Smoky Kuala Lumpur

---

After Singapore Malaysia is the obvious place to travel to, but with limited time we decided to just go to Kuala Lumpur. Getting to KL from Singapore is easy - you can take the bus or the train and it's only a few hours. We opted for the train and discovered that Britain is about the only country left in the world where train stations are still in city centres. Singapore's train station is on the outskirts of the city centre and is decidedly faded - a remnant of colonial times, it even had a waiting room for VIPS - how many VIPS travel by rain these days?!

The express train turned out to be anything but express, it crawled through the countryside, but it was comfortable and inexpensive. As we got into Malaysia the visibility from the train got worse and worse, and by the time we got to KL we could see very little from the train windows. This was due to smoke from illegal forest burning in Indonesia, which had been being blown into KL for a few days. KL was absolutely boiling hot and very oppressive - the smoke stuck in our throats and made being outside very unpleasant. We soon invested in face masks and started to look a little more like the locals!

Because of the smoke we didn't spend much time outside exploring KL. We found a huge, clean and air-conditioned mall next to the Petronal Towers and spent lots of time in it - shopping, eating, drinking and going to the cinema... seems a bit sad, but it was the best option in the circumstances. One thing we did do was spend a lot of time exploring the Chinatown markets, which were just outside our hotel - crazy busy markets selling everything and anything - almost all of it bootlegged.

We managed to go up the Petronas Towers on a morning when the smoke wasn't too bad :-) We met a fellow backpacker, Mark, in the train station in Singapore, and kept meeting him in KL. The morning we went to the towers he was way ahead of us in the queue for tickets, and then got us tickets when he got to the front of the queue. What a nice man! We went up the tower with him, and ended up having a drunk and debaucherous night out with him in Chinatown that night - what a way to end our time in Malaysia!

Till the next time

Jo and Graeme x

---

Photos

Crazy Chinatown Market
Right outside our hotel

The Petronas Towers in the smoke
This is what they looked like on our first day in KL

The Petronas Towers in the sun
This is what they really look like

Us on the 41st floor of the Petronas Towers
There are about 88 floors in all.

The 3 Amigos
On the 41st floor of the Petronas Towers - me, Mark and Graeme

The view from our room in KL
On the first day - the smoke was bad.

Comments

[Lewis]

Friendship - a bit of fatherly philosophy
Having a family interest of the kind that makes me worry about the two of you, I have to say that one of the things that has struck me all the way through your travels is the way you have made friends on the way; latterly Mark, and all year there have been people to help, or who helped you or just for extra company and boozing buddies. There was even a distant cousin in NZ who was annoyed to have missed you. We live in dangerous times, or so the news media would suggest. Does your experience show humankind is really ok after all?