Leech cures and Petronas at night

Day 32, Saturday 28 Jan 2012, Kuala Lumpur, part two

Just sitting in the lobby of my resort in Langkawi, accessing the free wifi and supping my first (second, third, fourth) red in over a month. Wine – how I have missed thee ! Ok it is a chilled Chilean, but it is still red and still wine.  More on Langkiwi tomorrow, this post is all about yesterday.

OK, I am going to say I loved Batu Caves, a great mix of history, culture and monkeys, definitely something you cannot see outside of Asia, so a great morning was had.  As I was leaving the weather packed in and it started to drizzle, I made a hurried walk to the station and missed the train by about 10 seconds. Luckily this is not Auckland so the next train arrived early and left on time, also unlike Auckland it had a chicks only carriage, or maybe there are just no ladies in Auckland, so there is no need for them 🙂

I got the train back to the old Kuala Lumpur train station and walked back towards Merdaka square, which was hosting a celebration of some sorts, not too sure what for, but there was a weird mix of dragon dancers, this awesomely loud car, playing appalling Chinese dance music.

And a Malay pipe band !

From Merdaka Square I wandered around little India for a while, which was pumping with lunch time crowds. I had one of these, a very thin waffle filled with crushed peanuts and sugar, very nice.

I loved these irons ! Awesome, I was sorely tempted to buy one.

After lunch of veges and rice i headed back to the hostel for a rest and got a phone call from an old friend from my London days in the eighties. Trefor had just taken a job in Kuala Lumpur and we arranged to catch up in the evening. I was planning on heading back to Petronas Towers to try for the night shot I missed last night, conveniently Trefor is now working for Petronas and has an office on the 19^th floor and lives close by.

The late afternoon saw a massive downpour hit KL, possibly the heaviest rain I have seen and I was watching my night shoot disappearing down the drain.  Like all good downpours it was relatively short lived and I managed to sneak out just after 6.00. The sun obviously sets a lot later in KL than it does in Borneo as I had a longer wait at the towers than I anticipated, I took a listless half hearted walk around the mall and a very average chicken rendang for dinner – I should have asked for more chilli (what is becoming of me, more chilli !!!).  After dinner I headed out to the back of the mall area and set up the tripod and camera to await the dark. I took a lot of photos !

I then moved around to the front for a couple more. Did I say how awesomely well set out for photography this place is – OK I know I did but it really was worth mentioning again !

I was wrapping up my photo taking when I got a call from Trefor to say he had arrived at the towers.  At a very loud Irish bar in the tower mall complex, that appeared to be full of very loud expats, we caught up on a few years of each others lives over a lager or two. . I had an enjoyable couple of hours and it was good to catch up, Trefor works in the oil industry in project roles and has worked in some interesting places. When I am back in KL in a few days I am going to stay at his place, which is just awesome. As I had to be up early to find my way to the airport I left just before 11 and had a reasonably quick ride back to the hostel on the train.

I had just settled down in my bunk when there was a series of loud explosions outside, I lay there for a bit wondering what the hell was going on and finally decided to get up a for a look see, there was a massive midnight fireworks display, sadly there was a bloody great tower block between me and it so I only got to see the periphery. Damn it ! no idea what it was for and disappointed the hostel didn’t mention it to guests as it appears to have been a BIG deal, lots of big fireworks over a ten minute period.

I got back to bed and listened to some one snore for 6 hours – and no, earplugs did not work !

Play loud  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2D7uZ0LK9Y&feature=related