Kuala Lumpur

Sight seeing around Kuala Lumpur is really easy, they have a hop on hop off bus that travels around the city, the ticket is valid for 24hrs. It only goes one way round the city but there is a bus every half hour.


Fortunately there is a stop right outside my guest house. I have teamed up with a girl (Nicole) from Switzerland from my dorm as we are both only planning on being here for 2 nights.


The first place we get off has to be the market really doesn't it- might as well get the shopping out of the way. This is not a big fancy mall, there are loads of those this is a craft market full of little trinkets and handmade what nots!

The bus takes us past the Sultans Palace (i didn't even realise they still had one how bad is that!) you cannot go round the grounds here but the bus does do a handy 5 minute stop so you can take photos of the gates and the guards and get straight back on.

We also went to the lake gardens (the gardens themselves were actually closed) where they have lots of little 'farms' the butterfly farm is where i found out about the nasties in the Cameron Highlands, and we had a mooch around the hibiscus farm and the orchid farm. Not far from here is the State Mosque (closed for prayer- we are whipping through these sights!!) and the old railway station. Both the old station and the railway company head quarters were built by the British but in a very traditional Islamic style they are really quite impressive.

Merdeka Square is where Independence was declared on 31.08.1957. (Malaysia an i share a birthday you know!!) Its really a big grassed area with a flag pole and some fountains! The law courts are nice, again in the Islamic style and there is St Marys Church (The curator is very proud its 150 years old!)

Thankfully we didn't have to wait long for the bus it is raining again. We didn't get off the bus again until we got to the KL Tower. It would have been better to walk here from the guest house as it is supposed to have a bit of a rain forest at the base but we don't have enough time to do it that way. There is nothing much in the way entertainment in the tower but the view is nice, you can go up to the top for a fee but as we are planning on going up the Petronas towers tomorrow its back on the bus!!

Our last stop we decided should be China Town, this is actually a bit passed out guest house and so we have ridden through it already but nothing really gets started here until about half six. It is like one huge market selling fake sunglasses and watches. It covers a massive area and unfortunately doesn't sell anything much other than those sunglasses and watches. We did have some nice food here though.

So last day in KL and we are off to the Petronas Towers. if you want to go up to the sky bridge you have to arrive early to get a time slot. We arrived about 10am and will not be going up till 2.15pm just as well there is a huge shopping mall in the base of the towers.

The mall has everything from Prada and Tiffanys (saw a beautiful necklace in there!!) to Marks and Spencers and a massive food court on the top level.

Down on one of the lower levels Estee Lauder are doing a makeover session, my companion for the day signs up for this and i wait whilst she has her hair and make up done. before she can have the photos taken its time to head off up to the sky bridge

The views from here nice- we are on the 41st floor and can see lots of the places we visited yesterday on the tour bus. You get about 10 minutes on the bridge which is plenty before its back down in the super speedy lift.

Back to the fashion makeover, now at some point whilst waiting for Nicole and visiting the sky bridge i have decided that i want to have this makeover done too. Its not my usual thing but seems like fun so i have my face done (false eyelashes and all) and my hair curled before i was whisked into a changing room fitted out with a glamorous dress, which was probably very glamorous on some one else but i look like a fancy bag of potato's (its only head shots they are doing so they don't really care how the whole dress looks)

Once the photos were taken you get to pick one and have it printed, but not before they have airbrushed you to the extent that it no longer looks like you!! I do have all the other pictures they took on a disk though, i like these ones better they look like me!

So with my newly curled hair and my now not so nice makeup (the false eyelashes kept banging on my glasses so i had to take them off but that left funny lines in my eye makeup!!) I am now leaving Kuala Lumpur and heading south.