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| The Petronas Towers |
After our great time in Singapore
I had high expectations for Kuala Lumpur and it did not disappoint. It was a great mix of giant skyscrapers, lush
green parks and colonial architecture with some of the friendliest people I
have met. The eclectic mix of Muslims, Buddhists
and Hindus gives the city a really diverse culture and some of the best food in
the world! We spent a few meals gorging
in Al Baik on cheap Asian food where Hannah was overjoyed at being reunited with
Roti Canai, a traditional Malay flat bread with curry sources for breakfast. In an area of the city called Bukit Bintang we
met up with Clément and Katya and ate on the famous Jalan Alor where hawker stalls
have set up along the road side with BBQs covered in skewers lining the road. The highlight for me though was having a
drink on the 33rd floor of the Sky Bar, opposite the iconic Petronas
Towers. As a huge thunderstorm raged
outside and darkness fell the towers were lit up in white lights making it one
of the most impressive buildings we have seen this trip.
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| Afro Pigeons and a Rhinoceros Hornbill |
Apart from enjoying the food and drink, the
city was great to explore for a few days but the heat again made walking an
arduous task. We spent hours in the heat
exploring the colonial heart of the city at Merdeka Square (complete with a very
English cricket pitch) and the National Mosque where we dressed up as two of
the ghosts in Pac Man as we sported purple robes and Hannah wore a Hijab. We sought refuge from the sun in the world’s
largest walk in aviary (a title also claimed in Singapore) which was full of
giant pigeons sporting afros, hundreds of stalks and some amazing parrots. Most of the birds have been bred in captivity and the artificial landscape created inside the aviary seemed to be large enough for them as waterfalls, rivers as well as the natural rainforest were all inside. After being used as a bird stand by the
parrots and seeing the magnificent Rhinoceros Hornbill we headed outside only
to witness a truly horrendous pornographic act by two monkeys (message me for
details). The tone was lowered further
when another monkey started masturbating next to us. Despite the mental scaring that followed we couldn't
take our eyes away from the heinous spectacle.
The two soldiers next to us seemed equally stunned by the events and we
quickly left to find solitude and inner peace in the orchid gardens next to the aviary.
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| Visiting the National Mosque |
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| Inside the Batu Caves |
Having explored a Mosque and a
Chinese Buddhist temple it was only fair to visit a temple to Malaysia’s third
major religion so we went to the Batu Caves in the north of the city. At the entrance to the largest caves was the imposing 47m tall statue of Lord Murugan, the second largest Hindu statue in the world The north cave is over 100 metres high and
400 metres long and was worth the gruelling 282 stairs in the midday sun to see. The
temples inside were very bright and decorative and surrounded by Macaque
Monkeys that ran around taking coconuts husks from the floor before scaling the
sides of the cave and dropping them to break into bite size pieces. They provided about an hour of entertainment until I was eventually shat on and we swiftly left to go back to the city centre. At the station we had our palms read and after learnt that Hannah would live to 89 and have four children but I needed to be careful of fast transport until July - amazing how much you can learn from a few wrinkles! Having finally had my fill of monkeys in
South East Asia we caught the express train to the airport, very excited to be travelling east towards
Japan.
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