birthday Robbie). After that we got a taxi to the nearby area, known as the Golden Triangle, which has a lot of bars on it. We got a great view of the "Pride of Malaysia", The Petronas Towers at night, it looked especially good with bits of it lit up in the night sky. The prices tended to be quite steep in the Golden Triangle (Compared to thailand anyways) but we managed to find a place with an all night long happy hour- It was a Sunday night afterall! (Its maybe like Kingdom in Sheffield on a Sundays according to Cocknose, "Its cheap drinks all night cos theyv gotta get rid of the stock!") Seen Man Utd beat Arsenal.
Ended up in a night club typed place, There was a charge of about 3 quid to get in, but this included your first drink so it wasn't that bad. Was a mix of locals and tourists in there, one of the blokes in their who i think was a local was an absolute mentalist on the dance floor- He kept trying to grab hold of everyone and was waving his hands in the air like he just didn't care! Has Jonny found his Asian equivalent? I'll keep you posted!
Mike
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Andy
non-member comment
Thanks!
I must take this chance to thank you for broadcasting those very sensitive secrets to the world, in my defence to whomever maybe reading this - i was very very.... very drunk, and the club wasnt exactly lit with bright midday sunshine at the time. And as much as it pains me to say it i doubt very much if Robbie will ever know about your heart felt wishes. Anyway, take care!