Well, at the time of writing this I’m back at home in the Pacific Northwest. Elani and my travel plans are generally fairly loose, but it’s fair to say that what plan there was, this wasn’t part of it. I’m not going to go into a ton of detail about it, since that’s this isn’t really the place, but will leave it at there was a health emergency in the family. I will also say that getting back from Malaysia on very short notice wasn’t particularly difficult and not really much more expensive then getting there was with plenty of advanced notice, so that’s a plus I suppose. As far as long we’ll be back for? Well…not sure. All can I really say is, that our default still going to be full time traveling, and this is an interruption to that, not a cessation of it.
But even though the first leg of our trip was significantly shorter then we intended, there’s to more to say about Kuala Lumpur (and Melaka, but I’ll leave that for another time). So let’s wind back the clock to a couple weeks ago. The first thing that you should know About Kuala Lumpur is that though the first word is spelled and said very close to the Koala (like the marsupial), they have nothing to do with each and there are no Koalas there (maybe in the zoo, but certainly not running wild). I wanted to get that out of the way because I still find that a little disappointing and I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. The next thing of note is that, being the political and financial center or Malaysia is a relatively recent turn of events (okay so Malaysia being an independent country is also fairly recent turn of events in all fairness) so the town has a very modern feel to it. Its skyline is dominated enormous skyscrapers full of roof top pools and gardens. The building we stayed in, which we picked for a being decently priced and having a good location, was 39 stories with a garden at the top ( and smaller gardens every 10 stories or so) and an infinity pool a couple stories down from that. Which was pretty cool, but looking around (from said infinity pool) it’s pretty easy to see that it was not by any stretch the tallest or fanciest building around.
I say that dump on where we were staying, it was great. I was actually quite fond of the view from our room on the 34th floor (called floor 33a, because the character for four is unlucky in Chinese). I mention it to point out that a building with 39 floors, multiple gardens, and a roof top pool, is pretty middle of the pack by the standards of downtown KL.
The other thing I think of as really characteristic of KL is the abundance of greenery in the middle of the city. Gardens on the sides or tops of building were actually quite common. But more than that there were quite a few large trees with wide canopies shading sidewalks, little corners of unpaved land that were packed full of dense foliage. Turns out having year round sun, heat, and rain causes plants to grow at a pretty alarming rate. Add in generous sprinkling of parks and public green spaces and the separation of nature and city doesn’t feel quite so stark as it does in many cities.
But let me get back to huge buildings for a moment. One of the truly spectacular additions to the skyline (I guess actually two of the additions to the skyline) is (are) the Petronas Towers. These buildings are one of the most beautiful buildings in a city full of beautiful buildings. They stand out in the cityscape not just because of their size, but because of their glorious architecture. But also kind of because of their size. They were after all the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 until 2004 (since then been supplanted twice now as the tallest city in Kuala Lumpur alone).
So Elani and I decided we really ought to take the tour of them. We didn’t last time we went to KL because it turns out you actually have to get your stuff together and get tickets several days in advance. But we did this time. And honestly …meh. One problem is that the one thing you don’t actually have a very good view of from the Petronas towers, is the Petronas towers. Another problem is that since it is such a popular tour you spend a good chunk of it lining up to get packed into an elevator, only to have just ten minutes at the next observation deck to keep the tour moving. It probably also didn’t help visibility was rather poor that day (most of our days in KL actually) thanks wild fire smoke blowing over from the island of Sumatra (sounds like the Indonesian government isn’t doing a great job on enforcing its restriction on land clearing fires, not that that’s how they would tell it).
Long story short, if you find yourself in KL, do go to the square in front of the Petronas towers and strain your neck staring up at these triumphs of human ingenuity. But save your tour money and put it towards a cocktail and one of the several downtown rooftop bars that will afford you almost as good a view of the city and certainly a better view of the towers themselves while giving you chance to sit back and actually admire the view.