Fending for ourselves
This day started without time targets, instead the rudimentary plan existed of venturing to the bird park behind the Islamic Art Gallery. We followed our usual regime of going down for breakfast, this time eating outside in the smoking area as a result of the inside being full. We had our usual fruit juice, tea, melon and roti canai, before returning upstairs to the newspaper hanging on our door handle. While getting ready to go out, we read the search for MH370, still grabbing front-page slots over a month on, and the sad news of the recent death of one of the leading figures of the Malaysian government's main opposition party, Dr Karpal Singh, during a car trip to Penang from KL yesterday. Wallet, keys, phone, passports and Emma's multicoloured rucksack in tow, we set off for Ampang Park station.
Looking at a travel map we'd picked up when we'd arrived in KL, we found we needed to take the Ampang Line LRT as far as KL Sentral station, i.e. the opposite direction to which we'd come to the hotel, and then take the Seremban to Rawang KTM line one stop to "Kuala Lumpur" station. The first leg of the journey was from the familiar Ampang Park station, just down the road from our hotel, and we soon arrived at KL Sentral. The KTM departed from a platform beneath the main station concourse, as opposed to the LRT which had arrived one level above it, so we took the escalators downwards after purchasing two return tickets, one of which via an automated machine, the other via a clerk owing to the machines not accepting Malaysia's new plastic (and partially transparent) bank notes! Whilst waiting on the lower platform for our KTM to arrive, we noticed that there would be one carriage of our train entirely reserved for women! Emma and I debated the rationale behind this, Emma taking the view that maybe the women wanted to be away from all the smelly men (quite reasonable); I wondered if the men did not want to share a carriage with women. We'll never know, but it was an interesting discovery and certainly not something that would be entertained by our non-discriminatory West!
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| No men allowed in this carriage! |
The train pulled into the station, preceded by a gush of warm air and its headlights reflecting from the twin rails. It had a polished aluminium finish, with only a thin blue, white and red strip running along its length about a third of the way up. They resembled the trains of the New York metro or American Airlines jetliners. We boarded, and after a short while the train emerged into the grey light of the overcast day. Through the windows we could pick out some recognisable landmarks, and the tall buildings of the city centre in the distance. Standing up for our one-stop journey, we picked out an iconic skyscraper, a tall white monolith with classic Islamic design, in that there were no windows visible, merely a white concrete meshwork of intricate repeating, tesselating shapes stretching up the whole building. Nabila informed us later that this building was an administrative and retail facility, containing offices, shopping mall and post office; it was once one of KL's crowning jewels, that is before the developments of the twin towers had been completed. Next to come into view was the spiked white minaret of the national mosque, and behind it in the tree-covered hillside a huge grey netted area, beneath which many trees were visible - this, we knew, was the KL bird park, the direction in which we were heading. The train sometimes travelled parallel to, and sometimes crossed over many raised concrete highways, and whilst looking out over the concrete-lined channel of the River Klang (Sungai Klang), we arrived at our final destination, the station named Kuala Lumpur.
Disembarking we headed for the exit, and were guided by a very helpful station assistant manning the barriers to walk over a footbridge, back along the opposite platform and leave the station via Door A (Pintu A), then find our way across the road and head right, before turning left to the bird park. This we duly did, and only once we had exited via Pintu A and left the station building behind did I realise that we had actually been inside the huge white building of the old train station that we had previously driven past! I had a feeling that Emma had already figured this out. We crossed the dual carriageway by walking to the nearest pedestrian crossing, albeit in the opposite direction in which we were heading; the crossing did not seem to respond to its giant silver button being pushed, but we crossed eventually without risking life or limb, and proceeded to walk back along the length of the station, outside of the KTM headquarters building, to the directions pointed out to us by the assistant. We rounded the corner at the end of the buildings and turned left, keeping the national mosque to our right and the law courts to our left. The tourist information signs pointed us up the hill behind the Islamic Art Gallery, so this is the direction we walked. I was intrigued by an artistic but totally useless handrail - a silver cylinder placed at waist-height, but distorted deliberately to look like some sort of huge steady-hand game! All in the name of art, I supposed.
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| Kuala Lumpur old station, the white facade and its huge watchtower overlooking the street below. |
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| The giant silver button of the pedestrian crossing! OK, so maybe a bit of forced perspective here... |
You could tell we were tourists - there were no Malaysians silly enough to walk up a mile-long hill in the middle of the day! I couldn't believe how far it actually was to the bird park, often double-checking the signs, much to Emma's annoyance who just believed that we were going in the right direction. Of course, we were, and as we climbed the hill further the noise of the traffic behind us gradually abated, giving way to the high pitched electrifying hum of millions of insects in the trees ahead of us, and the occasional loud cawing of peacocks (as identified by Emma, thanks to those on the Bure site), along with other unidentifiable sounds perforating the air.
The road snaked to the right, a long U-shape hugging the walls of a small valley between two tree-covered hills which joined in the middle. Seeing the entrance to KL's planetarium on the left hand side as we rounded another right-hander, we walked up past a Police Museum, complete with a Cessna 150 overhead-wing light aircraft ceremoniously perched on a metal post, and looking down the embankment to the museum to the right, saw a GPMG (general purpose machine gun) sitting on a gravelly platform, along with various items of the police force's history - more guns, some motorcycles, and a couple of cars, in front of a small beige concrete building, complete with a guard at the door armed with a pistol. The next item of interest was a memorial garden dedicated to a prominent national figure, though exactly who Tun Abdul Mazuk was we did not know. By this time we were nearing the bird park, its green netting clearly visible through the trees to our right, sloping away from us and appearing grey in the reflected light from the sky. We were amused by a yellow diamond warning sign for road users with a picture of a monkey on it!
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| Beware of the monkeys! |
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| The netting spread out across Malaysia's, if not the world's, "largest covered free-flight walk-in aviary", with the Police museum in the foreground |
After another ten minutes of walking, feet already starting to hurt, we rounded a final corner and spread out in front of us, we saw the low terracotta roof covering an outside waiting area and cafe seating area of the bird sanctuary, at the far end of a small car-park. Walking through the car park, noting old style red and white Proton Saga taxis lined up for fares by the cafe, we could see the ticket office ahead, complete with two glass windows for buying tickets. It was a small magnolia coloured hut under one end of the terracotta roof; the cafe building stood at the other end, and a bit beyond the whole structure stood what looked like a wooden house on stilts, but this actually turned out to be a restaurant called The Hornbill.
We bought two tickets for the bird park, at RM48 each (totalling about £20 for both of us), and received orange and white striped wristbands which would allow us through security. For citizens of Malaysia with a "MyKad" ID, it would cost RM25 each. Next to the ticket sales desk we noticed two off-road Segway-2's, and enquired as to how much it would cost and what a Segway tour would entail. We were however told that the cost would be yet another RM50 each, and lasting 15 minutes the ride would not be in the bird park but rather around its perimeter. Prohibitively expensive and, dare I say, pointless, we opted not to go for it. This wouldn't be our only chance to Segway, as it turned out.
After purchasing two chilled Ribena cartons from the cafe, we waved our wrist bands and said terima kasih to the guard at the gates, and prepared to step through a set of green wire-meshed metal gates, Emma with map of the park poised and multicoloured rucksack proudly worn on her front. Stepping through the first gate, Emma asked innocently "is this the wrong time to say I'm scared of birds?". I raised one eyebrow, then the other, then we continued onwards. The gate led us into an air-lock device, with a vertical screen formed of tightly-packed hanging chains down the middle of it, separating the front door from another green gate, and marking beginning of the aviary itself. We were immediately greeted by what looked like a couple of parakeets, certainly some sort of bird from the parrot family, perched on a nearby lamppost.
I won't go into details about the bird park, as you can well use your imagination to fill in the details, only I will say that it was indeed very big, had birds flying around all over the place, yet even more birds walking around completely tame to the humans sharing their land with them. There were a few enclosures for rarer, or maybe predatory species, such as some small eagles and a couple of huge hornbills. Peacocks roamed freely, occasionally showing off their plumage - including one which didn't seem to realise that he had no real tail feathers left of note. I felt he'd fallen off his perch somewhat, and was living in a life of abject denial. Poor guy! We stumbled across an enclosure with a huge long-necked bird, body the size of a small pony, which for some inexplicable lapse of communication between my occipital lobe and temporal lobes I promptly announced to Emma;
"Gosh, that's a big turkey!"
"Are you kidding Jimmy?"
"No, why?" - looking puzzled.
Emma raised her eyebrows. I realised the error of my ways, "Oh... It's an ostrich isn't it?"
"Er, yes". Taxi!
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| Emma next to a bird whose species shared a pond with the Flamingos. Apparently very rare now, this dopey looking long-legged creature had an exotic name that I can't remember anymore! |
Nearing the end of our visit to the park, and having stopped for a rapidly-melting Cornetto we approached a final enclosure filled with pelicans and flamingoes, with a mock waterfall and large water feature, covered again, and with dozens of monkeys of all ages climbing over its netted roof. I felt that the Malaysian nationals might chuckle at obvious tourist types, paying all that money to get into a bird park yet spending half and hour watching their equivalent of squirrels! We left the bird park through its visitors shop, me buying a very stylish T-shirt as a memento, then headed back up the winding road toward the KL Planetarium.
To the left, and up a gently sloping driveway, stood the white building of the planetarium complex. There were no signs as to where the pintu masuk might be, let alone whether it was open or not. There were no signs of life in either building, so far as we could see, though getting closer to the white planetarium and entering a tunnel beneath its belly we spotted what looked like a security lodge, with dozens of sandals and flip-flops left outside (Asian custom is to not wear any type of footwear indoors, except in hotels and shopping malls). A short but wide set of cement stairs led up to a set of glass doors and a reception desk within the short tunnel under the building; climbing the stairs I found both doors locked, but at about that time a man emerged from a side door carrying a mop and bucket - I asked where the entrance was, and he pointed, with his thumb pressed on top of fisted fingers with arm outstretched, toward the other end of the tunnel and up a flight of stairs, with a tiny blue signpost bearing the word "Masuk" next to it. Climbing the stairs we arrived on an enclosed courtyard, with a few benches and lampposts scattered throughout it. This was a pavement, but formed the roof of the tunnel below. One white tourist sat on a bench in the shade, on his mobile phone. Emma and I wandered around a bit, to the side of the building, trying to look for a door to get in, but found none; We eventually ventured further out into the courtyard and only then saw the glass entry doors and ticket office leading into the building. It cost nothing to get into the planetarium itself, but cost RM10 per person to view a "show" in the main auditorium, which happened on the hour every hour. We entered the darkened exhibition room, squeezing past scores of schoolgirls dressed in white tudongs, the Malaysian national school uniform consisting of flowing white robe and Muslim head dress. Their teacher beckoned them to allow us to pass them as we walked through past them and adjusted our eyes to the dim lighting inside.
The exhibition room was like a miniature version of the Science Museum's Launchpad, it had various hands-on exhibits such as make-your-own tornadoes, demonstration of why the atmosphere is blue, and how lightning is formed; It also had various information boards about celestial features like the constellations and galaxies. A blue neon-sign on the other side of the large black room announced an "Anti-Gravity Room". Emma and I perused the exhibits, having been told to listen out for the announcement for the next show in the main auditorium, situated at the back of the exhibition room as seen from the direction we had entered. To the right, next to the anti-gravity room, stood an odd feature - simply a room, one wall of which was painted with a photograph from the Mars landers, and its front wall had a metal-edged hole cut out of it. A title was placed over a large amount of headered text on this wall, Akhbar Planetarium Negara - National Planetarium News. The large text read No. 1 rakyat Malaysia pertama di Marikh. By the time I'd seen the front wall, Emma had ventured inside the room, and through the little window proclaimed,
"Jimmy, I don't see the point of this, what is it all about?!"
to which I replied "Stay there, let me take a photo".
As you can see below, it turned out that this was a great way to put Emma on the front page of the newspaper of the National Planetarium - by some strange twist of fate, and mostly unexpected as a result of a holiday to Malaysia, she became the first Malaysian on Mars!
With dubious preconceptions, I walked up to the anti-gravity room. My science background never serves me well when I'm presented with such blatant lies! BUT! What a surprise, when I went up to the entrance of the box. From the outside it looked nothing more than the size of a garden shed, with a slide, yes, a plastic blue slide, leading out from the lower right side as you looked at it, beneath the neon logo. What appeared to be the entrance was a darkened passageway, with a black step leading up to a low hole in the wall. One assumed that you had to crawl through this hole into a blue-hued featureless void beyond. Now actually intrigued, I climbed through and found myself in a control room of some kind, lit by an eerie blue light and with dials, buttons and flashing LEDs on the far wall. The thing was, though, is that this room was on an obvious tilt! At the time, still half-in, half-out, I hadn't thought anything of it. However, as soon as I climbed into the room, things got a bit weird!! I now understood why they called it an anti-gravity room. Being tilted at about 30° both longitudinally and axially, yet offering absolutely no visual clues inside as to this being the case, this little rectangular box very successfully confused the heck out of my vestibular system, and I felt instantly giddy, to the extent of taking a while to find my footing and ending up bashing into the lowest wall! I immediately crawled back out of the hatch to find Emma and tell her the exciting discovery, and in doing so spontaneously resumed my sense of balance. Emma dutifully arrived, unaware of what was in store for her arrival, and, like me, was instantly thrown off-kilter by the magic of the little blue room. It was even funnier to have someone else in the room with you - when at last we managed to balance, Em looked at me and said
"Jim, do you have any idea how funny you look?"
Expecting this to be something do with my hair pointing up at random angles, or maybe a bit of cornetto left on my nose, I replied "Huh?"
"You're leaning at a crazy angle! Here, watch!" she let go of the hand-rail she was holding at the top of the room, and lo and behold, there she stood, perfectly balanced at 30° to the vertical! I tried to walk to reach her but ended up bouncing off the lower walls in the process. Well, we spent ages in that little room sending bottles rolling along a seemingly flat floor, and trying to stand on one leg. Eventually however, time marching inexorably on, and indeed our brains slowly getting used to the conflicting visual and cochlear information, we decided to call it quits and exited the room in the best way possible - the blue slide which had been so kindly provided for us, me filming as we went down and unfortunately thwacking the lens out of alignment of my dearest Casio Exilim camera, although thankfully this was fixable with a bit of elbow grease to a nearly normal working state until we got to Kota Bharu the week after.
After leaving the incredible super-anti-gravity chamber of dreams, its neon lights not nearly advertising its magical qualities enough, we heard the announcement over the tannoy that the show was about to start in the main auditorium, and headed in the direction of the entrance doors, handing over our show tickets to a waiting steward. Climbing a curving pathway, we emerged into the front of another spatially disorienting environment, this time a huge grey dome, with very few visual clues as to its alignment other than about 20 rows of seats gradually sloping away from us, their slope forming the base of the dome, putting it at a tilt. The auditorium was lit with red, green and blue soft uplights, converging to form a mass of white light at the apex of the tilted dome. In the centre of the seating stood a weird looking contraption, a silver ball with dozens of small lenses poking out of it. It looked like the product of conception between R2D2 and a colander. This of course was the total immersion 180x360° special projector. Our tickets told us to sit near the top of the auditorium, behind the projector, but as we were two of about 10 people in the whole place, we elected to take our seats slightly further away from the multi-faceted silver eye, and sat down to await the start of the show, not knowing what to expect.
To our surprise, the dulcet Scottish tones of David Tennant emerged from the room's surround sound system, introducing the show about the future of space and communication technology, by a UK educational foundation; and the wrap-around screen displayed incredible panoramic and total-immersion footage of Earth, mountains, telescope installations in Chile, and the James Webb space telescope, among other things. I was impressed by the show actually, though not a single mention was given to what I expected a planetarium would be like, i.e. the planets, and stars! Still, we were pleased to have experienced it, it was entertaining and educational!
We left the auditorium after the show via the doors marked Keluar, and descending through a non-air conditioned flight of tiled stairs, reemerged on the ground floor exhibition room. We followed signs to the loos (tandas), and via the tunnel leading us there, happened across a second exhibition room behind the auditorium, which contained a mock-up of a lab on the international space station, and a mock-up of a Russian Soyuz capsule (which Em climbed into and posed as an astronaut), along with a real space suit in a glass cage, and an out-of-order gyroscope type nausea-inducing device formed of three concentric rings which spin you in an X, Y and Z direction simultaneously, to really confuse your semicircular canals.
We left the planetarium, and although my sense of direction took us toward the station via an alternative route down the back of the planetarium, it failed to anticipate the lack of a viable pathway to do so, so after quite a long walk in the wrong direction down a hill, and spotting an iguana lazing its way across a deserted car park, we turned around and had to climb back to the planetarium before retracing our steps past the police museum and mosque, back to the old railway station. I suggested trying the pedestrian subway instead of walking to the end of the road to cross at the lights, to get to the station;
"Is it safe Jim?"
"Looks it, but I don't know. Though, that man has just come out on his own, and there's a woman just gone down. Looks safe enough"
"OK, fine, we'll see"
"In situations like this it's always wise to scout out anyone behind you, before you go into a tunnel - the only way to trap someone is by having a person at both ends!"
"Did you read that in an action book, Jimjim?"
We bought an ice lemon tea on the station platform, having crossed back over the footbridge to the KTM platform, noting that the mainline train to KL Sentral would stop here but not for another 90 minutes! We waited amongst growing crowds of commuters, and boarded the gleaming polished metal train to get back to KL Sentral station, and from there the LRT back to Ampang Park and the InterContinental Hotel.
Gourmet Makan
We had no plans this evening, other than a nice relaxing night in a posh hotel. After freshening up, we dressed in our best, and having made a reservation for two down in the buffet, headed downstairs to the hotel restaurant, the Serena Brasserie. Emma had found an offer on the hotel's intranet site, for two to eat there for about RM250, just under £40 in total - turning out to be a five-star four-course all-you-can-eat buffet for two, including fresh oysters, mussels, clams, smoked salmon, beautiful oriental cuisine, and the biggest selection of desserts I'd ever seen in my life. Delicious! Satisfactorily satiated, we retired to our room, and Emma napped occasionally through the The Dark Knight Rises showing on the Home Box Office (HBO) channel on the in-room Astro service. We'd be up early tomorrow for our final day in this beautiful Malaysian capital city. |
| The fish bar at The Serena Brasserie's buffet; Oysters plentiful, with fresh crab and as much shellfish as you could ever want. |
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