First came a journey on what seems to be a very disjointed public transport system; there are three different lines which I believe are operated by individual companies, so unlike the London underground where if you need to change line you get off train A and walk to train B, still using the same ticket. You instead have to disembark from train A to walk to a different station and buy a separate ticket for train B. A system that is seemingly built for profit and less so for convenience. We arrived at our destination easily enough and it really isn’t as much hassle as I made it out to sound.
Thankfully the location of our hostel was brilliant, a few 100 metres from Berjaya Times Square- a new and modern mall that you could easily spend a whole day in, it also has and this came us a surprise to us: a theme park that takes up floors 7 through to 9 and an Imax screen that with the food court takes up the tenth floor. We took what remained of our first day to partake in some strolling around the mall before deciding on our very western dinner (it made a nice change) of Papa Johns pizza followed by Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
Day two started in a rather negative manner with my sidekick (Jenny) feeling rather ill for the first time- it had to happen at some point. Though we hopped on the monorail and headed for the Dayumbi complex; a modern high rise building where the architecture has been influenced by the Malaysian Islamic beliefs.
Just so those of you who don’t know are aware in the many pictures that have been taken across Asia with very murky looking skies, it doesn’t necessarily mean the weather is bad in fact it is almost always mid 30’s even with grey skies and rain.
We then proceeded to Merdeka Square, an area renowned for it’s colonial buildings.
During our strolls around the immediate area we saw a sight that in my opinion showcased the contrast of Kuala Lumpur’s old and new and slightly eccentric.
We then headed for the famous Bintang street and KL’s Chinatown region, complete with all it’s food outlets and many hawker markets trying to convince you to buy their goods. We excitingly bought some pineapple and that was all- the adventurous people that we are. We found the whole area to be wholly overrated and not really that special, I guess once you’ve done Chatuchak market in Bangkok everything else pales in comparison, though we also came into agreement that Batu Feringhi’s markets in Penang were also a lot better than KL’s.
The smog and humidity of the late afternoon forced us back to Berjaya Times Square where we ate in 10th avenue food court and then headed for the Imax screen where for the costly sum of approximately £2 we saw a film- in the UK and Australia you can pay £10 - £20 for the same privilege.
Day three and our final full day was put aside for the Lake Gardens, an area of some 200 hectares of garden laid by the British during our colonisation of Malaysia. First of all we headed to the very impressive national monument and the sculpture gardens.
After that we headed to the second part of the gardens, including the bird/deer and butterfly parks- none of which we really got to see.
We found the gardens, in parts, to be very poorly maintained. Maybe we arrived at a bad time as I’ve heard nothing but positive comments on them previously. We unfortunately had a run in with a motorcyclist who seemed to be eying us up for what I can only presume would be too mug us (I shall not expand on it anymore). Fortunately we were both aware and made steps to get to a better place, which we did with no hassle. Unfortunately as you can imagine this left a bitter taste in our mouth, and it was a rather unnerving situation. Though we were fine and things like this happy everywhere in the world, probably more so in our home country.
After our day was cut short by the previous events we decided to head back to our safe haven in the form of Berjaya Times Square for a Subway- I know we’re in Asia we should be eating everything Asian but change is good.
We then headed to Low Phat centre which is the place you go for everything electrical; it’s a strange experience, six floors of laptops, mobiles, consoles, cameras and other cool gadgets. It’s an ideal place to get your electronics but with that much there, how do you choose?!
We then headed out for the evening to the one thing you can’t miss while in KL; the Petronas Towers, which were originally the tallest building(s) in the world until Taiwan’s Taipei 101 succeeded it. It is also soon to be relegated to third place with the arrival of Dubai’s Burj very soon, a building that hauntingly stands at twice the size of the Petronas- trust me seeing the towers makes you wonder how a building could be twice the size. The towers do look undeniably cool at night, once they’re lit up their glass and stainless steel structure really comes into their own.
We said goodbye to one of our many new friends and headed off to another new country, Singapore.
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