After Ligeia finished teaching her last class, we boarded a flight to Kuala Lumpur (Ligeia calls it Koala Bear Land) which is about a 2 1/2 hour flight. Malaysia is one hour ahead of Thailand so we are now an even 12 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. The Kuala Lumpur airport is a 40 minute bus ride away from downtown, which we took and then navigated our way through the LRT (subway) and got a little lost walking to the hotel but we saw a huge mosque because of it so even though we were tired, we didn’t mind so much. After checking in, we watched the first episode of the 5th season of Breaking Bad before falling asleep.
This morning we awoke very early (6am) to go to the Thai embassy to wait in line to renew our visas.
Our plan of being there early proved successful as we were the first ones in line, which also meant the first ones out of there. We had the whole rest of the day free. So we started walking towards the famous Petronas Twin Towers, the once tallest buildings in the world and now 2nd tallest after the Taipei 101 building surpassed them in 2004.
Wanting to see the towers from somewhere high, we visited the Menara Tower, a communications tower that offer self-guided tours (as well as a LOT of kitschy choices such as an F1 simulator, small zoo and even a pony ride). But we saw the towers, even if it was from the side. You can clearly see how much taller they are than the already very tall skyscrapers around it:
While up there, we learned about various places in the city, some of which we plan to visit:
Mindy was particularly pleased to see that Toronto’s CN Tower was listed among many others as the tallest communications tower in the world. (Others included Berlin’s Fernsehturm):
Desperately wanting to leave the crowded tourist area, we decided to explore the small forest preserve at the bottom of the tower. We were told that 2 kinds of monkeys live there as well as a large variety of bird species.
Shortly after entering the forest area, we heard rustling in the treetops above us. Sure enough, there were 2 long-tailed macaques. We also discovered a LOT of mosquitoes who seemed to really love our foreign blood. It was worth it though to see the macaques.
For dinner we headed to a vegetarian Indian restaurant (of which there are many here):
We headed out in the evening once again to the Central Market which is claimed to have been around since 1888. A variety of things were sold including clothing, tourist trinkets, jewelry and food.
We found a traditional dessert called Pak Uda, which is rice flour, brown sugar, pandan (a plant-based flavoring common in Southeast Asian desserts) and topped with coconut flakes. They are steamed in bamboo tubes. Here is a picture of these being steamed:
Here is Mindy trying them later back in our hotel room – very yummy:
Before heading back to our hotel, we took a walk around the neighborhood and got some pictures of a gorgeous Islamic Center and Mosque with part of the skyline behind it. You can see the Menara Tower that we visited earlier today to the left:
The Islamic Center changed color every few seconds:
Stay tuned to our Malaysian adventure.
Love,
Mindy and Ligeia :):)
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Anonymous
Very nice. I want to see some Koalas and some lizards dang it…
WUV WUV WUV