Visit to Kuala Lumpur
So after much delay and with great anticipation.... my first blog entry in a month!!! Sorry guys. As I said before I've been really "busy" (read lazy) lately. I've been upto alot of stuff, most of which I mentioned in the previous post. Oh one thing I forgot to mention was the fact that I've taken up golf lessons.Anyways, so where to begin... Well the first fun thing after Thaipussam was going to KL for the weekend with Kiran and Julia (my two partners in crime), Jasmine (from UPenn) and Rachel (from the UK). Just to get our bearings again we are actually talking about wknd of Jan28th-Jan30th.
So we headed to KL by taking a 6hr bus ride. On the way there was some nice scenery.
Once we arrived we were greeted by some of the locals.
After checking into our hostel, we decided to walk around the downtown for a bit. There we saw some familiar sights.
And some new ones as well.
For those who don't recognize the above photo, maybe the following picture will ring some bells
(Portrait of a Brown Man in front of the Petronas Towers)
Hahaha, jk. The towers are the Petronas Towers, KL's most famous landmark. We obviously wanted to go up the towers to check out the view, but when we got there (sometime btwn 7:30-8pm) we discovered that tourists were only allowed up btwn 9-5 (or something of the sorts). But no fear, we still hung around outside and took some nice night shots.
(Portrait of a Brown Man near the Petronas Towers)
At the base of the Towers is a (pretty modern) mall. Again, we saw some familiar sights.
So, after checking out those sites we headed to China Town for some shopping (ie haggling and bargaining). Imagine that. A SE Asia city w/ a China Town :P
After a working hard for a couple of hours to buy some much needed souvenirs and clothes we decided to reward ourselves by checking out a local hangout. We went to the reggae bar :P Actually it was kind of cool. Although a I don't think a place that plays Led Zepplin and the Beatles right after Bob Marley is entirely a reggae bar :)
But there was some local entertainment on tv.
(What ever happened to him anyways)
We woke up the next day bright and early to head to the Towers again. We got in line early and had no problems getting up. Except when we got in the lift. We weren't sure where to go :P
Hahaha, jk. There is a guide who takes you to the right floor. Actually, you don't end up going to the top. If you recall from the photos of the towers above there is a bridge between the two towers. That is the place where tourists are taken. Not quite what we were hoping for, but still quite nice and spectacular nonetheless. We got some good aerial shots of KL.
We also ran into some friens from Singapore. It was basically KL weekend for all the exchange students in Singapore. Really though I think they would have just missed me too much.
Now, it turns out that KL has 2 towers to look out from!!! So we figure why get just one aerial view when you can get two!!! The 2nd tower is known as the TV tower, and is just a big telecommunications antenna. Think CN tower. Again we got some good aerial shots from there.
Look familiar?
Ok, how about this?
(Portrait of a Brown Man in KL's TV Tower)
After finishing in the TV tower we were pretty hungry so we grabbed some food.
And then we were off to the "mysterious" Batu Caves.
To actually get to the caves we had to climb 292 steps!!!! As a lazy person you can imagine how furious I was.
But there were some locals who were willing to take us up.
But they charged too much. We also saw some local animals as well, like monkeys...
....and older looking monkeys....
and Brown Man
To be honest though the caves were actually kind of boring. Nothing very special or mysterious about them. And what made matters worse was the fact that Thaipussam was just a few days earlier. Apparently, upto 1 million people descend upon the caves for Thaipussam.... and it showed. There was garbage everywhere!!!! Not a very pleasing sight. There were people around that were cleaning up though. All the garbage really made me dissapointed though. I don't understand how people can supposedly treat what is supposed to be such a holy place with such a lack of respect. Honestly, it wasn't even worth taking photos of. Plus my other friends were taking photos so I can just grab their's. The cave did however provide me with an opportunity to take some really neat photos for National Geographic.
After the caves we went back to the city to do a little more shopping. Kiran and I went to Little India, which was really.... little. I think there was only 1 or 2 actual Indian shops. But I snapped what is probably one of my coolest photos so far.
It was raining at the time and I saw the kids trying to catch the water in their bottles and the bag. After that we went back to the hostel, had dinner and went to a club.
All in all KL was a good trip. If I had the chance to go back for a day or two I probably would. Shopping was enjoyable there. The prices were reasonable (once you haggle of course) and the quality was pretty good (for knock offs). Superior to Bangkok for sure. As well, I didn't do much cultural stuff, like checking out some of the mosques, so I wouldn't mind doing that either.
All right, now back to studying for my midterm tomorrow:)
posted by Arvind @ 9:48 PM
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