Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Kuala Lumpur

After abandoning my original plan of getting an overnight bus or train from Singapore I got up early and got a bus to the border, before getting on another bus to KL from the Malaysian side (where it's much cheaper). By the time I'd checked into the hostel there wasn't much time in the day and I was left cursing Lonely Planet as the museum I tried shut earlier than they said, and they got the location of the post office well wrong. I did eventually manage to post my package that I'd been waiting to post since Chaing Mai, but that was all I did before meeting up with some people.

Both the Czech couple I'd met in deepest Laos and Paul and Maureen the Scots of Ko Lanta fame happened to be in the city and I'd arranged to meet them all for dinner. Who should I also meet in the hostel I was in but the Dutch guy from Melaka, who said the Dutch girl was arriving the next day (the next day I also met another Dutch guy in the hostel, who I'd met in the hide in the Taman Negara AND bumped into again in Melaka, talk about a small world!). We went for some noodles before returning to the rooftop bar of our hostel where the drinks were cheap (for Malaysia) and they were showing the Man U Chelsea game. It was a very friendly atmosphere there and we also ended up meeting a St Johnstone fan from Perth (Tory voting bastard though).

The next day I set out ridiculously early despite the late night as you have to get there at 830 am to get a ticket to go up the Petronas Tower (worlds second tallest building, or tallest twin towers as they like to bill it). I bumped into Floor (the Dutch guy) again there and stole his place in the queue and we got tickets for going up to the "skybridge" at 1115, which gave me time to go and see the KL tower, which is a communications tower which is actually even taller, and you can go much further up, as the skybridge linking the two towers of the Petronas is less than halfway up. I enjoyed these both, thought the Petronas towers was more of a case of just to say you've been there. Attached to the twin towers is a huge mall, where I wandered for a while looking at gadgets and salivating, before having lunch and getting the subway south where I visited the half empty National Museum, whose patriotic displays were really more aimed at locals, before passing through some very pedestrian unfriendly parkland to get to the Islamic Art museum, which had a very nice collection in a nice building. I then walked back to the hostel passing by the central mosque and through the central market (where I conveniently sheltered from some rain).

In the evening I'd agreed to meet Paul and Maureen to try to watch the old firm game. I got the monorail out to an Irish pub where we'd heard they show a lot of sport, but they didn't have it, and after much searching (including finding a British pub with Irn Bru) we found it was not on in Malaysia. After a Chinese dinner we walked back to Chinatown where the hostels were. The only real bar around was the 'Reggae Bar' (complete with picture of the queen and suspected ladyboy barperson (don't get too excited dad!)) and there we bumped into Floor and Wendy (the Dutch) again along with a Swedish girl. We had one drink in there before heading back to the hostel's rooftop bar (the reggae bar was more expensive than Britain!) where a few more beers were had along with a slightly later night than befitted my 8am bus booking.


Photos:
Main square in KL.
Petronas towers from the KL tower.

In a the Reggae Pub.

No comments: