Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia

April 2007

MALAYSIA - KUALA LUMPUR

Great to be back out of the burbs and immersed in another big city. We didn’t see a lot that inspired us on the list of must see tourist attractions, but maybe that’s because it was so very hot and our enthusiasm to explore was waning. But one look over the city from any view point and straight away you could spot the huge towers that give this city something to be proud of.

The first is the Menara Tower and is a key feature of the Kuala Lumpur skyline. It’s the worlds fourth tallest telecommunications tower and stands at an amazing 421 metres high. In case you wondered, the tallest tower is the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, which we’ve also been up a few years ago. The Menara stands proudly as the symbol of Kuala Lumpur, the Garden City of Lights. The tower boasts a lavish restaurant way up high but we opted instead to simply check out the observation deck. It was dark so the city looked beautiful all lit up and none more so than the majestic Petronas Twin Towers, just a few streets away.

These twin towers look like sky scrapers from the future with millions of tons of shiny steel, gleaming windows and pure white lights. They almost resemble two magnificent rockets waiting to launch, but something more stunning soon came in to view. A violent thunder storm was passing over the city and from up here we had the best seat in the house. We watched in awe, for twenty minutes, as relentless fork lightening pounded the earth. Superb!

Next day we checked out a rather nice historic building set on the edge of a large square complete with lawn. Some kind of brass band was rehearsing and TV cameras were rolling. It was so so hot here in the square that I could almost feel the skin on my feet wanting to ignite so to escape the torture we ducked in to a rather average museum about Malaysian history. It was well air conditioned and only about 50p to enter so we couldn’t grumble at the quality. Saying that we did learn a lot about how the British colonised the country, and how the nationalists had retaliated. I simply didn’t realised how much of the planet us little Brits had conquered back in the day, but that’s quite possibly because my history teacher (Yes, Mr Winters, you sad hippy!) was a pathetic excuse of a man and taught us diddly! I learnt more in an hour in one museum than I learnt in a year in his class. Museums are so under rated! When was the last time you checked out a London museum? Go!

Fed up with the heat, we booked a flight to the tropical island of Langkawi, which would give us some relaxation time, before returning to KL to meet up with Sarah’s friend Helena. Before we left KL we just had time to visit the Hard Rock Café, to indulge in some sickly American fatty stodge. Wonderful!