We caught the public bus from the Cameron Highlands in the morning and by lunchtime arrived in Kuala Lumpur or KL as it's known. We were staying in Chinatown, close to the well-known Central Market and only a short walk from the bus station. In the ten minutes or so it took us to walk from the bus station to the hotel, numerous market sellers in Chinatown had come up to us asking if we wanted to buy a DVD, a handbag, a t-shirt, a fake Tiffany necklace. The barrage was constant but by the time we left KL we had become adept at brushing them off.
On first impressions, Kuala Lumpur was a surprisingly green and pleasant capital city. I'd been expecting it to be like Bangkok. Certainly it had the skyscrapers and sky train like Bangkok, but it seemed bigger and airier somehow. And it felt safer.
We dumped bags and my room-mate and I shrugged off going on the orientation walk our tour leader insisted on doing in every new place. Instead we found our way to a Chinese vegetarian buffet, a welcome change after all the curry we'd been eating, and for a few quid, munched our way through various 'fake meat' products. The 'fake chicken' complete with 'fake skin' was one mouthful too far though.
After lunch we headed to the Central Market whilst sampling our first taste of durian fruit. It tasted like slightly off scrambled eggs and onion and seemed to disintegrate as you picked it up. Clearly it was off but if that was durian I was in no hurry to try it again. I could still taste it for hours afterwards. Something else that I was also feeling the effects of was the hike from the day before. My thigh muscles ached and ached. Standing, sitting, going up stairs was all quite painful and would remain so for a couple of days.
I could have spent a small fortune on gifts at the Central Market but apart from buying a small painting to add to my growing art collection, I decided instead to invest my money in gin, heading to the Reggae Bar where some of the group had earlier decamped to. Afternoon drinking turned into evening drinking as people joined and left the group. Finally, a hardcore group was left standing. As it got later we left the bar in search of food but many of the street sellers were closing down. We stumbled upon a roti seller who was still trading and bought rotis to help soak up the alcohol. I headed back to the hotel where my room-mate and I sat up talking and laughing about the day's events.
Next day with a slightly thick head we made an early start to go via the monorail to the Petronas towers to buy our tickets to the observation deck and Sky Bridge. Why they haven't managed to come up with a more efficient booking system I have no idea, but basically we stood for around an hour in an infuriatingly slow queue. Tantalisingly, on a screen in front of us, tickets were being snapped up before our eyes while we hoped there would still be tickets left for our chosen time slot. We decided to go for an early evening viewing at 5.15pm as it fit in with our later plans. We finally reached the front of the queue and, tickets duly purchased we headed off to our next destination, the KL Tower.
Somewhat overshadowed perhaps by the more famous and showier Petronas towers, the KL Tower is still a good vantage point to stop off at. We caught the shuttle bus to the top of the hill, paid our entrance fee, posed for 'security' pictures which we would later be invited to buy as a souvenir of our visit then headed up to the circular observation deck. From a distance the KL Tower reminded me of the similar tower in Berlin. It afforded a great view of KL, including the rival towers a few blocks away. Up so close the towers of the Petronas looked like Daleks.
We headed back down, declined the photographs, the pony ride or F1 experience to catch a cab to the Mall where some of us went off in search of lunch and one of our party went to ride the largest indoor roller coaster in the world. The Mall, like others we had been in in Bangkok was vast. After wandering aimlessly for a while we headed back to the hotel via the monorail. We had a big night in store and would be in need of a nap first.
That evening we donned gladrags and headed first to the viewing platform at Petronas Twin Towers for our 5.15pm viewing. The whole of KL was laid out in front of us. The sun was only just starting to go down. The view was spectacular. We then headed by cab to Traders Hotel and the 34th floor where a swimming pool surrounded by a bar was our destination for the evening. It was the perfect spot to watch the sun go down proper over the twin towers and to watch the light-show as the fountains below lit up in the dusk. Sitting in our private booth, champagne cocktails in hand, we watched the sun go down over Kuala Lumpur. It was magical. Towards the end of the evening we started singing, something we'd started doing in Georgetown. Unaccompanied and trying to remember the lyrics, we warbled our way through old favourites Piano Man, American Pie, The Gambler, Wonderwall and, inexplicably, The Fields of Athenry whilst, on the other side of the pool, dance music pulsed out of the speakers.
After a while we decided to head off in search of either another bar or a karaoke place but the moment had passed and instead we took taxis back to Chinatown. We decamped to McDonalds which was one of the few places still open, then weary but exhilarated by a magical night watching the sun set over KL we headed home.
After an all too brief visit, next day we were headed for our penultimate destination on the tour, Malaka. It would turn out to be another little hidden gem.