January 12-13, Kuala Lumpur (KL)

On Friday Lindsay and I road two hours north to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's capital city. The capital houses about 2 million people, and occupies a fairly large expanse of land but is pretty well connected by elevated trains and monorails.

We took an overpriced taxi (Lindsay has since become a bartering pro) to the Heritage Station Hotel. The hotel occupied the former train station, a large building of Islamic design. The hotel was more expensive than we wanted and Lindsay was slightly skeeved by the dark interior, so we decided to look for cheaper accommodation in Chinatown. We headed to Wheeler's Guest House since it was recommended by my Rough Guide, BIG MISTAKE. We noticed that the Malay man that checked us in kept his ring and pinky fingernails really long and painted red, a man was sleeping/passed out on the stairs, and the stairwell smelled like a dog kennel. But our room appeared to be pretty clean and had a private bathroom, so we decided to suck it up and act like "real" backpackers. However immediately following payment to fingernail man, Lindsay began to regret our decision. I thought that the place was gross but wasn't nearly as surprised as Lindsay; I've stayed in sub-par hostels in the past (I was reminded of the hostel in Amsterdam that reaked of sewage and it's fat, mean cat that wouldn't get off my bed). I was however becoming increasingly cranky from hunger, so we stuffed our valuables into day packs and headed to a nicer part of town for food and to search for more suitable accommodation for the next night.

We ate a delicious lunch of pad thai in Central Market and then took the train and monorail to Bukit Bintang, a tourist-drawing commercial district. As soon as we stepped off the train it began monsooning, and we were forced to seek refuge in one of the many shopping malls. Not much to report about that...as in the US, Malaysian teenagers appear to enjoy hanging out in malls. After the monsoon subsided we began hotel hunting and settled on the Replica Inn, a moderately priced hotel that was very clean. We then ate a late dinner at an Irish pub and began the (long) journey back to our crappy guest house in Chinatown.

Why was the return journey long you ask? Well, we got lost. We left the hotel in such a hurry earlier in the afternoon that we didn't take note of its surrounding landmarks. We assumed that my guide book's map would lead us back to the hotel without a problem. BIG MISTAKE. It turns out that the guest house is mislabeled on the map--we ended up wandering around the streets of Chinatown mingling with the rats and roaches for over an hour (and lucky for us, the next morning was garbage day...you get the picture). There were some people out on the streets but thankfully nobody acted in a threatening way or even took notice of us. Definitely the scariest events of the night involved Lindsay screaming and running away from/pushing me towards the RR (rats and roaches). I called Wheeler's on our cell phone but the man's broken English was really difficult for me to decipher, so that wasn't much help. We finally flagged down a cab and asked him to find our guest house. The driver said that he didn't know where it was located and indicated that he didn't want to be bothered with our problem, but I refused to get out of the cab and kept saying "1-3-1 Jalan H.S. Lee!". Our cell phone became the saving grace, I called the guesthouse again and the man at the desk gave directions to our cabby in Malaysian. It was an interesting night to say the least, hopefully not one to be repeated. Oy.

We woke up early the next morning and killed a few scurrying roaches that were hiding beneath our packs and headed to our new digs in Bukit Bintang. We dropped off our bags and took a cab to the Petronas Twin Towers, Malaysia's architectural landmark (Petronas is Malaysia's national oil company). The building is the second tallest architectural structure in the world, second to a tower in Taipei. Even though we got there at 8:45 am, the earliest lift tickets we could acquire were for 12:45 pm. So we took some pictures of the towers from the park outside, did a little bit of shopping for snacks at the the grocery, and ate lunch in the high class mall that occupied the first four floors of the building. We sampled curry laksa, a traditional Malay noodle soup. I really liked it, probably my favorite meal so far. After lunch it was time to ride the fast elevators up to the skybridge on the 41st floor to enjoy the panoramic views of KL.

We then rode the train to Sentral Station in order to buy rail tickets for the next day's journey to Taman Negara National Park, an area renowned for its primary rainforest. The only train going to TN was an overnighter, so we opted to try for a bus. Instead of heading immediately to the Pruduraya Bus Terminal, we took a taxi to the National Museum (Muzium Negara). Actally our intention was to go the National Mosque but the driver misunderstood us--we didn't realize this until after he had driven off. It was beginning to monsoon again so we decided to look around the museum since we were there and it cost less than a US dollar. It wasn't a great museum but provided a fairly extensive overview of Malaysian history, especially from WWII through the present. We then took a taxi to the beautiful National Mosque, a white building with tall, thin turrets and a blue tiled roof. We had to put on hooded robes and weren't allowed to enter the main prayer room but we were able to meander through the many long, open corridors. I think that Islamic architecture is absolutely beautiful, the geometry and symmetry of the designs really appeals to me.

After the mosque we took another taxi to the bus station--it was totally chaotic (and fantastic!), a fairly small space with about 100 bus vendors selling tickets to various locales. We squeezed our way up to the main bus company booth and were told that we would have to go to a different bus station on the opposite side of town in order to purchase tickets to TN. Ultimately we decided to cut out the trip to TN: transportation to the park was proving to be very difficult to arrange (it would require a 4 hour bus ride to Jerantut and then a three hour boat ride to the park) plus it is still rainy season there and apparently the leeches are horrendous. Instead, we purchased bus tickets to Cameron Highlands, a hillside settlement situated at about 2000 meters altitude.

We left the bus station with a renewed sense of purpose and walked to Merdeka Square. The square is significant because it marks the location where the Malaysian governement declared independence from the British in 1957 and is lined by the high court's Sultan Abdul Samad Building. When we reached the square we realized that a cycling race was just ending, we got to watch the awards being given out to the winners and a celebratory water fight in the streets. We then headed to Little India to puruse the food stalls and sari stores but ultimately returned to Bukit Bintang for dinner. Lindsay and I each opted for "comfort food", Lindsay chose Subway while I elected for falafal and stuffed grape leaves. Yum yum.

On Monday we took the four bus ride up to Cameron Highlands...