Wheelers guesthouse did not have many windows and we were out late on the night of our arrival. With these two factor combined we ended up waking up rather late. They had a great, but more expensive than we were used to, breakfast at Wheelers and we ate our yogurt, muesli, scrambled eggs and toast with great delight. We then gave them our laundry (that had been in contact through our bag, with the fish stuff) and were off.
Chinatown has lots of temples, not just Chinese ones either. The first one we went to was a Hindu temple, which was a refreshing change from all of the Chinese (Daoist/Confusian/Buddhist) temples we had seen in Taiwan. We did have to pay 40 sen (cents) for them to hold our shoes, while we wandered around. It was rather neat and even more colourful than a Chinese temple (which I didn't think was possible). There tons of colourful scenes from the Bahiva Gita, Ramayana and other Hindu texts. And lots, and lots, of statues of various gods, all ornamented and colourful. We moved on to a Chinese temple that was pretty neat, though not overly different from the many we saw in Taiwan; and the old KL train station, which was a little underwhelming. One of the neater structures we did see was the Dayabumi tower, which was large tower (at 50 stories) shaped like an 8 pointed star. There was also a giant globe in the main plaza. A security guard told us that is had been the head quarters of Petronas (the state owned oil company) before the twin Petronas towers, KL's most recognizable land mark, were built.
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| Who could resist? |
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| It is a pretty cool building. |
After a decent meal at the central market, which was a generally overpriced place, we headed to the KL mosque. The KL mosque was closed to non-muslims between 3 and 4 (for prayer) unfortunately, but it was quite the sight from the outside, looking like some sort of like flying saucer, yet very different from the KK mosque. As it had just turned 3 we did not want to wait an hour to wait around, so we headed over to another interesting looking building. It turned out to be the Islamic Education channel of Malaysia, which was not open to non-muslims at any time so we were told by the head scarfed security guard (yes this was a woman security guard in a muslim country; muslims we were told at the museum of Islamic civilization in KK believed that men and women were vastly different and shouldn't hold the same sort of jobs; I'll bet women Saudi Arabia can't be security guards, though I have not really looked this up… I like this about Malaysia, they are muslim, but that think more in spirit and less in letter when it comes to Islamic law,I think).
We moved on to the museum of Islamic art, maybe it was just a religious day for us. When we finally found and entered the Museum of Islamic Art, after marvelling at its domed architecture, we told that we had entered from the wrong way and had to go down stairs to buy tickets. At the counter the girl asked if we were students, we replied that we had been students once. She apparently thought that this meant recently because she gave us the student discount, which was nice because it saved us 4RM. The museum was very well designed, it had so many windows to let the sun in that it was almost unnecessary to have lights. There was a lot to see and to be honest I don't remember to much. My favourite part was the architecture area, which had scale models of various mosques from around the world. Islamic folk really know their architecture. The weapons section was neat too, but it was a bit less inspiring to learn about Koranic verses written along swords and guns. The least interesting area was the ceramics sections… I am not a huge fan of pots. After about 2 hours we had had enough and headed to the bookstore. It was also rather enlightening. I picked up a text that told me why evolution was wrong and that all animals are created (by god) perfectly adapted to their environment and never change. It did make some interesting concessions to the scientific method, when it coincided with its point. Among other things, it was quick to call Darwin an "amettuer naturalist" and talk about how evolution was defended to keep rational humanist ideas like nazism (yes it suggested that rational humanist were all basically nazis) alive. It would have been amusing if it weren't so scary to think that people might read this and believe it. The fact that it was in English made it scarier still. Nancy ended up reading a children's book about the stories from Koran. This informed us, among other things, that Mohamed was a cat lover, which is why most Muslim people are also cat lovers, if they want pets (he liked dogs too, but he thought cats were cleaner and that dogs should remain outside, where they were free to roam, and presumable, not mess up your house).
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| It was also much bigger than the KK mosque, so it was hard to get the whole thing in. |
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| Nancy in front of the building that housed the Islamic Education channel. |
We moved on to the museum of Islamic art, maybe it was just a religious day for us. When we finally found and entered the Museum of Islamic Art, after marvelling at its domed architecture, we told that we had entered from the wrong way and had to go down stairs to buy tickets. At the counter the girl asked if we were students, we replied that we had been students once. She apparently thought that this meant recently because she gave us the student discount, which was nice because it saved us 4RM. The museum was very well designed, it had so many windows to let the sun in that it was almost unnecessary to have lights. There was a lot to see and to be honest I don't remember to much. My favourite part was the architecture area, which had scale models of various mosques from around the world. Islamic folk really know their architecture. The weapons section was neat too, but it was a bit less inspiring to learn about Koranic verses written along swords and guns. The least interesting area was the ceramics sections… I am not a huge fan of pots. After about 2 hours we had had enough and headed to the bookstore. It was also rather enlightening. I picked up a text that told me why evolution was wrong and that all animals are created (by god) perfectly adapted to their environment and never change. It did make some interesting concessions to the scientific method, when it coincided with its point. Among other things, it was quick to call Darwin an "amettuer naturalist" and talk about how evolution was defended to keep rational humanist ideas like nazism (yes it suggested that rational humanist were all basically nazis) alive. It would have been amusing if it weren't so scary to think that people might read this and believe it. The fact that it was in English made it scarier still. Nancy ended up reading a children's book about the stories from Koran. This informed us, among other things, that Mohamed was a cat lover, which is why most Muslim people are also cat lovers, if they want pets (he liked dogs too, but he thought cats were cleaner and that dogs should remain outside, where they were free to roam, and presumable, not mess up your house).
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| There are a lot of cool domes on the museum. |
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| The fountain in the courtyard. |
We left the museum, somewhat enlightened and somewhat concerned and walked to Mederka (independence) square, where there was a giant Malaysian flag and a really cool building lit up by fairy light across the way (the building was the national court). We spent about an hour wandering around and taking pictures and then made our way to the nearest LRT and MRT (as it turned out) station. KL has 3 different types of city train transport: the LRT (light rail transit), the MRT (mass rail transit) and the Monorail (which we never took, much to my disappointment). I am not sure how this happened, but it made their system rather confusing. We decided that if what the Lonely Planet said about their movie prices was correct than we were in the perfect place to see a movie so we bought tickets to the mall that had a big movie theatre in it and attempted to find the right train. As it turned out we bought our tickets of the wrong side and had to go all the way through the MRT station, to come out on the other side and into the LRT station. We did this with the help of a local who told us that it was alright to get lost in their train system, because the locals also got lost.
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| That's one big flag |
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| Fairy lights on the National Court building. |
We arrived at the mall and found the movie theatre around 9 and bought our tickets for the 9 o'clock showing of The Hunger Games (12 RM a ticket, very much cheaper than anywhere we had been in Taiwan, or Canada for that matter; remember 3 RM = 1 CND). The Hunger Games was pretty good: atmospheric, emotional and somewhat surprising. Despite it being a movie based on a young adult novel it was pretty violent, but nothing is over the top. It is just a genuinely good movie. We'll probably see the sequel and maybe read the books, if we come across it in a book exchange.
When we got out of the movie (2 hours and a half) we found that the MRT and LRT were both closed. The Mono was running, but it it did not go in a helpful direction. So we decided to walk. It did not look like an overly far distance from Times Square Mall (as it was called) to Chinatown and Wheelers. We were pretty nervous the entire way (I would never walk home from downtown Vancouver at midnight), but there turned out to be nothing to be concerned about. There were actually malay couples also strolling casually around and the most threatening thing we saw was a construction crew, who actually gave us the thumbs up as we passed. Still we were quite relieved when we arrived at the Chinatown night market and further so when were safe in bed at Wheelers. We slept soundly.
The next day was to be our city centre day, but before we went to the KLCC (as it was abbreviated) we came to the decision that with the prices of internet cafes as they were and everywhere we stayed having free wifi, we should get the new computer we had planned to get at the end of the trip. We returned to Time Square mall and after some deliberation, we bought a MacBook Air for 3000RM (or about 1000 CND). The staff were quite friendly and, in fact, once they found out that the "Air" was what we wanted the main sales guy ran (literally) to the other store in the mall down the way to get it (as their own store was out of stock). We followed a expensive new purchase up by getting lunch at Papa John's pizza (which was the same as in Canada, except I think their pepperoni was made with chicken).
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| Our computer (in our room in Melaka). |
With our new computer and full stomachs, we made our way to KLCC and the Petronas towers. We ended up mostly indoors for a good section of the journey (partly because it was rainy, partly because all of downtown KL seems to be interconnected). We arrived at the towers underground, so our first real sight of them close up, was actually after we walked out of the complex they were on top of. What can I say they look like space ships:
As they purportedly look even better at night we decided to hang around the area. The Petronas towers complex houses a large state of the art concert hall and Nancy had wanted to see if we could go to a concert, as the Petronas philharmonic is purportedly very good. When we finally arrived at the box office (there were two different box offices and we confused a lot of people when we asked for directions to the box office) the young woman at the desk told us what was playing in the next few days. There was a jazzy/hip-hoppy kind of concert the night we were there and the philharmonic would be playing music from oscar winning movies, for best original score (Jaws, I noticed, was among the ones advertised). Then she told us about the dress code. It was a semiformal affair, no sneakers, sandals or slippers (we only have sneakers and sandals with us for the trip). No jeans, no track pants, no shirts with logos on them (at this point she indicated my shirt and helpfully said, "like his."). So we didn't go to a concert, but maybe when we return to KL, we may get some cheap shoes and attempt to. Maybe.
I wanted to go to the Petrosians, a science museum on the 3rd floor, but it was closed by the time we got there. Not sure why they closed so early. Maybe next time as well. We did manage to get to the Galeri Petronas, which was sort of like a photo gallery showing the events that shaped Malaysia since independence. They were all pictures from a newspaper, which I assume is owned by Petronas. It was also free to enter, which was nice. As we left they gave us 3 postcards each, all featuring the art of a Malaysian artist named .
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| Inside the mall. |
It still wasn't dark when we left the Galeri so we decided to watch another movie (this time at 9RM a person). We watched John Carter, which is (loosely, I expect) based off the novels by Edgar Rice Boroughs. It was fun and silly, sort of an Indiana Jones in space type thing. We both thoroughly enjoyed it. Its too bad its doing so poorly in the box office. I'll have to pick up the books at sometime (the first one is called "The Princess of Mars" I think).
The Petronas Towers by night were stunning. Like seeing the space age come into fruition or something. We spent about an hour outside them (along with several other people) taking various pictures:
As they say a picture is worth a thousand words.
It was an easy trip home this time.
Another attraction near KL that Nancy had been pretty keen on was the Batu Cave, which is a really large cave just outside of KL. After a frustrating half hour of people pointing us in almost the right direction, we found the bus stop from which we could take the bus to the Batu cave. Then we waited for another 45 minutes for the but to show up. After another 45 minutes on the bus we were rather disappointed when we arrived. There was indeed a large cave and beside it was a large statue, but it was thronged with people and businesses. And it was pretty much in the middle of a small city. We had also expected that they wouldn't put an elevated highway next to such a place, but there it was, almost framing the cave as we got off the bus. So we wandered up the many stairs and took some pictures of the monkeys like everyone else was doing. Some were perhaps getting a little too close to the monkeys.
As sort of a side night I must say that there were a lot of people taking pictures with their iPads. I have noticed quite a few of them about since our travels started. I guess they are pretty handy after all.
Inside the cave there were a few Hindu temples (the big statue is apparently the Hindu subterranean god). And it was quite neat to see the big hole at the top of the cave letting the sunlight in. There was a lot of praying and chanting and pigeons taking baths.
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| Up those stairs is another open space with a temple. |
And of course more monkeys. As we wandered around we heard a lady scream near by us. When we turned to see what was wrong we saw a monkey running away from her with a water bottle clasped in one hand. We kept our stuff hidden after that. This brings me to my favourite monkey story thus far in Malaysia. A short time later, we were sitting on some steps about a 2 meters behind a group of three people. There was a small duffle bag between two of them. As we sat there a monkey wandered along between us and began to try and unzip the duffle bag. We called to the people that a monkey was trying to rob them and the middle guy turned and tried to shoo the monkey away. Instead of being shooed the monkey jumped onto the guy at the ends head (who stayed remarkably calm throughout the whole thing) and reached down and grabbed a pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket. He then hopped off the man's head and ran a fair distance before opening the cigarette pack with its teeth. It pulled the cigarettes out the pack one by and shoved them into its mouth, under a no smoking sign.
We left the Batu cave after having some delicious Indian vegetarian food and wandered around the KL lake gardens for a few hours. They were pleasant and, unlike the Batu Cave were relatively uncrowded. A peaceful afternoon away from the traffic and noise of the city (despite being in the middle of the big city). It wasn't too hard to imagine the wilderness than would have dominated the landscape when the Chinese prospectors arrived. We were somewhat reluctant to leave the area, but as we were hungry and the only restaurant around was well beyond our budget to eat at. On consulting our map we found that KL Sentrul was not too far away and we walked toward it, until we hit what appeared to be an impassible road. We approached a couple who we thought to be locals only to find that they were Japanese and as confused as us. A Malay man did cross the road shortly after and we asked him how to get to Sentrul. The Japanese couple followed us as we found the rather hidden staircase to the elevated roadway and then across that roadway and through the Hinton hotel parking lot. This convoluted path led us right to Sentrul though.
Sentrul only had fast food chains, but when we enquired about food a local man led us out the other side of Sentrul to Little India where we had the best vegetarian cuisine we have ever had. I wish I could remember the name of the place we ate at, but I don't. I can only tell you that the Aloo Gobi and Malia Kofta were so good that we were licking our plates when we were done. If we had a bit better a budget, we would have gone for seconds, but it was one of the more expensive places we have eaten in Malaysia (the bill was almost 40 RM). We'll remember where it is for next time though.
After 3 days in KL we were a little sick of the big city and decided to leave the next day. We will likely be back for a few more days in the future (especially if there are any decently looking new blockbusters in theatres; it will be a lot cheaper than seeing them in Canada :)), but for the time being we decided to head to the small community of Port Dickson on the coast, not far from KL.
On looking at the date, we published this post almost 3 weeks after we left KL. Obviously we need to get moving a bit on to actually stay up to date with ourselves.
On looking at the date, we published this post almost 3 weeks after we left KL. Obviously we need to get moving a bit on to actually stay up to date with ourselves.
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