Roland's Travelog: Kuala Lumpur

Left Georgetwon for Kuala Lumpur (KL to locals) on a colourfully decorated and furnished bus, the roads are lined with various species of palm trees, banana trees and other greenery making a quite picteresque journey. Once in KL we spent most of the time around the Chinatown area, the old centre which is dominated by the Jalan Petaling street market, a busy trading centre selling all kinds of clothes, foods, bags, jewellery and plenty, plenty more. We also visited the Menara KL, which in my opinion is better than the Petronas Towers, as although not as tall, it is higher because it is built on a hill and you can therfore look down on the Petronas towers and the rest of the city. It also helps you can go to almost the top of the tower which is not an option open to the public in the 'twin tower' Petronas.

Left: Kuala Lumpur including Petronas Towers from the KL Tower.
Centre: Enjoying a refreshing coconut.
Right: Rebecca and some 'worm' noodles.

Best things about KL are the markets and the food, there is a great ethnic mix of people which creates the grate choice of foods. We ate most evenings in the street cafes at the market, indulging in various, Indian, Malay and Chinese delights, supplementing the diet with plenty of fruit from the markets, bread or salads from a nice little bakery nearby and a few beers at an old favourite, 'The Reggae Bar' which I discovered on my first visit here, it's changed a little but still a good place for an evening out. One evening we ate at "Roland's Seafood restaurant", suppose you should try these places. Here and at other places around the market area, there were plenty of rats around, you could see and hear them scuttling across the awnings over the restaurant and shop fronts or along narrow ledges on the buildings, you saw some running along the side of the road, under stalls and scaffolding. We had a rat spotting competition on the short walk home one evening, Rebecca won 5-3, and it was barely 400m back to the hotel.

One day we took a trip through the suburbs of KL and to the Batu Caves, some Hindu temples of which the most important is built inside some caves in the side of a hill a few kilometeres outside the city. This temple is once a year host to an important Hindu festival, Thaipusam, to which Hindu people from all over make the pilgramage to watch or paticipate in masochistic rituals that involve piercing their bodies with all kinds of large and evil looking weapons, arrows or hooks etc. while in a trance and then climbing up and down the 272 steps that lead up from the ground to the main cave temple in the hillside above. Some newspaper cuttings at the site showed reports of foreigners who had also joined in the rituals, hooks piercing their backs with ropes attached with which they would pull heavily laden carts. Ouchhhh. You won't catch me doing that.