Where in the World are Francis & Greg: Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

March 14-19

(Salam dari Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) Greetings from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (KL for short and the capital city of 6.9 million). One thing we noticed when we were coming in for a landing is the palm trees. There are palms everywhere here and out by the airport (50 km from downtown) all you can see is palm trees. Malaysia is one of the top producers of palm oil, so that is the reason for all the palm trees. The other thing we have noticed is how clean the city is and a lot less congestion when it comes to traffic and people. Don't get us wrong, this is still a BIG city but things just move at a more normal city pace and they drive much better than in Thailand. The last thing we noticed on the way in from the airport (yes, we noticed quite a bit) is how green everything is. It seems almost every day about 3:00-4:00 they get a rain. It is very hot (doesn't seem to be as hot as Thailand but close) but the rains come and maybe last for about 20 minutes and then the sun is out again.

We checked into our hotel, Citrus Hotel, and then explored our neighbourhood. Malaysia has 3 major cultures: Chinese, Indian and Malaysian and you can see this when you walk around and check out the restaurants. The main religion here (80+%) is Muslim and you can notice that too. Many of the women wear head scarves.

March 15th

We left pretty early and got on a skytrain/subway and headed down to KL's most famous landmark, the Petronas Twin Towers. They are pretty amazing up close: 88 floors and shining silver. If you are an early bird, you can go to the towers, get a free ticket with a pre-assigned appointment time and come back at that time to go up to the 41st floor; which has a bridge between the two towers for viewing. They give out over 1000 free tickets before 10:00am. It's hard to believe but that's what they said.

There is always an interesting story once in awhile and here it is. On the beach in Patong, Thailand, we were talking to this lady who was from Perth, Australia. We found out she would be on the flight to KL with us. The first morning in our hotel, guess who was at breakfast... yep she was. We were just coming out of the Twin towers and ran into her again. So we actually took pictures with her and even got her email. We went our separate ways and about an hour later we were getting on a bus... and there she was again. We ended up hanging around a bit together.

After the Twin Towers we headed off to the aquarium to check out some sea creatures. It was a nice way to spend a few hours out of the heat of the day. Our next stop was the Petaling Street where the vendors keep asking you to look. It seems the night time is more crazy as it was getting crazy when we were there and it was only late afternoon. We also visited Chinatown, which was pretty "interesting" to say the least. Before we headed back, we stopped at a Chinese 'restaurant' and had a bite to eat. We've eaten at a few side 'restaurants' and let's just say, the Health Department back home would have these places shut down without any chance of reopening. hehhe. But guess what, the food is delicious. Cleanliness doesn't seem to be a priority. Washrooms in restaurants and public places? Well, let's just say almost never would you see hot water,soap or towels to wash your hands. Sometimes it was better to 'hold it' till we got back to our hotel. But as long as the food is fresh and we can see where it is cooked, it is good enough :)

Now after our delicious meal, it was time to pick up the map and find our way back to the hotel. We decided to walk it... it was pretty hot but we were keen to sight see and follow the map back to the hotel. It didn't take us that long but we did see lots of stuff on the way back. Our first full day and how nice it was to get back and shower.

March 16th

This morning we were on a bus at 9:15 to connect to a tour bus taking us to 3 areas: a world class Pewter Factory, a Batik factory and then to the Batu Caves. Our tour guide, with his strong Indian accent, gave us a great deal of Malaysian information before we visited the Pewter factory; he was VERY informative. One interesting thing was that KL was a productive mining center until about the 60's. When it finished, KL developed into a NEWLY constructed city with tall buildings and modern structures. What a transformation!

The first sight we saw at the Selangor Pewter factory, according to the Guiness Book of World Records, was the largest Pewter beer stein in the world. Greg almost passed out when he saw it and dreamed of it filled with a cold Alpine. We were offered the opportunity to take photos before we left. Inside, we observed workers creating beautiful pewter cups and mug handles and other wonderful pewter items. Some on our tour tried their hand at tapping the mallet on the pewter cup which was not as easy as one would think. The lady demonstrating her craft of making the mug handles has been there for 40 years and makes 500 mug handles a day. AMAZING. We also visited their store. WOW, beautiful stuff but not really that cheap. The Selangor pewter products are shipped to a facility in Toronto as well as other places around the world.

Our next stop was the Batik factory. Many Malaysians design clothing, scarves, and art work, as a second income. Many of the country folk are involved in agriculture and fishing and when not doing that they turn to batiks for income. We watched them make some large designs on silk with paint and then had a tour. We even purchased a few things (ties and art).

The last stop takes us to the Batu Caves (a Hindu religious site). The caves naturally formed over many hundreds of years of water hollowing out the limestone. We got our workout for the day here. In order to see the caves, we had to climb 272 steps. At the entrance to the long climb, there was a TALL gold Hindu Deity statue ( almost 50 metres tall) Interestingly enough, and we were warned about this, there were monkeys everywhere on the steps and the areas along side the steps. We were warned not to feed them as they might attack us thinking we had more food. Man they were cute! At the top of the steps, we were greeted with more statues and sculptures and the stench of monkey urine and poo. It was breath taking, and I mean that literally. It did take our breath away. hehe Well not that bad. The caves (more like caverns, since they were so big) were wonderful. On this trip we met a nice young Japanese woman who was by herself, so she ended up joining us for the rest of the day/evening. The tour bus took us back to our hotel about 1:00 and we just had a quick rest and headed out again.

We wanted to explore a site that was MUCH further out of the city than we thought. We took two subway trains to our connection commuter train and it headed out of the city. It took about 25 minutes on this train until our stop. It was about 3:00 when we arrived at the stop but as what normally happens about that time of day, it rains. So we had to wait for about 15 minutes until it was over. While waiting we asked someone about the Muslim Blue Mosque (where we were headed) to see if we could walk to it. Since the map we had of the city (scale wise) things were pretty close and was very easy to walk to. She said 'oh no, it was too far'. But many folks think 15 minutes of walking is too far... but she said it was really far. So we decided to take a taxi. Well we are glad we did because it must have been 20 minutes by car and some of this was on the highway. We are glad we took the time to go here because it was so informative.

You can see by the pictures that we had to dress appropriately to enter. We met up with two other tourists (FYI - tourists don't normally come out here since it is so far out). We walked into the Prayer Room which we found out was a NO NO but the security guard took us aside and gave us a history of the mosque and how things are done. That was so interesting.

After our visit we figured we had better get another taxi to our next site. It was a big mall but the main entrance was like walking into Egypt, complete with its own pyramid structure and a huge sphynx outside. We walked around the mall and checked out its stores and theme park. Now it was getting close to 5:30 and it was time to catch a city bus back into the subway station. It was also rush hour... oh the cars and the heat :)

The bus ride in took us about 30 minutes but it was much faster than we thought since the traffic was so bad. By then we were tired, sweaty and hungry. We decided to eat before coming back in for a shower. Not far from our hotel we found a street restaurant (kind of Indian/Chinese). He didn't have English menus so he just talked and we said yes, no, maybe... anyway all in all it was a great meal and we will go back... since it has been over 24 hours and we have not had the trots :) We parted ways with our Japanese friend and headed back to our hotel for a long, much needed, cold shower.

March 17th.

We didn't do a great deal in the morning, since Joey had to leave for the airport in the early afternoon. After we saw her off at the high-speed train to the airport we set out to find the big public park. It didn't take us very long to locate it, since it is big (and we had a map). We walked around for a bit but it felt like we were about one kilometre from the sun and the sweat from our ears was making our feet wet (kidding it was hot but not that bad). We did manage to find a little golf cart train that would take folks around the park for about 33 cents, so why walk. We did have a destination and it only took about 5 minutes and we spotted one destination. However, we wanted to go first to the butterfly park. We got out and went inside to see all the beautiful butterflies. The place was big and had lots of trees, plants and waterfalls. I think we spent about 90 minutes at least in here. Then on the way out we had to stop and see some of the other "bug" creatures. All we can say is thank god for our winters!!! There are some big ass bugs in this country.

The next stop, just down the road, was the largest free flying bird park in the world. Meaning most of the birds could just fly around. The park was huge but had large trees and metal posts holding up the netting. I think it was over two hours in here. There were so many interesting birds to see. Before we went in we stopped in the cafe for a cold drink. We sat on the upper deck and all of a sudden this freakin' monster bird kind of like a tucan landed almost on our table. It was looking for some food. We were kind of glad we didn't have anything but drinks because we are pretty sure if it wanted our food we would have to give it up :).

Before we knew it the day had went and it was time to make our way back to the hotel. We kind of like to walk even if it is hot, since we see a lot more. Just as we arrive in our hotel block area there is this Indian street restaurant that always had good smelling food. Like many of the street restaurants it didn't look all that clean but the food was hot and fresh, so we go it as take-away and ate it back in the hotel room. About 8:30 we had a call from another guy who lives here who belongs to the group we belong too, Couchsurfing. He met us for drinks about 9:30 and it was nice getting to meet him.

March 18th

Ahhh you have to love vacation and the mornings. We woke up when we were ready and got ready and went downstairs for breakfast. After breakfast we took our dirty laundry to a place where they would wash and dry/fold it for us. Mind you it was not as cheap as Thailand but cheap enough that if the service was available at home for that price we would NEVER do laundry again :) After we dropped the clothes off we headed to the subway/train and headed down to try to get tickets for the Twin Towers. We mananged to get some for 4:30pm. Under the Towers is this huge mall with pretty much all HIGH END stores like Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Harrods, etc. We are glad looking around is free. There was a watch we looked at that didn't look like anything you couldn't find at Walmart for a little over $23,000 CDN. We walked around for about 90 minutes just checking things out. But soon the air conditioning cooled us off enough that we were getting tired. We hopped on the subway and headed back to the hotel.

Greg did some computer stuff and I had a great sleep.... ahh again vacation is great that way. Mind you it was my first nap since we arrived in Asia. After the nap we were up and gone back to the Twin Towers for our tour. They first take you into a room and you watch a bit about the tower in 3D. Then we go through security and metal scanners and then we go to the highspeed elevator to the 41 floor. That is where the bridge that connects the two towers is. They don't allow you to go any further since these towers are offices and people do work (wow, silly concept.. work ). It was a great chance to see the skyline from that far up. The city is huge! We only are allowed about 10 minutes before the next group arrives. It is great that it is free to go up and they only allow so many each time so we never felt crowded.

Before we knew it we were back on the ground and in a coffee shop having a snack. We called our friends Angela/Monique in Australia. They will be picking us up when we arrive in Australia on Saturday morning. We found out that we may not be able to make it to the Island on the Great Barrier Reef due to a major storm (it is cyclone season in AU). It seems they are evacuating some islands out there now. Oh well, we can't change Mother Nature.

On our way back from the subway we stopped at another Indian restaurant, this one is cleaner and has AC. The food was AMAZING! When I went to pay we had a bit of a problem. It seems my old visa doesn't have a chip (like the new ones) and the restaurants visa reader can't read these cards. Well we only had about $18 of their dollars and the bill was $49 (about $16.00 CDN). The guy asked where we were staying... and then said we could go get the money or another credit card and come back, he trusted us. How nice was that? Mind you Greg said that he would leave me behind as collateral.

This will be our last night in Malaysia since we leave for Australia tomorrow night. As we type this the day is almost done and our plans for tomorrow are very simple. We plan to pack in the morning and get our hair cut (again because it is cheaper and we want to look our best for our Aussie friends). Our flight only leaves about 10:30 at night and arrives about 7:30 am (about 7 hours). If anything exciting happens tomorrow, we will let you know in our first notes from Australia.

and so... the journey continues!