Saturday
We had wanted to be up bright and early today, however, we seem to have very quickly forged a routine that sees us get to breakfast for 9 o'clock every morning. Today was no exception. The reason for this was that we had changed our mind about getting back on the hop on hop off bus (our ticket was vaid from midday to midday). The stop we would get on at was a good hour and a half away from where we wanted to go so we figured it would just be quicker and healthier to walk there instead. BBC weather said rain and thunder was due again first thing but that failed to materialise and it turned out to be a hot, sunny day. After breakfast we got our things together and hit the streets. It was pretty much the same route we had walked to the Petronas Towers a few days before, apart from a right and a left just before we arrived, so we knew which was we were going. Our first destination was the Craft Cultural Complex. This is a place full of locally made crafts and souvenirs for sale, such as wicker, pottery and pewter items. As with most places we had visited so far, from Russia onwards atleast, we had tried to pick up a souvenir typical to where we were. After an Internet search we had a few ideas, most notably something pewter, and the craft centre seemed like a good place to have a look. After a short detour (okay, we took a wrong turning!) we found the building and headed in. Rather surprisingly for a Saturday morning, the place was almost deserted, with us being the only Western tourists to start off with. We wandered round the relatively small shopping areas, pleased for once that we didn't have someone on our shoulder the entire time, claiming that everything is suddenly on sale. Everything in the pewter and wicker sections were far to large and expensive to consider and the pottery just wasn't particularly interesting. With a 15kg baggage limit coming up for our flight to Australia, we really needed something dinky and made of helium. With nothing really available we left empty handed and headed back out into the sun. Our next stop was Binteng Walk, which is the shopping and entertainment district of Kuala Lumpur and was only a 10 minute walk from the craft centre. Our first reaction when we arrived was to walk straight into a shopping centre, just as an excuse to get out of the sun for a bit. Shopping centres are something Kuala Lumpur is certainly not lacking in, them and very tall buildings. This one was no different to the one at the base of the Petronas Towers but we decided to have a wander round anyway. It was nothing special and lunchtime was upon us so we decided to stop off at a cafe and have some food. As we were asking there, we spied a travel shop and managed to pick up a rain cover for Charlotte's bag, something that had eluded us previously. It was a bargain and we went to lunch pretty chuffed with ourselves. We chose a busy cafe and grabbed a seat, ordering some flavoured iced coffees, a sandwich and a pizza. After lunch we left the mall and walked straight out into gas mark 5. It was so hot, almost unbearable. We stuck with it though, thinking that it was probably the air con from the mall exaggerating the heat. Our intention had been to explore the area a bit more but as it was so hot and we'd done far too much window shopping already, we walked back in the direction of our hostel. Tensions seemed to be high in the city today as there we armed police, dog handlers and helicopters out and about. After a long sweaty walk home it was nice to finally be out the sun have a fairly easy day after being very busy since we had arrived in KL. You guessed it, blogging and photos, as well as some napping was how we passed the time until dinner. We decided to try the curry house we went to on our first night and ask for something non spicy for Charlotte. She opted to the Tikka Masala but despite the waiter saying it wasn't spicy, it did still have a bit of a kick to it. In her defence she put on a brave face and ate it all and we both left full to the brim.
Sunday
Sunday means rest day and we were definitely grateful for it. We'd done a lot of walking in George Town and KL in intense heat. We still had to get up before breakfast finished at 10 am but returned to our room afterwards to relax. At this point I was getting so close to catching up with this blog after being behind since entering China. I wrote up a post and Charlotte added some photos before lunchtime came around and we decided to head out. We also wanted to go to the Central Market again to try and find a good souvenir to buy. We got there and had a look around all the pewter shops but there was either nothing in our price range or we were to concerned about how genuine things were. Wooden things were plentiful too but again nothing took our fancy. The other problem with wooden items is that we are heading to Australia and they can be very particular about what you take in. We were hungry by now and went upstairs to check out the food court. It was what we had been after, genuine Malay food alongside western and Thai food. First of all we went for some chicken rice, mine sesame and Charlotte's lemon. It was really good, although Charlotte found hers slightly spicy while I found hers tasted like lemon bathroom cleaner. We also noticed a satay stand next to where we had got the rice and once we had finished our chicken and rice, we went there and picked up some skewers each. The quality of the chicken wasn't great, slightly fatty but the peanut sauce it came with was nice. It also said it came with a rice cake, which seemed like large congealed lump of rice cut into cubes. It was very bland but when dunked into the peanut sauce it was edible. After our feast, we went back down and wandered the aisles for a bit. Something caught Charlotte's eye in one of the shops that she had seen elsewhere in Malaysia. They were small ceramic figurines that the shop owner described as happiness statues. They were good looking little things, all brightly painted with big cheesy grins and they all represented something different things such as wealth, protection and career. They came in varying sizes and we were considering the 2 smallest ones. As ever we were being incredibly indecisive so I suggested that we head home, have a look on the internet about them and then make a decision, as we still had one more day to get back there. They seemed perfect so we were pretty sure we'd head back to pick a couple up. We got back to the hostel and after a quick google, we couldn't really find anything about them, which didn't really fill us with confidence that they were what the shopkeeper was saying they were. Charlotte asked the receptionist, who said they were depictions of gods or mascots and they were part of Malaysian culture. We decided to leave it for the night though and head back there tomorrow to decide which ones we fancied. We carried on with some admin before heading out for dinner. Unfortunately, we cheated again, opting to go to McDonalds for ease. That was only our 6th fast food visit since we left home but our 3rd while in KL. After dinner we had 2 good long Skype sessions with both sets of parents having not really spoken to them since Christmas.
Monday
Our last full day in Kuala Lumpur was actually going to be another pretty easy one. We got up and had breakfast, then lazed around the hostel for a couple of hours. I finished off a blog post, leaving me with only one outstanding while Charlotte had a very quick nap. At about midday we headed out into the heat. We were walking in the direction of the Narional monument. We had intended to see this twice before but something had always prevented us from doing it. Today we were determined to get there. We walked through Merdeks Square where the cricket pitch is and a protest had taken place the night before and down a main road towards the monument. It was fairly easy to find, located on a hill in a park opposite the botanical gardens. We climbed some steps and found it surrounded by coach loads of Chinese tourists snapping away like there lives depended on it. It was quite an impressive monument built "for Malaysian sacrifices during the struggle for freedom". It was situated on an island platform with a pool surrounding it. We made our way across the steps leading to the platform to have a closer look trying our best to get in the 10 million photos the Chinese were taking. In a quick break in Chinese waves we managed to get a photo each but then got asked to move out of the way by one of them. We frowned and took our time. They never move out of our way so we were reluctant to do so for them. We seen what we'd walked to see anyway, and moved on beyond the monument to the cenotaph behind it. By now the coach loads had all returned to their coaches and it was nice and peaceful. Written on the cenotaph was "To our glorious dead". We took a snap then headed off in search of some lunch. We went to the 7/11 by Merdeka Square that we had had lunch in on our first day but the cupboards were pretty much bare, so we moved on. The next 2 we found near the central market were pretty empty to, so we gave up on that plan and went to the chicken rice place we had been to the day before in the Central Market. This turned out to be the better option as our lunch came to a grand total of 11 Ringgits 60 Sens, which meant we paid less than £2 between us for a very filling lunch. We headed down and back to the shop we had been browsing the day before. We had very little cash left at this point and he didn't take card so we had to plump for the smallest figurines he had. After almost 10 minutes considering which ones we wanted, we came away with 'Protection' and 'Postiviity' (not something we are very good at, so we could do with the added help). After a quick barter, we also managed to get 2 for £5. Pretty happy we had done what we wanted to do we headed back to the hostel in a pretty good mood. Saying that, we did have one more intention for the day but it would have to wait until the evening. To kill time we sat in the icy cool reception area, writing blogs, posting photos and making our way through the large tin of we coffee we had bought 3 and a half months ago in Moscow. That all passed the time quite well and before long we were sorting out our things and heading back out into the city. The plan for this evening was simply to visit the Petronas Towers at night and see them all lit up. We walked there as we had done on our previous visit but arrived before it had got dark. We sat and had some dinner at yet another western fast food establishment very wary that we were running incredibly low on Malaysian Ringgits and we still had to get the metro home and buy provisions for our coach ride the next day. For that reason, we skipped drinks and just went with the tap water we had brought with us. After eating our food we made our way outside to admire the towers and also watch a bit of the colourful fountain show that takes places between 6 and 11. It was all very good, pretty and definitely worth the visit. We didn't hang around too long but took some photos effort walking to the metro and getting that back to our hostel. Before going to bed we packed all our things ready for our departure from Malaysia.
We enjoyed KL as much as we enjoyed George Town. The combination of Malay, Indian and Chinese cultures made for a very varied experience. It also helped that it was incredibly cheap for food, transport and entertainment. We weren't getting our hopes up that our next stop would be as cheap though, Singapore is notoriously expensive!
James and Charlotte
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