Kuala Lumpur (KL)

Welcome To KL!!!

After saying goodbye to Isabelle, we headed to Kuala Lumpur. The boat and bus there was pleasurable mainly because it passed some incredible jungle scenery, of which I knew I was heading to later.

When you talk to travellers, they love to give you advise and visa versa. They tell you which places are the best they have ever been (and that you must go there or you will live to regret it for your whole life) and which places are boring and should be missed. I suppose I do it myself too - everyone has there own opinion. The key to it all, is to take all the advise with a pinch of salt. You have to go to the place and experience it for yourself. KL was a perfect example. Everyone I met says it's rubbish. It's good for shopping and thats about it. You can skip through it in a day - don't spend longer than that.....I must have visited another KL because I loved it!!!

KL is unique, because it is a cross between east and west. There are modern skyscrapers dominating the city, fast trains that whizz you around town, it's clean (compared to anywhere I have been so far in Asia) and it has all the other western features that you would expect from somewhere like New York. Yet on the flip-side, you can take a stroll through China town or little India and suddenly your back in Asia, eating off the street stalls. You don't see that in many places of the world and thats what makes it special.

You don't have to do much in KL if you don't want to - just walking the streets and taking in the atmosphere is good enough. On the few days I spent here, I took a lift up the KL Communications Tower (the 4th largest communications tower in the world you know) for great views of the city. Your ears pop as you go up - it's high. I strolled through the central business district (CBD), full of suited high-flyers and buildings tall enough to touch the sky. On the quieter side a walk through the lake gardens was a good way to escape the noise.

We were staying in China town, a bustling place of amazing street food (Chinese of course) and busy workers. Smells and sounds are extraordinary here. Similarly, a walk through Little India also has a bustling vibe, with speakers on every street blaring out loud Indian music. We also trekked to Merdeka Square, a great chill out spot in the city which must be visited, not least for it's great skyline views.

Finally, we walked through the KL City Centre and there you get a view of one incredible landmark. The Petronas Towers formed the world's tallest building up until 2003, now second only to Taipei in Taiwan (although I hear there is another building being built in Dubai which will conquer them all), it does still take claim to being the tallest twin towers in the world - to say the least - it's tall!!! Between the two soaring towers (451.9m) is a connecting sky-bridge (the longest in the world....for sure)!!! You can't go to the top of the towers but you can take a free visit to the sky-bridge on the 41st floor with equally impressive views as the communication's tower. You have to watch a 3D video first about how great the oil company Petronas is, and by the end you do feel that they are, some how. The night views of the towers is when the photo pictures come out and round the back of the towers is a large park area where Malaysian teenagers just come to sit out under the stars and gaze up at the extraordinary site. I know it sounds ridiculous to some, but the towers are so awesome to look at, that for me they actually compete with the first views of Angkor Wat (Cambodia) at sunrise. They are both stunning engineering structures, just one is ancient, the other modern. Inside the towers, apart from the office floors, is a huge shopping complex which is where those disillusioned travellers must have spent all their time.

To continue the saga of Peter and his money. It was now 4 days and he still had no cash. We thought if he couldn't get any in KL then he may as well get a cardboard box and start settling in. Crazily, none of the ATM machines would accept his card and no bank would help him. Eventually he resided to the last option left - Western Union. If your ever in financial trouble when abroad then these are your boys to help you out - future travellers take note. You call home - a family member goes to a WU and gives them a heap of money, then within 10 minutes it's transferred across the world to you. It costs a lot to do it but when your desperate - then thats what you have to do. Anyway, finally it was sorted.

I suppose you have to like big cities but KL is brilliant to me - don't take my word for it - come and see it for yourself and make your own mind up. However, my big city days were over for a while now, I was moving on - and going back to nature........