Amusing myself

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Well lets face it. As a city there isn't really much to the great KL. Most of the sights are at best average - with the exception of the twin towers of course - and can all be seen in a day but I managed to have a great time for 5 days there.

Why? Because the food is great, the place is heaving and it has the biggest cultural mix of any city I've visited so far.

I stayed in China town (The biggest and best china town I've seen so far) and the place is always busy except for the very early hours of the morning and even then it's hardly empty. The main street is technically open to cars all day though in reality the situation is quite different. During the day they have a lot of difficulty moving down the street because it's so busy. As the day moves on more and more stalls set up until they spill out into the middle of the road and it becomes impossible for any cars to fit down it. By night time it's difficult to even walk down with people constantly trying to sell you DVD's, watches, clothes and other junk. Food stalls are everywhere and they were selling all sorts of things that I had never seen or even heard of before!

Food has always been one of the best parts of my trip for me and KL has to be one of the best places I've been for trying food. It's cheap, of a high standard and has endless variety.

The towers deserve a brief mention too I guess. They are impressive and worthwhile seeing if you're there but you wouldn't die if you missed out on them. You can go inside on a brief and rushed half hour tour but this is more than enough. For me the best thing was lying on the floor outside at night looking up at them. That's how you really appreciate them. Not by going less than halfway up inside and onto that stupid bridge to look down at less than great views of traffic congestion and dull concrete skyscrapers.

One of the nights I was in KL I decided to sample the nightlife by going out with a Canadian guy from Quebec (Daniel) and a German girl (Christina). I only intended to have a couple of drinks to see what it was like and then head home so I purposely loaded my pockets with only a small amount of cash. By 3am I had managed to see a lady boy show followed by an evening drinking copious amounts in an upper class nightclub with huge fish tanks mounted on the walls. The malaysian people we met would never let us empty our glass for more than a few seconds and also ensured that we didn't let the beer go flat by getting us to finish our glass in one go on several occassions. By the end of the evening I had ingested enough alcohol to inebriate (sp?) a large hippopotamus!

Finally, just for my records I guess. On my last day in KL after a lazy morning doing very little I persuaded a few guys to come with me to one of the water theme parks they had there. KL is very big on theme parks and has loads of them - unsurprising perhaps given it's attitude towards technology etc. This one in particular is kitted out with a wave machine so powerful that people surf on it! The place turned out to be a bit of a let down though and unfortunately we didn't get a sniff of the wave machine as only a limited number of people (surfers) are allowed on it at one time. We made the most of it though and still had a good time acting like 10 year olds splashing around in the water throwing each other about.

So all in all KL isn't spectacular but there's plenty to do to amuse yourself if you need to fill in some time like me.

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Photos

Little shop of horrors
I found this tiny little chinese shop owned by a sweet chinese lady that sold amazing amounts of different antiques and amulets etc. I chatted to her for about half an hour and took a small souvenier home. Guess which one.

mmm. food
Chestnuts in this case

Delicious fruit
These Rambutan (sp?) and lychees are one of the specialties of KL