Kuala Lumpur June 7-10

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We have been terrible about updating this blog! So now I am going to try and recap our adventures from the past couple of weeks in Peninsular Malaysia.

Sarah and I flew into Kuala Lumpur on June 7th and planned to stay for a couple of days. We were fortunate enough to stay with one of Sarah Hall's friends, Iris, who she knew from Guelph. Similar to Singapore, KL was sweltering, and with 15kg packs on our backs we were ready to hibernate in the air conditioned malls until we could meet up with Iris after work. However, we got dropped off outside of Iris's apartment building and set off to track down some food. Unfortunately due to my sub-par map reading skills we paced Bukit Bintang (the busy shopping strip that Iris lives on) about 4 times before we realized we should have continued in the direction we originally started in. We eventually made it to a little Thai restaurant, threw off our packs, slumped into the seats and order some amazing pad thai and curry chicken. Once we had refueled, we headed off to meet up with Iris.

Our first full day in KL we ventured off on a local bus RM2 ($1 CND = RM 3) to the Batu Caves, located just 45 minutes outside of the city centre. The caves house various ornate Hindu shrines. At the entrance of the caves, there is a larger than life gold statue and 270 steps, all of which are covered with sneaky little monkeys. If you aren't careful they will help themselves to whatever food you might have on you. Later in the day we visited Chinatown and Little India, having a delicious Indian meal of samosas, chicken masala and naan. We tracked down a hostel as well to book our bus to our next destination, Cameron Highlands.

Later that night we went out to the Reggae Bar in Chinatown (recommended by some friends) with Iris and some of her Dutch friends from work. The bar was plastered with Bob Marley paraphernalia; however, included Hooka's, top-40 music from the mid 90s, and pitchers of Long Island Ice Tea. In my opinion a recipe for a great night out.

The next day, Sarah and I dragged ourselves out of bed to wait in line at the infamous Petrona's towers. There are only 1400 tickets (free) each day and people line up early to nab a ticket when they are released at 8:30am. We were able to get two tickets for later in the day, so spent most of the afternoon wandering around the gardens infront of the towers and cooling off in the mall that is the towers. That night Iris took us to Skybar, the bar that sits at the top of the hotel she works at. The bar over looks the Petrona's towers and is the best view in the city. Sarah and I tried to clean up as best we could with the clothes we had brought in our backpack; Iris was more than a little sketpical that we would be allowed in the bar! We capped off the evening with drinks at the "Rum Jungle" a bar close by, meeting up again with some more Dutch friends.

Sarah and I left early Wednesday morning by bus to the Cameron Highlands, to check out the tea plantations.

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