Around KL No2

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Tody we hopped off at Pasar Seni train station and walked over to China town for breakfast. Jacinta had Chinese dumpling soup and I had wonton soup, it was a nice light meal to start the day at 10:00 in the morning. We walked through the rest on the China town markets, I ended up buying a pair of sun glasses for $15rm $5Aus, I somehow lost my new pair the day before. I also bought a wallet and a purse for Jacinta. The same bargaining applies to KL China town, you ask how much and then half it, you stick to that price and when they give up and say “no to cheap no profit” you walk away and more often than not they say “OK Mr OK”. Never be afraid to walk away from a sale because chances are they are selling the same thing only 10m up the road. We walked back through the train station and over the bridge to cross the stinky open stormwater drain and walked to the old KL train station as it had very impressive architecture.
Not far from there, the Islamic Mosque was in full view and it was a very impressive building. We stopped at the front desk and we had to tack off our shoes and were made to wear purple cloaks to cover ourselves, Jacinta had to wear her hood the whole time as women have to cover up. We looked around and took a few photos, as we headed over to the main prayer building, there was a very polite muslin that volunteers his time to the mosque in order to teach visitors about his religion.
He went right into how Muslim’s believe in Allah the GOD who is the creator of everything. He also created Adam and Eve who had offspring Muhammad who was a prophet. They also believe that Jesus was just a prophet as well. They pray to Allah five times a day and they pray for things like safe travels for their family, they hope to do well for themselves, or they will get the job they applied for, pretty much the usual stuff people pray for. All this takes around 5min and all who are muslin have to pray at the mosque every Friday. The Mosque took up around 2 acres of land including court yards and he said that it was full right out to the road on Fridays. They also pray in the direction of Mecca, where they have to travel once in their life to pray. Mecca is in ????????????Israel and we should be there in 8 months
He spent allot of time with us explaining the religion, history of the Mosque and the death of the former Muslim prime ministers that were buried in the national hero’s mausoleum. He spent around half an hour with us and we were grateful for his time and knowledge. With a long journey ahead of us it was important for us to learn and understand many religions and I feel that the Quran and the Muslim religion makes more sense than Christianity as this religion has not changed at all in thousands of years.
Feeling like we had learnt a great deal we walked up to the Orchid garden only ½ km up the hill, It felt like 10km by the time we got up there as the humidity was as bad as we ever felt it. The entry fee was 1rm each and the orchids were not in bloom as much as we hoped. It was still worth the cheap entry fee and it was very quiet and pretty. We walked around for ½ hour and then heard a big clap of thunder. Because we were surrounded by high jungle trees we had no idea that there was another tropical rain shower on its way. Large drops of rain started to fall from nowhere so we headed down the hill to go to the butterfly park. We only got 100m down the hill when the heavens opened up on us. With cameras and laptop in our day packs we had to find shelter at the Orchid ticket house entrance. It had an awning that was just big enough to keep the top half of us dry, everything else got soaked from the huge rain drops splashing back up from the road. The rain lasted around 45min and we decided to miss out on the butterfly park and head straight for little India to have lunch. It was probably a 3km walk and it was hard to take short cuts as the roads are all over the place like spaghetti, this place is not very friendly to people who want to walk. We ended up walking up the main road to find food but could not find anything decent. With my stomach growling we stopped at a local food market that had limited pickings of food. I ended up getting some strange fried bread that looked like thin pork sausages, I’m still not sure what was in it but it was edible, still not satisfied I got some banana fritters. We were disappointed at this stage as we were told from the tourist info that there was good food here. We decided to walk up to another train station to catch the train back to KL Sentral and catch another one back home. I was eating the last off my fritters with the wood skewer. I guess I wasn’t paying attention when I walked off the edge of the curb and accidentally bit down on the skewer, I didn’t think much of that until the fritter that I was eating had a rock and sand in it. I had to find a place to spit it out and it turned me off the rest of the fritters. I ran my tongue along my front teeth and realise that the filling on my front tooth had fallen out when I bit down on the skewer and I crunched it up with the fritter. With the filling taking up a ¼ of the front tooth It was very noticeable to anyone and it felt like a crater to me. I was pissed off because I only had it fix around 4 months prior and this would be the fifth time it’s been fixed in 2years.
We continued up further and came across a small alley where there looked to be markets, Ahhh this is where all the food is. There were all types of Indian food and I still had room for something else. I had a Parthra with chicken curry in it (like a pancake bread) It was so nice and if I had more room in my belly I would of had seconds. Pissed off about my tooth and the fact that we found the food markets to late it was back to Middle valley to find a dentist.
By the time we got to the dentist it was 5:00 and I had my tooth fixed in a flash, I could smile again without hearing banjo’s playing in the back ground. It only cost me $50Aus but the job she had done on my tooth reflected the price, it was pretty rough and she didn’t even smooth everything out so when I rubbed my tongue over the tooth I can feel where the filling started and the tooth stopped. I suppose it won’t be long before this one falls out and I will have to get it done again. I hope I don’t lose it when I get to Africa or when I climbing the Himalayas?

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Comments

[Alec Vickerman]

Very you
Dan. If you start dressing like that, in those colours! you may as well start praying. All you need is a matching pack and head gear. Strut your stuff! A