Landing at the Kuala Lumpur airport, we easily found the bus
we needed, which we were happy to discover was air-conditioned. It turned out to be about an hour from
the airport to the city, and the ride took us through endless lush green
fields.
Our first impression of Kuala Lumpur was a good one, thanks
to a very nice cab driver. Though
we had the address of our hotel (and street addresses mean a lot more in
Malaysia than in, say, Rwanda), our driver couldn’t find it. He drove in circles for quite awhile
and called the hotel on his cell phone twice to ask for directions. By the time we finally found the hotel,
we’d been in the cab for so long the meter had gone up to 15 ringgit (about $5). The driver felt so bad that he’d taken
so long to find our hotel, he apologized profusely and only charged us 10
ringiit (about $3.30)! I’d fully
expected to pay the full amount, and I was shocked and pleasantly surprised at
how kind he was.
The Pujangga Homestay was
about we had expected. We opted to
stay there solely because it was the cheapest place we could find online. Our rather cramped double room with a
shared bathroom down the hall was $20/night. $20 definitely doesn’t go as far in Malaysia as in some
countries, but considering that Kuala Lumpur is a pretty first-world city and
we had a great location in the Golden Triangle area, I can’t complain.
As far as we could tell, there’s not a lot of truly
Malaysian cuisine available in Kuala Lumpur. Apart from the some Western restaurants – including a whole
lot of American chains – most “local” restaurants serve Indian or Chinese fare.
The city itself is very modern and clean. Various commuter trains, monorails, and
buses run through town, and the ones we rode on were all quite nice. Many of the trains, buses, and taxis
have illustrations indicating that food, animals, hazardous materials, and
kissing (labeled “indecent behavior”) are prohibited.
Our short time in Kuala Lumpur was filled mostly with seeing
the major sights. The city is known
for two skyscrapers – the Kuala Lumpur Tower and the Petronas Twin Towers. We didn’t go up either
one, but we did look up at them from the ground, and both were quite
impressive.
The KL Tower, as it’s known, looks a lot like Seattle’s
Space Needle and is used for telecommunications and as an Islamic lunar
observatory. Its observation deck
is 905 feet high, and races are held in which participants climb the 2,058
steps to the top. Ryan tried to
challenge me to such a race, but I declined – ultimately, I think he was glad I
did.
The Petronas Towers, connected by a skybridge between the 41st
and 42nd floors, serve primarily as the office for Malaysia’s state-owned oil and gas company. They were the tallest buildings in the
world until 2004 and are still the tallest twin towers ever built. The bottom six floors of the towers
comprise a 1.5 million square-foot shopping center, filled mostly with luxury shops I can’t even
imagine ever buying anything from.
We also made a short trip to the Batu Caves just outside the city. The caves are sacred in the Hindu faith and is one of the
world’s most popular Hindu shrines outside India. Standing in front of the caves is the world’s largest statue
of the Hindu deity Murugan –
it’s 140 feet tall! Entering the caves
requires climbing 272 steps (it was about halfway up the stairs that Ryan
realized he was glad I hadn’t agreed to the race up the KL Tower!). Several smaller statues and shrines sit
inside the caves, and we saw many people praying and leaving offerings. Prior to visiting, I hadn’t realized
the caves were still used by Hindus today, and I couldn’t help but wonder how
they felt about so many tourists trampling through their sacred place.
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