Kuala Lumpur - City of Giant Wisma

We have been in Kuala Lumpur for four exhilarating days, and we still like it. It gets Kyle's rating as Most Livable City in South East Asia. Not only that, but it is chalk full of public transportation options and oddly walkable (if you can ignore the heat). Here's what we've seen, heard, and smelled in our last days in the Malaysian Peninsula!

We landed in a guest house in the Golden Triangle, the shopping-dining-being a trendsetter part of the middle of the city. We were shocked to find so many international restaurants on our block - and then saw the prices and realized we can't afford them. We can still feel cosmopolitan by association. Also, our place has a greened up roof deck from which we can watch the overpriced hustle and bustle while eating cup of soup from the minimart. Everybody wins.

We trekked back from Taman Negara in order to be able to get to the Vietnamese Embassy to pick up our visas, which we managed to do Friday morning. Shockingly, the Vietnamese embassy was filled to capacity with Vietnamese citizens who had overstayed their visas and were being charged a whole bunch of Ringit (or Dong - or Dollars) to get back to their homeland. Really good examples of elaborately acid washed and embroidered jeans kept us entertained while waiting.

Once we had our visas in hand, we hiked over to the Petronas (pronounced PET-row-nahs) Towers to get some free tickets for the Skybridge walk between the two towers. Our tickets were for late afternoon, but we discovered in the lobby of the building that there was an open rehearsal of the Malaysia Symphony Orchestra that afternoon. We raced back home to get appropriate footwear (without which we would not be admitted - tevas aren't appropriate for the symphony?? They are in portland) and then returned to Petronas Symphony Hall. The rehearsal was fascinating - Russian director with the obligatory giant floppy hair, one stand up bass player who was easily seven feet tall and made his bass look like a cello, and a triangle player who was called out for just not giving it her all.

We then headed to the Petronas skybridge tour area, which began with a 10 minute infomercial on the wonderful things the Petronas oil company does for the world. In 3D, no less, complete with spiffy aviator style glasses. Why were we the only two laughing? We were then herded up to the 41st floor Skybridge which connects the two towers and has views of most of the city. The towers themselves are surprisingly beautiful and thoughtfully done, designed as two superimposed squares that make the 8 pointed star representing 8 Muslim values. Kate was prepared to be unimpressed, but left spouting off about the genius of Cesar Pelli. It should be noted, however, that they are no longer the tallest building in the world - having been passed by Taipei 101 - but they are still the tallest PAIR of buildings. Seems kind of semantic, as they are clearly ridiculously tall. We then went to the central market, which was lame but a South African man aggressively asked Kate on a date and Kyle laughed out loud at both of them.

The next day we headed off to the National Museum, which was a challenge to get to (directions actually included scampering across the 4 lane highway and walking down an onramp) but impressive inside. Malaysia had its 50th anniversary in 2007 and really gussied itself up for the occasion, including adding holograms and computer screens to the museum exhibits. We learned a lot and oohed and ahhed. Then we continued our walk to the Old Railway Station, past the National Masque to Merdeka Square, which is a giant field surrounded by colonial buildings. Kate did a cartwheel of freedom in the name of the people of Malaysia. Then we walked home and ate some Lebanese food we couldn't afford.

Our last day in Kuala Lumpur, we took the monorail (monorail...monorail...Monorail! Kate has never heard the Simpson's monorail song before this trip, but now she has. Many times.) to Lake Titiwangsa park. Although strangely not easy to access on foot, the park was really nice and had totally normal park events going on, including a skate boarding competition and what we deduced was a public health fair. A kayaking class was awkwardly flipping their boats in the middle of the lake and hilariously struggling back into them. We laughed. We then walked over to the National Art Gallery, which was free (woohoo!) and excellent. Has anyone ever heard of Teng the Batik artist? Big in the late '60s and a Malaysian hero. There was also a large exhibit of Palestinian/pro-Palestinian/anti-war in Gaza art that was thought provoking. From there we took the light rail to Little India, where we had lunch and did some street market shopping (though don't expect a lot of gifts from Malaysia, unless you want a knock off Rolex or head scarf). Tonight we will be enjoying our roof deck one last time before flying off to Hanoi in the morning. We're looking forward to a return to cheap beer and pedicabs and sticky rice.