Kuala Lumpur

KL is a powerful city. As soon as you walk in you know it is ALL about money. We were staying pretty centrally and there were 3 giant plaza/malls within a few minutes walk of each other. It was no surprise to find out that there were 65 malls in total... and one of them has a roller coaster inside!

In the 1800s a lot of Indians migrated there, so you find it is a varied place of the 2 cultures and religions - having the Muslims and Hindus. This could also be a reason why alcohol is so expensive. We were walking past bars with happy hour specials of $12 per glass of draft beer or $25 for a jug. . You would be pretty poor after a night on the turps.

We found the best way to see the city was a combination of the monorail and the train system - both being cheap and extending to all the parts you need to see. From the monorail you can catch a birds eye glimpse of KL.. And you go past several interesting places. Two we noted were;
* Electronics dump yard with 1000s of computers, spacie arcade machines and even a couple of cars thrown in for measure.
* A really old derelict prison.. In run down condition and really creepy as it was a contained ghost town with algae and moss growing rampant. I bet it will be a Hotel or something quirky in the future.

Our main target though were the Petronas Twin Towers - which you have probably spotted in movies before - such as Entrapment (1999). you know the one with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Here is the upshot - a mind blowing view!

Struggling to get them into the lens 2 streets back.


The sky bridge had free tours - but the sign said the tours were done for the day… so we decided to come back the following morning. Ended up you had to be super quick as we could only get tickets for 5.30 that night.. And although we were motivated initially, the thought of catching 2 trains to get back out there swayed us to go and see the movie Angels and Demons instead. . Not quite the same, but it was the first movie we had seen in 3 months and that gave us a wee escapism thrill.

KL seemed pretty normal really... there were signs of it having a seedy underbelly, but we didn’t run into anything head on. About the weirdest thing I saw was on the first night, we saw this busker painted metallic gold with a python around her neck and 2 pet monkeys wearing fluoro shorts. I kept my distance as those monkeys could be well trained pick pocketers. What happened next was a member of the crowd started hassling one of the monkeys.. . You know, rude names, finger pointing and labelling it for being short and hairy ;) This monkey got really pissed off so the trainer decided to pack things up. She placed the monkey on a sports bag.. But the bag was alive and the monkey was going up and down like a massaging chair. She unzipped the bag and there was another really big python in there just hanging out. Seemed like the monkey and the snakes were pretty good buds though. She packed the second python in that bag and took off. It must be pretty normal and legal here.. But just made me think of how many weird things are being lugged around inside bags in Asia.. . It ain't like NZ where the nasty surprise might be a wet sports towel.