Taking the bus from the international airport to the center of Kuala Lampur takes about an hour, and the main thing that will be noticed is the vast amounts of palm oil trees. It is sort of a cool sight seeing all the big, over grown trees standing in rows, planted in just about every open area in view. Apparently huge amounts of indigenous forest were cut down to make room for the trees, but at least they are not an eye sore. Rubber trees can sometimes be seen in the mix as well.
The next day, I walked about 4 blocks and caught my very first mono rail; first stop, Twin Towers. It only took about 5 minutes, and cost only 1.60 ringit, beating out any taxi by at least $5. The mono rail drops you off in the bottom floor of the towers, and from there elevators and escalators take you to where ever you are going. Apparently, getting to the bridge that connects the towers, a
nd experiencing the views, can only be achieved at certain, ungodly times of the day. The minute the words '8 am' were thrown around, I knew this backpacker would just be using his imagination. The views from as high up as I got where pretty darn spectacular anyways. Every floor contains multitudes of shopping centers and restaurants, even familiar ones like McDonald's and Chili's. The Towers were pretty busy, and one reason for this was that the Malaysian Grand Prix was going on, and they had an expo set up in the center of the ground floor. Since it was my birthday and I do love my movie watching, I hit up the cinema on the third floor to watch "Rio", my first solo cinema experience to date.
After a while, the view turns from green, into an awesome assortment of skyscrapers, such as KL tower, kind of resembling the space needle in Seattle, and the famous Twin Towers. I followed the cheapest recommendation for accommodation in my trusty Lonely Planet Southeast Asia guide book, and found myself in the center of KL, in Chinatown and Little India. There are a whole lot of vendors on the street, much like any Chinatown, and lots of things going on. I found myself in Wheeler's guest house, costing me 25 ringit a night, about $8.
The next day, I walked about 4 blocks and caught my very first mono rail; first stop, Twin Towers. It only took about 5 minutes, and cost only 1.60 ringit, beating out any taxi by at least $5. The mono rail drops you off in the bottom floor of the towers, and from there elevators and escalators take you to where ever you are going. Apparently, getting to the bridge that connects the towers, a
nd experiencing the views, can only be achieved at certain, ungodly times of the day. The minute the words '8 am' were thrown around, I knew this backpacker would just be using his imagination. The views from as high up as I got where pretty darn spectacular anyways. Every floor contains multitudes of shopping centers and restaurants, even familiar ones like McDonald's and Chili's. The Towers were pretty busy, and one reason for this was that the Malaysian Grand Prix was going on, and they had an expo set up in the center of the ground floor. Since it was my birthday and I do love my movie watching, I hit up the cinema on the third floor to watch "Rio", my first solo cinema experience to date.
The rest of my time in KL was spent doing absolutely no tourist activities, as I am running out of funds fast, and have a ways to go yet, before I start looking for work in Australia. Many things can be experienced however, by just hoofing it around a city for a week, and not abiding by any itinerary in a guide book. I always recommend it to any traveler.
I did manage to book a flight to Brunei however, and am leaving on the 9th. From Brunei, my general plan, scribbled out on a napkin somewhere, is to take a ferry to Kota Kinabalu, back in Borneo Malaysia, from there fly to Singapore, then Indonesia, then some much needed reviving of the back account in OZ. I plan on working and saving for a few months, then taking the trans-Siberian rail from Beijing to Moscow. I do not have a plan as to where in Australia I should start looking for work, but I've always been on the non-plan plan. (any help on the subject is welcome)
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| Chinatown |
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| Inside one of the towers |
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