We learnt pretty quickly on arrival to Kuala Lumpur that this is not a taxi kind of city, unless you want to get stuck in 2 hours worth of traffic. Nevertheless, we did eventually get from the airport to our apartment in the city centre. The complex had 2 restaurants, a pool and a gym and much to Frances’ delight, two supermarkets. To be honest we didn’t really ever need to leave.
We did, however, brave the outside world. Our first morning was spent at one of KL’s iconic sights; the Petronas twin towers.
We made use of the handy shopping centre on the first 5 floors of the building. Frances was delighted to find a shoe shop with small sizes and after much deliberation over which exact shade of pink they were, she purchased a pair for the upcoming wedding season.
We wandered around the KLCC park behind the Petronas towers and watched the water fountain display whilst eating lunch.
That afternoon we continued our tour of tall buildings by heading to the KL tower. We decided not to go up on this occasion took an unexpected trip to the KL Upside Down House. Watching 4 SpiderMan films in the previous 4 nights had clearly taken it’s toll.
As enlightening as the upside down house was, we took a more cultured approach the following day and caught the train to the Batu Caves. This sacred Hindu site has numerous colourful temples in caves, and caves in temples. It is the most popular Hindu shrine outside of India.
There are 272 colourful steps that lead to the main cave and the world’s largest statue of Murugan towers above the entrance.
Inside the Cathedral cave there are more steps leading to further temples where people from all over the world come to worship. As with most busy places in Indonesia/Malaysia we have visited, where there are people, there are monkeys, and this was no exception. We quickly sought shelter in the Ramayana cave.
This much darker & smaller cave tells the story of Rama in statues along its walls.
That evening we went to even greater heights to escape the monkeys. The 360 degree revolving restaurant at the top of the KL tower.
We watched the sunset over the KL skyline whilst feasting on an all-you-can-eat buffet. The main challenge of returning to the buffet for several helpings of food, was sitting back down at the right spot, as the table continued to revolve while you were eyeing up oysters. They may as well have had someone dressed as the Mad Hatter yelling “Change Places!” to mark each course. They even gave us an extra cake for our ‘anniversary’ which was most definitely that same day and not a month earlier.
The next day we headed back to ground level to visit the Islamic Arts Museum and Malaysia’s National Mosque. Islam is the main religion in Malaysia, Hinduism has a smaller following in comparison.
The mosque is only open to non-Muslim tourists at certain times so we headed to the Islamic Arts Museum first. Here we found some interesting Islamic caligraphy and a rather posh (and empty) restaurant where we enjoyed some more delicious food.
After lunch we entered the Mosque and were impressed by its architecture.
That evening we made use of the gym in our apartment complex in training for the upcoming Sumatran Jungle Trek. We will update you on that adventure soon! For now that’s all the update we have, but don’t worry – the posts will be coming thick and fast over the next few days, as we near the end of our travels.
P.S. For those who are bemused by the title, please google Greg James “Are You Well?”.
There & Back Again 