The overnight bus, our third of the trip, from Kota Bharu to Kuala Lumpur traveled at frightening speeds for most of the journey and got us to our required destination at the inconvenient hour of 5am on Tuesday morning. Our driver paid little attention to the comfort of his passengers and on our arrival we were both disheveled and slightly grumpy after been thrown around our seats for eight hours. Thankfully the kind folk at the Pudu Hostel in KL allowed us to sleep on their comfortable couches for a few hours before our room was ready, but we were more excited about the hot showers. As with any new city we did a compulsory stroll around for a few hours to get our bearings. We were both immediately impressed with Kuala Lumpur - very clean and one of the most modern cities we had seen.
OF MONKEYS AND CHINESE
Today we climbed the 272 steps to the Batu Caves, 13km north of Kuala Lumpur, stopping along the way to take photographs and feed the monkeys. At the top of the stairs I pulled out my bag of artificially flavoured chicken corn snacks and began feeding a few of the female monkeys with small babies. Before long I commanded a small audience of monkeys and Chinese tourists. I had fun trying to feed a couple of Chinese women but I found the monkeys far more polite and easier to talk to. One of the more confident monkeys, not happy with being fed one snack at a time, grabbed the bag and a handful of snacks causing the monkeys to become aroused and the women absolutely psychotic with fear. During this time an extremely boisterous Chinese man wearing nothing but a pair of tight blue shorts, white socks and black loafers was striding up and down the stairs no fewer than 12 times, each time making a point of telling everybody how many times he had completed the journey. He tried to recruit other hapless tourists to join him in his crusade but by the time we left he was still traveling solo and proudly informing anyone who would listen of his deeds. I offered him an artificially flavoured chicken corn snack, but he refused.
Butterfly gardens in Kuala Lumpur
THE WORLDS TALLEST BUILDING
We met some family friends for lunch at a swish country club and then visited the Petronas Towers (from the movie Entrapment, Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta-Jones) and walked across the bridge between the two buildings. Only about 20 people are permitted to visit the walkway at any one time and the visits are limited to no more than ten minutes but that was enough time to get some good photographs and to wonder at the fact that we were standing on a bridge between two buildings, 140m above street level. Depending on the measurement criteria these are the tallest buildings in the world but somehow they didn't seem that massive. The viewing area and walkway are on the 41st floor of the 88 story buildings so the viewing level is not as high as say the Sears Tower in Chicago.
Good friends of my parents - Gendi & Jit
The Petronas Towers
Me on the bridge between the two towers
ONE WEEK TO GO
We have about a week left in Asia so we are busy shopping and making sure we have got about as much as we can carry. Sara now has a different handbag for each day of the week and I have more CDs than I could ever listen to - but I'll try.
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