Following swiftly on from our adventures in Java, we flew from Yogyakarta to Kuala Lumpur. Having been to KL before, and had a rotten time in its fleapit cheapo guesthouses, I decided to finally give Jacqui a Christmas present. And so we found ourselves on the 18th and top floor of a 4-star hotel bang slap in the middle of the swanky, urban centre of KL known as the Golden Triangle. Certainly made a welcome change from lumpy pillows and cold showers. Oh no, wait, we're hardy, worldly-wise backpackers and therefore positively relish lumpy pillows. Oh yes. And we definitely never have a sneaky McDonalds when there are Asian eateries nearby. *Wipes ketchup off chin.*
Actually, I'm just kidding, we're eating Asian food almost every day. But one thing I will say about the odd cheeky McDonalds we have had - the staff here could give their English counterparts a lesson in customer service. I was quite taken aback the first time. Smiling, politeness, immaculate personal hygiene and - unlike in the UK - an excellent grasp of the English language greeted us as we placed our order.
The swanky hotel would provide much-needed respite from KL's many frustrations. Seriously, its a decent place, yet despite being more Westernised than most Asian cities it could not be more bewildering to tourists if it tried. I was feeling the rage on several occasions. We went to find the queue to go up the famous twin Petronas Towers. After a convulated journey via two seperate monorails, which linked up about as well as a British Olympic relay team, we found ourselves at the foot of one of the towers. Right, so which way? How about a signpost? Maybe its round the corner? No. Eventually we found a very small sign saying we had to go down an escalator and queue in the basement. We got down there at about 8.20am to be greeted with a snaking queue of around 350 people. Sigh. Luckily, when we finally got to the front, the extremely camp man serving seemed to take a shine to me and somehow sneaked us in to the 9.30am tour - when the board was saying next available time slot 2.45pm. Nice view.
The pattern repeated itself at all the other attractions we visited. Given that KL has recently merged its National Museum and its National History Museum, it doesn't go to any great lengths to show you the way there. Damn fine museum once we found it, but that was after hiking around for 40 minutes or so.
And don't get me started on internet in KL. It literally took 15 minutes to get the BBC front page to load up. This had me pretty much bashing my face into the keyboard, while Jacqui spoke in hushed tones to try and soothe my fury. That was until the rubbish internet made her mess up her fantasy football team's weekly transfer and bring in a player that was suspended!
We also visited the Islamic Arts Museum which had models of some of the most impressive mosques in the world as well as the National Mosque, a large and very modern looking place where a floaty and well-meaning Canadian girl, who'd settled on Islam after dabbling with most of the religions out there, told us some interesting nuggets of information about Islam. Plus a few things that just weren't true, but maybe she'd been misinformed.
On our last day we witnessed the sad spectacle of a transsexual fishing half-eaten crisp packets out of a rubbish bin. She was wearing what was probably once a rather racy short pink dress. But it was now a grimy faded pink. You see some weird things in South East Asia but that was one of the strangest.
One final note. If you ever find yourself in KL's Little India district, go to the ABC curry house and order the mutton saagwala. Mmm, mmm, mmm. Just don't visit in the wet season like us. We've seen some epic rain in recent days. Deciding that Malaysia was too wet, too expensive and just too damn awkward to get around, we've already left. We're now back in Thailand. Time for some sunshine and some seriously fiery chillies.
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