Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur

An early start (again!) ensured that we had a smooth drive down from the Cameron Highlands - not many crazy Malay drivers around. The road signs were also pretty good so we arrived in Kuala Lumpur (KL) in good time in the early afternoon. Getting around KL, however, was another matter, given the one way system! It took us 3 attempts to reach the hotel and the same number to drop the car back at the rental station. So by that point we were happy to leave the Proton and the one way system behind.

First thing to note is that our hotel - The Istana - was, to speak in Dutch, erg lekker (very nice). A 5 star hotel which had the expected luxuries - big room, big bed, big bathroom, fantastic breakfast and a large inviting outdoor pool - all of which were a very welcome treat for us backpackers. Having been able to get a very good price due to some renovation work, it was such a steal that we didn't even feel guilty!

Other than enjoying the hotel and pool, we explored KL in the 2 nights / 1.5 days we had available. As usual, the exploring was carried out on foot, which was relatively feasible as KL isn't such a wide-spread city. One of the highlights of our walking tour were of course the Petronas Towers, which although impressive by day, look amazing at night when they are lit up. We could also see them out of our hotel window which was an added bonus! A second highlight was the bird park. It is the biggest open bird park in the world where many of the birds are free to fly in the enclosures that you can walk through. It really was fanatastic as we could see many topical birds up close, including some rare varieties. The toucans and hornbills were amazing - large , colourful birds. We got incredibly close to them and even saw and heard them fly - they make a loud woosh noise.
We also got re-introduced to the Giant Hornbill, which we had seen on our trek in Khao Yai national park in Thailand - and this time we were obviously a lot closer.

Other points of interest were the main square, where Malaysia's independence was declared in 1957, commemmorated by the tallest flagpole in the world (almost 100 metres!), the national mosque, although this time no dressing up - unfortunately the mosque was closed and Chinatown including its main shopping street, which thankfully was undercover as we were there during a heavy tropical afternoon rainstorm (more time for looking at bags, watches etc!). We also took a trip to Brickfields (a south Indian community), with the intention to see the only Buddhist temple in KL. The temple was dissapointing, but we had a great punjab roti for lunch ;-)

We sampled a little of KL's nightlife with margherita, which we both found very strong - or maybe our tolerance is now low ? Anyway, we declined the option to dance into the small hours at the many cheesy discos that lined our walk home - we like to think that this was purely because we didn't have the required ID on us.....

After our pampering in KL we were ready to leave the luxury life behind and hop onto a bus down towards our next Malaysian destination - Melakka.