Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

370 KM ~ 230 miles

Trip Outline: Bus trip --> Little India --> Petronas Towers --> Bird Aviary --> Chinatown --> Dinner/world cup/sleep --> Batu caves --> Islamic Arts Museum --> Home

Our trip started off with a slight snag whose blame lies solely on me. Luckily we arrived about 4 hours prior to departure, planning to get the tickets then eat dinner. I expected to arrive at a bus terminal with multiple stations, and I would pinpoint which business we used, I would present my passport, then we would obtain our tickets. Weellll, I didn't have the name of our bus line written down, nor did I have the number for their business, but I did know when we left! So we hunted and hunted, then finally realized the name of the bus I thought we were taking was incorrect. Akilah called her father who checked her email for the bus invoice that I emailed to everybody. This is how we obtained the name of the bus company. Then we called our Singaporean friend Yi-han to get the number to the bus company. She kindly called for us and got the address. We went to the the bus terminal and it was closed. After a brief stress-filled period of talking to Yi-han we decided the bus company representative left and would return prior to the bus departing. After all, I knew we had booked the tickets and there would surely be others that would need to get their tickets prior to boarding. We ate dinner at a Thai restaurant in a very interesting complex near the bus terminal. Afterwards the terminal was open, their was an employee waiting for us, and he was very helpful in guiding us to KL.

The bus ride was also quite interesting. It was from 12 a.m. to 5 a.m. The drivers did not have much consideration for the those on the bus that wanted to sleep (everybody). They talked loudly, laughed loudly, and the driver didn't mind using the horn. In addition, the two drivers enjoyed listening to music. Despite this we all probably got about 2 to 3 hrs of sleep.

We arrived in KL at a completely different bus terminal than what we were told. According to my map, we could walk about 1 km to our hotel. The taxis were asking for 50RM (25SD or about 17USD) to the hotel. This did not add up. We decided to just take the taxi bc we were lost. Lucky for us. We find out that we were not where we thought we were and the taxi fare was quite fair.

After settling into our hotel we headed to the Petronas Twin Towers to get our free tickets. We waited in line for about 1.5 hrs to get the tickets. To go up to the towers you get your ticket in the morning and chose a time to attend (145 pm). after the getting the tickets it was about 930 am. In the meantime we headed to Little India to explore.

Outside view of the Petronas Twin Towers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronas_towers

A large mall and a massive, modern building. A frequent scene in Asian cities

Little India was pretty cool. Lots of small stands selling the typical fake goods. An old man with no teeth told Lindsay that she was pretty, then that he would sleep with her. That was pretty funny.

View down the "main drag" of Little India

After returning to the Petronas towers we got lunch in the connected mall. The mall was huge which is typical here in Asia. We then went down to the entrance to the tourist observation area. There was a typical museum-esque large room with displays about building the tower and facts. They sat us through a video that explained the oil company Petronas and how much they invest in Malaysia and how awesome Malaysia is. I wasn't the biggest fan given the anti-big oil sentiment brewing in all of us Americans. After this we took an elevator up to the 43rd floor which is where the bridge connects the two towers. We looked at the view then went back down. The view was pretty amazing as expected.

One of the many viewpoints from the Petronas Towers

Afterward we took the train to an area near the KL tower and we got a look at that. We decided not to go up because it cost money and just had our view of KL from a great height. Nearby was the National Mosque and a series of gardens that we wanted to check out. The National Mosque was not open to tourist when we were there. There are only a few 1/2 hour time intervals that tourist can go inside. So we checked out the building from the outside then moved on to the gardens.

View of the KL tower from a distance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kl_tower

The Bird Aviary was one of the areas we could walk through. It cost about 30RM so Lindsay, Gavin, and I attended and Akilah and Gabe passed. Gabe had an allergic reaction from something and at this point was pretty tired. The aviary was the largest in the world. It consisted of about 30 acres of jungle covered by nets that allowed the birds to fly around and us to walk through on trails checking them out. In reality, many of the birds were in cages for their (and ours probably) protection. In my opinion, it was definitely worth it. It started to rain during which only added to the atmosphere and cooled us off.

The birds were not very shy.

This Bird Park houses more than 5000 birds, from more than 50 species, in an enclosed aviary. Out of these 5000 birds, 90% are local birds and 10% were imported from overseas. The size of this bird park is around 7-16 hectares. (wikipedia)

To top off the long day we cruised around Chinatown. This was craazy. The street was just outside our hotel. There were tons and tons of stands and very little walking around. Only 12 hrs prior the street was bare. We ended up hunting for a place to eat that was reasonably priced and also showed the world cup. We found a great Korean place that was on the second story of this building. We got a few beers, ate a well-deserved plate of food, and enjoyed the Australia-Japan soccer match.

Bed time.

We rose up at about 9/10 am and headed to the Batu caves via a 30 min. bus ride that costs us 2.5RM (0.8USD). The bus system was quite different then Singapore. You paid when you got one and they didn't always come to a complete stop at the bus stops along the way. One European couple had to run and jump on as the driver was in some sort of mysterious rush to get to the final destination. The caves were amazing. Monkeys were running around and we were told to get bananas to feed them, which we did. They were pretty funny. The Murugan statue was the largest in the world. It was a Hindu religious area. We found out later an interesting bit of info. that explained the small number of attendees on that Sunday, but that will remain confined to the travelers.

View entering the Batu Caves

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batu_Caves

The monkeys would snatch bananas straight out of your hand, unexpectedly, if held too low.

The cave is considered a Hindu shrine

The view of the opposite side after walking through the entrance, into the cave.

After this we took a taxi to the Islamic Arts Museum. It was very very interesting. The peices there were less paintings and more physical artifacts relating to the Muslim religion dating back to about the 14th century. There were scrolls, different Qur'ans, clothing, pottery, different tools, weapons, and tons of other stuff. The building itself was beautiful as well.

Rendition of the Qur'an. I want to say the whole book is squeezed into this piece, but I can't quite remember

The details of the script in some Qur'an renditions were amazing.

Finally, we smoothly obtained our bus tickets, ate (ice cream for dessert!), then departed. The trip back took waaay longer. There was an accident on the way. Traffic slowed way down on the three-lane highway. This led to cars forming their own lane on the shoulder. Once we reached the bridge that connected Malaysia to Indonesia we had to go through immigration then customs. Our bus waited in line for both of these processes for probably a total of two hours. Our bus departed KL at 430pm. We arrived at our hostel in SG at about 1230am.