I have a bit of spare time so on go the new reading glasses (new because some thieving git is now wearing my old ones) as I add another quick update, about what we’ve been up to this last week.
When we first arrived, our room wasn’t ready so off to the Central Market and Chinatown it was….lots of bargains to be had but on day one of a year of travelling, we had to be very restrained. Apart from a coffee, and then a very cheap meal in Jalan Petaling in Chinatown, I think we only bought a fridge magnet! Total outlay on shopping: RM3. Oh, and we did spend RM10 each for 15 minutes with our feet in a pool of Doctor Fish who nibbled all the dead skin away. I had most of the fish in the pool around me – word obviously got around the pool that “this guy is good, get over here fishy friends!!”, and all the other punters suddenly only had a few fish each! I guess you have to be popular in some way or another!

Tuesday as you know started OK on the KL Hop On/Hop Off bus tour but ended rather badly with the missing bag. Still, we did get an insight into Malaysian policing – lots of women in uniform, and all packing pistols. Mind you, that firepower wasn’t as impressive as the security guard on duty at a gold buying jewellers in the Mid Valley Mall the other day….I really wonder if he’s ever used his SHOTGUN in a live (or dead) situation before?? Back to the bus though….we had managed to get to a few places on the route before the day went pear shaped, including Little India, the National Museum (which was very interesting with just 4 galleries – ancient Malay history, the Malay kingdoms, colonial days and modern Malaysia), and the new National Palace which we could only look at through the gates but appeared to be a monument to ostentatiousness to me.

The next day was a shopping trip and a visit to KL’s towers – the twin Petronas Towers which we viewed from the ground up, and KL Tower which we went up to look over the city. Just as well we did, otherwise we might not have spied the Hard Rock Cafe from above, so might not have gone there for dinner. The shopping part of the day was about replacing stolen things mainly, but gave us a chance to visit Burkit Bintang and therefore gave us the chance to see that not all KL is broken footpaths, rough roads, foul drains, and hundreds of very earnest sales people trying to sell you nothing but the best: “only genuine copies here, mister!”. Having said that, the shop assistants in the ‘real’ shops have an equally annoying technique: they latch onto you as soon as you walk in, but don’t do the NZ thing of “can I help you”/”no, I’m just looking thanks”, instead they stalk you like you’re a potential shoplifter and the instant you show anything more than a passing interest in an item, they’re on to you faster than you can escape into another aisle. Very annoying!

Thursday was a great day – a bit of wandering around Merdeka Square where independence from Britain was declared in 1957, and looking at all the colonial buildings nearby. One of particular interest was the former Federated Malay States Survey Office which was built in 1910 and therefore presumably was the workplace of our great uncle Jack Dewar (Grandma Moffat’s brother) who was Surveyor General of the FMS in the 1930s. Sadly, the building is looking somewhat abandoned. Another amazing thing we saw as we were near that building – well, amazing to us anyway, but apparently quite commonplace to locals, was a VERY large Monitor Lizard which seemed to be about 3m long which suddenly darted across the road right in front of us! It was HUGE! He could move too…a local guy chased him and the lizard shot down a drain before I could get my camera out, but boy, what a monster! (The lizard, not the local man).
After that excitement it was onto the local train system to go to the Royal Selangor Pewter Factory where we had a personal guided tour and watched the craftsmen plying their trade – everything is handmade, even down to all those little ‘dimples’ hammered one by one into beer tankards. It was very interesting – and was topped off with our graduation from the School of Hard Knocks where we each made our own pewter bowl. In years to come, when you visit us, don’t be surprised if your hors d’ouevres are served in pewter bowls, they are that good!!

Yesterday, despite the slightly wet weather (still hot though, around 30 degrees) we had a day at the Sunway Lagoon theme park. It was OK, but to be honest we’ve been spoiled over the years by visits to places like Disneyland so it was a little underwhelming. They claim it to be “Asia’s best attraction” which is good to know now, because now we don’t have to waste any money visiting anything else to see if it’s better. The water slides weren’t too bad though, just the queues were very long to get onto any of them. It was dark by the time we got out after a meal, so the “mini bas” back to the “kommuter tren” was an interesting ride – complete with full air conditioning (door open, non-existent windows) and a total disregard for the road rules, especially the one about “don’t drive on the wrong side of the road”. (By the way, I’m making an assumption that there actually are road rules here because some of our teksi rides in heavy traffic have been interesting!)

Today is just a quiet day – might go to the bird park which was to be our next stop on Tuesday on the Hop On-Hop Off Bus, and then it’s just a quick repack before we have to get a taxi at 4am tomorrow to go to the airport. Who booked us on a 6.20am flight to Hanoi??? Oh, yes, that’s right…me!