Blog 10: 23rd April 2014. Hiring a car abroad

Three flights left to go...

It was a typical hot sunny morning by the time Emma and I left the room and had breakfast for the last time at the Concorde. For some reason we always chose cereal here, always served with thick UHT milk. The hotel shuttle bus took us to the airport, and we arrived at the terminal with plenty of time to spare, to check-in at the MAS desks housed on the top floor of the spacious multi-purpose terminal building. It was about the size of a football field, with departures above arrivals, themselves above the offices and these above the transport hub below containing the KL Ekspres train and bus station. The roof of KLIA was as spiky as the grandstands at Sepang F1 Circuit, but inside formed of brown wooden grilles high above our heads balanced on tapering concrete columns. There was an air of calm in the terminal, a low hubbub of voices just audible above the low rumbling of the air conditioning units and occasional sound of jet engines spooling up ready for take-off all echoing off the building's polished white and grey floor.

We were too early for lunch - MH1436, our flight, was at 13.10; our large and late breakfast would have to do until we arrived in Langkawi! We passed uneventfully through the security gates, this time to the far left of the terminal building as we were travelling internally. All electronics placed on a tray so as not to confuse the scanning man, shoes and belt off, and nothing metal on our persons. Domestic departures was far less exciting a place than International, consisting of only a small row of shops and some rather expensive bunches of Toblerones taped together in a 6 at a small cart selling sweets. The main KLIA terminal is a rectangular glass-fronted building, with northern and southern spars sticking out at the eastern side for domestic departures. International departures could take a short monorail ride from the main terminal to a cross-shaped building, similarly glass-fronted and airy inside, located between the airport's two main runways, each arm of the cross serving as aircraft parking and departure gates, arriving and departing passengers divided into two floors of the building.

We arrived at our gate, and with nobody at the desk simply took a seat and waited for the crowds to slowly trickle in. After about 15 minutes, sitting and talking, watching the occasional 737 taxi past out of the window, the 30 or so of us who had gradually gathered on the rows of seats were told to get up and leave the waiting area, and show our boarding passes at the desk we'd walked past, now finally staffed! We queued, showed our passes and passports, and sat back down in the seats from whence we'd come, continuing to look out of the window as our characteristically oval-nacelled white 737-400 was waved into its parking place by a man waving a couple of high-vis flags below us. These 737s were the workhorses of the MAS fleet, old versions slowly being replaced by the larger and newer -800 versions complete with silver wing-tips, sweeping skyward. Our -400 had no such tips, instead simply a bulbous trailing edge extension to the wing housing a white anti-collision light. The gantry was still attaching to the plane by the time the luggage cart driver had opened the main cargo door and climbed aboard; the fuel bowser driver hooked up his ground line and hose to the wing and the ground crew attached the yellow tow-bar to the nose-wheel by the time all the passengers had been offloaded. It was finally our time to board, and we took our place in the queue to board the plane, eventually sitting in row 25 seats E and F, on the right hand side, some way behind the wings near the back of the plane - leading to a rather bouncy experience when taxiing over the concrete pavement!

We departed to the north via runway 36-Right, spotting the grandstands of the Sepang race track disappearing behind us from our right-sided windows, before spotting the tall buildings of Putrajaya and KL in the distance as we climbed into the clouds. By the time they had served the in-flight peanuts and orange juice, less than 30 minutes into the 55 minute flight, we were already clear of the northwest coast of Malaysia, nearing the island of Penang, its snaking new bridge clearly visible below us connecting to the mainland of the peninsula. Cruising at 27,000ft we were at the top of descent, and the captain updated us on our progress - it was a nice day in Langkawi, if a bit hazy, and temperature about 33°C. Emma noted the plane change its attitude, and noting nothing but the water of the Andaman Sea outside was worried slightly that the pilot was going to land well before the island! I tried to reassure her with maths (ballpark descent rate figure divided into altitude gave about 15 minutes flight time remaining), but I think that this method doesn't work for everyone, I'm unsure as to why!! Needless to say, about 15 minutes later we levelled out at about 2000ft above the waves, easily spotting tourist vessels and fishing boats going about their daily business on the sea below us, before the flaps were extended fully, the landing gear went down with a dull thump, and the trailing edge vortices could be seen spiralling their way behind the wings. At last the greenery of the island of Langkawi appeared out of the window, the main harbour of its capital town of Kuah sprawling out infront of us before disappearing behind a hill and giving rise to a white sand strip of beach parallel to a road lined with hundreds of low buildings, the Cenang Beach area of Langkawi, near where we'd be staying. We landed with a bump on Runway 03, famous due to the theories of the disappearance of MH370 in that it is a huge runway, nearly 4km in length!

The short walk to the small terminal building started with disembarking the plane from the back door, by a set of metal steps wheeled up to us, the blast of the Malaysian mid-day heat combined with the exhaust from the slowly spinning turbines equating the experience to opening an oven door. Entry to the terminal through a set of sliding glass doors revealed that baggage reclaim was to the right, separated from the tarmac by a wooden door flapping in the breeze, upon it a large sign reading ironically "keep closed and locked for security and safety purposes". A group of tourists crowded around a large map of the island placed inside a glass cabinet against a pillar, we took a glance and opted to photograph the map for later perusal. Our bobbles arrived in good time on the conveyor, and we took our cases from the belt before heading to the far right side of the arrivals hall, lined with a dozen small desks with tourist agency names in bright signage above them, eager company reps attracting the eye of unsuspecting tourists shouting "you want hire car?" "hotel cheap!" "diving tours here!". Emma had thought ahead, and brought up a TripAdvisor page about Langkawi, listing three hire car companies that were considered reputable by previous visitors. We chose Kasina car rental as it was the only one here matching our list; oddly, its sales assistant was a quiet lady keeping herself to herself, not leaning over her counter waving brochures like the rest. Her neighbouring stall owners seemed both surprised and dejected by our choice, though we had a sneaky suspicion that the young Malay chap to her right was actually a relative of hers, possibly her son, by the amount they chatted and shared information and phonecalls while we were booking in!

Car rental was cheap, Rm180 including deposit for 3 days (equating to just over £30, i.e. £10 a day!). We would pay her when we left the arrivals hall and passed through customs; then the car keys would be handed over to us. Noticing that Kasina was also a travel agent, I enquired about snorkelling experiences, and luckily such a thing was possible for a further Rm200 for the pair of us, including hotel pickup and drop-off for tomorrow morning, so we chose to do this too!

We passed through customs with our sales assistant in tow, and proceeded to the cash machine to pay her, where she handed us over to a Malay chap about our age who took us to the car. I had tried to refrain from signing the acceptance slip but she had insisted, so without looking at the car first we followed our new guide, receipt already received. I was filming the events, however! Langkawi airport was a single-storey, though high-ceilinged rectangular building, wider than it was deep. The arrivals hall occupied the top-right of the building if you looked from above, the departures hall the top-left, and the main concourse, before security, occupied the whole southernmost side; it contained numerous shops and eateries, from McDonalds to more extravagant noodle outlets. Camera accessories were available on the side furthest from the tarmac. A jet ski with three fluffy minions riding it stood proudly under a paragliding parachute suspended from the ceiling, advertising local company "Naam" and their adventure packages. We took a rain-check on this, but thought of perhaps investigating later. Langkawi is an entirely duty-free island so is slightly cheaper than the rest of Malaysia, especially for alcohol, although export limits restrict the amount you can take home with you!

Our hire-car helper led us across the carpark out from the front of the terminal building, firstly via a pedestrian tunnel capped with a blue translucent awning that did the opposite of what it was intended to - instead of shading from the sun, the temperature beneath the radiating awning felt a good 10°c hotter than the surrounding breezy car park! Never mind. We approached our car, a small silver runaround (Perodua Viva, known to us in the UK as the Nippa), about the same size as the old model Corsa B. It had seen better days, but we were assured it was all roadworthy and good to take away immediately! I stopped to photograph it from all angles, just in case they claimed the numerous dents in the side and the hanging-off rear wiper were our doing. The petrol gauge read empty on clicking the key to auxiliary - we were advised to return it in a similar state! Our man turned the key to start and she ticked into life immediately, air-con on full, no warning lights on the dashboard. The petrol station, the guy said, was just to the right of a set of traffic lights as you exited the airport to the left, so adjusting our seats and loading our luggage, we said thanks and climbed into the car. We nearly didn't get very far - while we were faffing with the luggage a guy in a silver Proton had parked directly in front of our bay, so our first real interaction with the locals of Langkawi was a quick toot on the horn, following which after friendly waves and gestures he backed up and let us out of our space to battle the traffic exiting the airport carpark. Immediately jumping to my attention was a dreadful creaking noise coming from the left front wheel, I hoped it was just a bearing rather than the wheel about to fall off; cranking the steering to full deflection either side didn't seem to show any defects and nor did heavy braking, so I tentatively drove to check the roadworthiness of the vehicle before taking it to speed on the roads. "This is a small island, no speed limits to bother with, just don't go above 100kmh!" the man had said. OK then!

Our little carriage awaiting us

We followed the turn left, then right at the lights instructions, but, petrol light flashing, could we find a petrol station? Could we 'eck! I wasn't particularly worried because we had the guy's number, but my copilot was cautiously anxious! It turns out that the great machine that is Google hasn't really taken off in Langkawi yet, searching for Petrol took the map screen a few hundred miles away to the mainland. Not quite what we wanted! Luckily I spotted a green teardrop sign, the Petronas logo buried amidst other signs on a lamppost that we drove past, with a small black arrow indicating ahead and left, and the letters "5km" beneath it. Fingers crossed that our game of petrol roulette would last us that long!!

The road from was wide, with only a handful of cars other than our own making their way along it. It was covered with a fine layer of golden sand, and the odd piece of litter floated around in the afternoon breeze. The edge of the road was poorly defined, sort of blending gradually into the sandy greenery beyond. We passed Langkawi's international exhibition centre, an arch across the road still advertising last year's International Aviation Expo. Damn, we missed it! A smattering of other buildings populated the road on either side as we drove along, some businesses with open shop fronts, some residences; from time to time big rusting advertising banners tried to attract us to buy motor oil. The greenery of the island was all around us, open fields with buffalo grazing on them, interspersed with wooden houses on stilts, leading to the mountainous centre of the island a few km into the distance.

We took a right at the end of the road, stared down upon by yet more billboards, and headed toward a less developed part of the island, with a greater density of grey concrete houses and dusty cars parked in driveways. Kids on mopeds buzzed around, overtaking slower vehicles or staying well to the left of the road, in the grit, if they were going too slowly. None of their riders wore helmets of course. Some mopeds which appeared to be two-up, on closer inspection were actually three-up, the third passenger revealed to be a small child sandwiched between the two adult riders!

The orange gearbox-shaped engine management light decided to blink to life, so with the low petrol gauge we now had two warnings screaming at us from the dashboard, and our Petronas logo had chosen to direct us in the direction of the mountains! 3km to go. The road was getting narrower, still two ways but not as spacious as before. I tried to save as much petrol as possible by being easy on the gears, smooth on the accelerator and allowing the idle-cutoff servo to do its job on downhills or deceleration but to my utter annoyance one of Malaysia's finest drivers happened to be ahead of us, nearly coming to a standstill on every slight turn as we progressed into more hilly areas of the winding road. We couldn't overtake for two reasons - firstly, we'd be killed by oncoming trucks, and secondly we'd push the petrol consumption up! So we sat there, by now both of us concerned about the pump sucking up the last of the liquid in the tank!

Emma the navigator was telling me we were rapidly approaching the island's famous cable car station, and that meant mountains - not the best tactic for saving petrol, but the only one we had. We snaked our way along the undulating road, and after a particularly steep ascent we were glad to see ahead of us that the road was now descending again. We had rounded what must have been a headland, and were coasting in the direction of the settlement of Kampung Kok. Less than 1km to go said the green teardrop; finally around a corner, the welcome sight of a Petronas logo, and the petrol station, sitting to the left of the road, a gorgeous coastline and bay coming into view to left of it and the road. As we approached the petrol station, we noted a white amphibious Duck was filling up too - useful information to save for a later date!

Petrol in Malaysia is ridiculously cheap by our Western standards, costing about Rm2.30 a litre. Apparently this is actually a subsidised price by the government - how's about that, subsidy, not tax! Rm2.30 works out to be about 40 British pennies. What a bargain! We put in Rm25, just over 10 litres, enough to get us 100 miles assuming about 40mpg of the little car. The petrol seemed cheap, but then on thinking about it, the average Brit earns about £1500 a month, and we pay £1.30 per litre; the average Malay earns less than Rm1000 per month, and pays Rm2.30 a litre - so really, we can see why the government is forced to subsidise petrol, the relative cost of petrol is over twice that of ours, even though Petronas has huge refineries and oil fields around the country.

Petrol in the tank, with a sigh of relief from both of us we turned the car around and headed back up the mountain road toward the airport; our hotel, The Villa Langkawi, was situated near Cenang Beach (Pantai Cenang), on the opposite side of the airport to that which we were currently located! Getting a tiny bit lost in a village while trying to re-trace our petrol-hunting steps, and again while trying to find the hotel (actually driving straight past it without noticing and continuing on for a couple of miles) we finally arrived. The modern yet minimalistic red, white and grey concrete building stood out like a sore thumb amidst the wooden shacks and roadside eateries of its neighbourhood; a small mosque stood next door, its dome and tower noticeable but not dominating the area. Slightly down the road, a larger hotel stood proudly behind a wall guarding it and its car park. Up the road stood a selection of small houses, bungalows, concrete, and none of them looking particularly well maintained. The road was quiet save for a few motorbikes and cars whizzing along from time to time. We parked up easily in the empty car park, which previous visitors to websites had described as "lacking". First job: unload. Second job: check the reason for the engine management light. Third job: check-in! Fourth job: find a laundry!

First job - done. Yellow and black cases, complete with bobbles, sitting in the sunlight. Job two revealed that the cooling water tank filler cap had come off and there was no water left in the system. There was no expansion tank like in UK cars, but instead a low pressure reservoir. Job 2 part A: find some water!

The hotel was a single storey construction, its minimalistic modern style including a rectangular entranceway leading to a corridor opening out to the left of a lovely blue swimming pool, also rectangular. Some rooms overlooked the right-hand side of the pool behind large curtained windows. A few chairs and tables rested to the left of the pool, between it and more windows, this time floor-to-ceiling, running the length of the reception area and what appeared to be the breakfast hall, complete with tables and chairs already laid out, and silver food domes neatly placed in a row along a central island. We walked to a pair of glass doors mid-way along the pool, and entered the reception area, paying a Rm50 deposit but our stay already paid for via Expedia.co.uk months beforehand. Third job complete - the keycard for room 113 was handed to us. Breakfast was served from 6.30 til 10, but there was no bar or food facilities here outside that time. Fourth job - price per laundry item was ridiculously high, we'd find another way later.

Good enough to be a brochure shot. The swimming pool and rooms of The Villa Langkawi, photograph taken later that evening.

Further down the swimming pool, beyond the end of the breakfast hall and swimming pool and opposite a triplet of black massage chairs, for some reason incredibly popular in Malaysia, the door to our room was within a concrete rectangular tunnel. Entering and turning on the light, we found the room was minimalist but to a good quality, the heavy wooden door impressing me firstly, and two towels neatly rolled and placed like iced buns upon the neatly made bed. A safe sat on a white makeup desk across the room from us, to the right of which a mirror hung on the wall. We placed our cases down. The bathroom was a good size, and made from grey polished stone, with white porcelain features and a good quality rain-effect shower behind a glass divider. Nothing to complain about!

As much as we both wanted to lie down and relax after our day of travelling, and after a bit of persuading poor exhausted Emma who was so drawn in by the prospect of the relaxing blue swimming pool only metres away, I filled the kettle in the room with water to complete Job 2A - and we sneaked it past the glass fronted reception desk and past a pair of intrigued staffmembers. I can imagine their conversation went something like "Tsk. British! Whatever next" *roll-eyes*. Car now filled up with water again, Job 2A could be checked off the list. The laundry was next. We returned the kettle to its rightful holder, probably to the relief of the watching staff (damn those glass walls), and locked the room, leaving my BMA Membership card in the power slot to keep the air conditioning running. Leaving the hotel we crossed the dusty road and approached a stall advertising AIS BLENDED MANGO/ORENGE/APEL JUICE, and COCONUT JUICE.

Despite having advertised coconuts, the girl serving the stall did not understand what "coconut" meant - instead shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders (despite the pile of green coconuts in the corner). Never mind,
"ais mango dua!" I said, and she promptly started shovelling ice-cubes into a blender and filled it with mango juice.

Once the noise of the rattling and slushing had stopped, Rm4 handed over (about 80p), I asked,
"Di mana 'laundry'?"
another blank look. She disappeared from view into the wooden kitchen to the left, and another lady popped out.
"Di mana laundry?" She pointed at and shouted something to her friend washing dishes at the back of the small shack's plastic seating area, who looked at us and said,
"Laundry? That way (pointing in the direction of the beach). Five minutes, walk".
Thumbs up. "Terima kasih!" We walked off in that direction, drinking deliciously quenching ice-blended mango juice. It turns out that the word for coconut was kelapa, and had I known that, we would have been holding two delicious ice-filled coconuts, straws poking out of their axe-made craniotomies. Never mind!

We were a few score feet from the drinks stall when "Allahu akhbar!" suddenly filled the air from the massive loudspeakers of the nearby mosque. Imagine a Christian church doing that back home, there'd be riots! Not one of the dozen or so native Malays scattered throughout the nearby stalls even flinched, all instead carrying on with their daily routine, smoking or reading the newspaper. The call to prayer continued, and walking past a dozen or so more wooden shops and buildings to the right we finally stumbled across a larger hut, with a few workers inside tending to large washing machines, a woman outside sorting out linen.
"Buka?" I asked. (Open?)
"Yes. Until 10pm! 8 Ringgit for a service wash, collect tomorrow" (our white faces gave the game away).
"Ah OK lah. Terima kasih!"
"You're welcome". Smiles all around.

Back at the hotel we chose simply to wash some clothes by hand in the sink. We only needed 3 days' worth before heading to KB. If we hadn't buggered up the visas, we'd have had plenty from a planned laundry trip in Perth, but never mind. Laundry left to soak, we changed into swimming gear, and at last headed for the inviting pool! It was delightfully cooling, and though being as salty as the tourist reviews had said it was, it was clean and clear. Seawater probably. We spent a good half an hour just lazing around, me swimming and doing lengths underwater as always, Emma opting to be less energetic and soak up the sun's rays. Refreshed, we headed back to the room to rinse off the salt, and got dressed in smarter clothes to go for dinner at the beach.

It was only a short car journey, the engine management light still on despite the water. Turning left down a side road before arriving at the main strip of Panta Cenang, I hoped to find the wooden waterfront restaurant that I'd eaten in with dad back in 2000. The Langkawi Holiday Resort and Spa was a sprawling complex, and in fact the one we thought we'd booked into until only a few days prior, owing to the poor utilization of Google by businesses in the area. It was at least a 4-star resort from the looks of it, traditionally themed wooden-frontage buildings but surely over a metal/concrete substructure. A central hallway linked the entranceway to the back of the building, where I knew the beach to be. We weren't guests, but dressed smartly and walking with purpose, nobody batted an eyelid as we walked through the complex. Past an open-air bar to the right, complete with musical stage and roadies preparing instruments presumably for a show later in the evening, we emerged from the building next to the hotel's luxurious and large curvaceous swimming pool, surrounded on all sides by the main building, outdoor restaurant and two room blocks, amidst a landscape of tasteful shrubs and curving cobble paths. A few dozen swimmers and splashers were enjoying their evening dip. We walked on, toward the beach; palm trees ahead of us swayed in the breeze, and we could see the blue sea stretching out beyond a strip of white sand. A small wooden hut formed an open but sheltered bar area, complete with stools. No sign of our old restaurant, though. A paraglider took off, complete with the roar of twin 150hp Evinrude engines of its towboat. Jetskis whizzed around in the distance, the spurts of water from their watercooling pumps firing high arcs of water behind them. The beautiful Cenang beach stretched for a couple of hundred yards to the left, before ending in a tree-covered rocky headland; to the right it curved around for miles, forming a bay. Directly in front of us, out across the water, the small tree-covered island of Pulau Epor lay about a kilometre offshore. We heard an AirAsia Airbus A321 roar into the air from the runway about 3 miles away to the right, taking a gradual climbing turn to the left, leaving our view to the left having flown parallel to the beach during its climb. A european tourist stood meditating into the warm onshore breeze, her red sarong flowing in the breeze; children played in the surf, a few venturing out further into the water to swim. It was a little slice of heaven, the low sun just to the right of Pulau Epor reflecting off the calm tropical water. We stayed for a little while, admiring the scenery, before heading to the modern-looking open-air and covered bar/restaurant that we'd walked past on the way to the beach, from the swimming pool.

Cenang Beach, complete with paraglider and paddlers.

The restaurant was as modern as the rest of the spa resort, with glass panels and a tastefully lit bar. It was shaped a bit like a mobile concert stage, closed at the back, used for an air-conditioned, glass-walled dining room, and open at the front, the ceiling serving as an awning for the tables in the main area. It opened out onto a few more tables outside placed around its main attraction, a stunning infinity swimming pool, with a now reflecting the evening sunset. A couple of palm trees were dotted around the pool's perimeter, amidst a few cushioned deck chairs and softly glowing light cubes, like those you'd see in an Ikea showroom. To our surprise and slight disappointment, the restaurant served mainly western foods, but we ordered from the small Local Cuisine section of the menu, and chose a pepsi and ice lemon tea to drink. We'd started by sitting outside by the pool, but noticing some ominous clouds building to the northeast behind the restaurant, we moved inside under the cover of the awning. A plasma TV showed a football match between the team of the Malaysian state of Negeri Sembilan and another - it all seemed normal, except for there being NOBODY in the grandstands behind them. Very odd.

The sun set; thousands of lights flickered to life out in the bay, the softly glowing cubes now brightly shining against the subtly lit background of the swimming pool. Strings of lights wound around palm trees provided a soft orange glow in the background, enough to see dozens of large bats flying around in the newly darkened sky. The meal was lovely, if served a little bit slowly, and was of a sensible price. We didn't do anything else that evening, instead opted to head home and chill, ready to get up tomorrow for our long day at sea!

Blog 5: 18th April 2014. Birds, spaceships and a gourmet buffet

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!

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. 

Kuala Lumpur old station, the white facade and its huge watchtower overlooking the street below.

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!

Beware of the monkeys!

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!

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.

The Planetarium's giant silver dome could be seen from some points as we walked up the tree-covered winding path leading up to it from the winding main road. The sign at the beginning of the path denoted "anda disini" - you are here, next to a big red arrow on a map of the path and complex. We climbed the narrow path, formed from interlocking bricks, and every now and then avoiding holes caused by erosion of the soils below from rain. A storm sewer ran parallel to the path, and we crossed a small bridge and climbed a flight of stairs to arrive at the top, the high-pitched singing insects of the bird sanctuary fading amidst the city sounds further away. To our right we noticed a building marked as being the headquarters of the Malaysian National Space Agency, a grey and white bungalow about 200m in length, with an overhanging entranceway and some black cars parked outside in its car park. A flagpole flew the flag of the agency over the unimposing building.

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.

Blog 6: 19th April 2014. Think of the children!

Think of the children!

This was to be our last full day in KL, and it all seemed to have gone so fast! We could have done with a few more days in the city, to really appreciate it and explore the things we never got to do, such as other main tourist attractions like the butterfly park, and visit the Mosque (wearing appropriate clothing), and venture further out to the acclaimed settlement of Putrajaya just outside the city limits, to the south, on the way to the airport. Putrajaya being the administrative capital of KL; its neighbouring town, Cyberjaya, being the ICT focus of the country. I wondered if this would house similar places as General Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) that we have in Gloucester.

The day started with our typical melon, fruit, tea and roti canai, this time served outside owing to the restaurant being full. Nabila today was somehow squeezing us in amidst family errands and overseeing the setup of a stall for her company in a suburb of KL just outside its administrative limits, in the neighbouring state of Selangor. She arrived in her timely manner, calm as a cucumber yet surely a million and one things to tick off the to-do list that day! We drove the same way that Carolyn had taken us a couple of nights ago, toward Petaling Jaya (affectionately known as PJ), taking us up a dual carriageway leading over a hill to the east of the city, near Bukit Damansara where the new palace was.

Our first stop in PJ was a camera shop, in a shopping mall dedicated solely to selling technology - a type of mall we don't have in the UK, otherwise I'd be there all the time! After a while of searching around the shop however, and fervently urging on my mobile Internet connection to load Amazon.co.uk, I concluded that the price of camera items in Malaysia for my DSLR were actually more expensive than back home! So, we left the shop with only a couple of batteries to show for our efforts. Back in the grey 4x4, we battled the mid-morning PJ traffic toward our next destination, a facility whose basic concept I had certainly never heard of back home, and Emma was unsure even as to its viability in the UK. The destination was Jaya One, a shopping mall with a difference.

Nabila and her sister run a company called Robotics Learning (website). Its role is selling robotic products manufactured by the American corporation Vex, to schools, in the name of getting kids into programming, product design, development, and machinery. The company already employs several graduate staff, from programmers to website designers and assistants. The aim is to educate children by letting them design their own robot, be it a simple robotic grasping arm, or a fully fledged remote-controlled vehicle.

The School at Jaya One; Malaysia's first enrichment mall, for educating the people of tomorrow. The owner of The School is a philanthropist who has created this project from scratch.

Model of the Jaya One concept, including car park below and main facilities above.

Nabila and Emma with the Robotics Learning company logo, one of many enterprises given a place to retail and educate within Jaya One. The logo incidentally designed by the American penfriend of Nabila's sister Ilylia, and is entitled Roboticist. 

Where the Jaya One centre came in, was that this was an "Enrichment" Centre (which Nabila informs me meant furthering one's knowledge). It wasn't simply a shopping mall. Jaya One, also called "The School" is a huge complex, complete with car-park, situated at the heart of Petaling Jaya; when we were there many outlets were still under construction, but the ones which did exist included enterprises like the Yamaha music store, selling musical instruments but also providing musical tuition to children. The day we visited was an open-day, a promotional day, for the centre; there was loud music coming from a PA system installed on the second floor above where we'd come in, complete with hundreds of balloons displaying the centre's logo; a reception desk requiring visitors to fill out their details and email addresses to get in, in return for two vouchers (for candy floss and a drink), and a balloon on a stick. Some clever balloon artist had manufactured some giant balloon rabbits, complete with grass and flowers around them, which we posed against!

The giant balloon rabbits!

Before entering the main floor, we went to Nabila's shop, still under construction. She took us through the back door, and introduced us to her staff as we walked through. We entered the unit, a workman hammering together strips of tongue-and-groove laminate flooring. The room was a normal size for a shopping mall unit, over 10m long by 5m wide; cables hang from holes where electricity points would finally rest, and the front exit was still boarded up for final installation. A flight of stairs led up to a mezzanine level on the right from where we stood; Nabila informed us that parents would be able to sit up here, watching their children using computers below the mezzanine and programming their USB-compatible robots. We left the soon-to-be store, leaving the builders to do their work, and Nabila said thanks to them and greeted a colleague who was in charge of overseeing the construction.

We signed in, at reception, and received our vouchers, which we each took advantage of by having a huge ball of candyfloss each! Within the exhibition itself were numerous stalls selling and demonstrating their business, including craft workshops, a petting zoo with many rabbits of all different breeds running around, and of course Robotics Learning's stall, toward the left of the area. Nabila introduced us to a couple of her staff, wearing the company logo on promotional t-shirts, and showed us the products, robots and remote-controlled vehicles, all built from scratch, formed out of a metal frame similar to Meccano. Children of about 4-10 years old were milling around, holding the remote controllers in their hands and driving the footlong machines around our feet.

One of the robots, being operated by the children standing nearby!

We then went to a large area to the left of the exhibition floor, we were informed was dedicated to small marketeer startups, stalls selling all sorts from clothes to crafts to food, but run by people who wanted to make a start in the world of selling. We were introduced to Nabila's uncle running one such stall, and chatted a bit before going on to meet the rest of her family who were sitting in a coffee bar upstairs! A delicious cup of iced caramel coffee was slowly consumed whilst talking to Nabila's parents, her mum and her dad in his baseball cap, a successful businessman who played a big part in the Robotics Learning concept. Coffee finished, and in the middle of a tremendous thunderstorm outside, we left the centre, along with Ilylia, Nabila's sister, with the aim of dropping Emma and me at the KL Sentral train station as it was by now far beyond the time we had originally planned to get to the Concorde Inn KLIA for our second of three visits there.

Once in the car, however, the storm still raging outside the multistorey carpark, we decided to have a quick look at KL Central Marketplace, because we hadn't been there yet, and Emma fancied having a look around and seeing some of the clothes for sale there, particularly sarongs and batik items. The Central Marketplace has been open since 1888, according to the sign on its door, meaning its existence since the British ruled Malaya; it is a couple of minutes' walk from Jalan Petaling, i.e. the Chinatown district, and is a two-floor building, completely covered market. Its blue exterior houses a brightly coloured, sensory explosion of cultural diversity; on entering, we were greeted with an Indian-themed street to the left, selling traditional Indian clothing; straight ahead a central corridor had fruit and sweet stalls, and branching off this further eateries and outlets for fashion, materials, craft, jewellery, and anything you can imagine. We took a flight of dark wooden stairs up to the next level, and Emma browsed the scarves and sarongs of the various stalls, being gently questioned by Nabila and Ilylia - "which one do you like best?". Emma, after what I concluded was about an aeon of browsing, chose some form of garment which my limited knowledge of clothing identified as "clothing, potentially green", and to her delight, the two sisters purchased it for her!

Photobombed by a man holding up the doorway; Emma and me outside the entrance to KL Central Market, established 1888.

Downstairs now, in the marketplace, amidst the smells of the sweets and foods on sale, passing by several seating areas for cafes, the sisters suggested to us that we try durian sweets from a store covered wall-to-wall with a huge selection of sweets and snack food. Yes, DURIAN SWEETS! With trepidation, I went ahead; Emma refrained. To my surprise it was a lovely taste! It appears that durians get everywhere, and even in sweets and crisps. I'm not sure if there are durian flavoured drinks, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were. Leaving the marketplace, and getting back into the car, Emma remarked how delightful it was to now share a car with three people having had durian sweets, to her, smelling as if we'd all sat there and munched on a few onions!

The next and final stop for the four of us, well, two of us really, was the sprawling KL Sentral station complex, a few minutes drive away from the marketplace. On the way Nabila mentioned that she had to be at a wedding of a friend early the next day, not as late as she'd hoped but instead something like 9am! She was a responsible member of the wedding party, and her friend needed her presence! No rest this weekend for her.

After making a complete lap of the station to find the entrance, Emma and I said a very hearty and grateful farewell, sad to leave Nabila, her sister and a lovely city. We headed for the KLIA Ekspres train gates, and after boarding the train which eventually arrived, with about 30 others on the platform, we watched the lights and buildings of KL disappearing into the night behind us, and waited patiently, the familiar dramatic drumbeat of the videoscreen adverts playing in the background over the sound of the electric motors driving the train forwards to the south, past Putrajaya and the hills which we knew were there but couldn't be seen in the dark, and onwards toward the island of light that was KL International Airport. Inserting our purple chipcards into the gates at the end, we ascended to the 1st floor and descended the other side of the concourse to await the white Concorde Inn KLIA minibus at Door 3 in the covered vehicle drop off area of the main terminal building. Final day in KL over, we had a small snack at the bar after checking in, and headed off to bed after a single game of pool!

Blog 4: 17th April 2014. Caves, palaces and more makan

Makan makan!

The next day in KL started with a traditional Malay breakfast in the spacious hotel dining room on the marble-lined ground floor, to the right hand side as we emerged from the marble lifts, our friendly and impeccably dressed hotel porter greeting us with good morning and us back with "selamat pagi!". He wore all black, and indeed long-sleeved shirt, a traditional Muslim attire with gold decor both sides of the button strip at the front, buttons covered by black cotton. His collar was a plain band, more like a priest's than a waiter's. On his head he wore a traditional Malay cap, a smart circular item with subtle gold decoration, but with straight sides gently tapering up to a flat top.

Walking across the spacious lobby past the black marble check-in and concierge desks on the right we approached the two girls serving the breakfast check-in counter, signing two people (dua) for room 1103 (bilik satu satu kosong tiga). We were ushered to our place to the left of the restaurant, next to its towering glass walls, overlooking a pretend waterfall flowing over concrete-formed authentic-looking rocks, about 3m tall and 4m wide. The waterfall flowed into a huge water feature, filled with huge fish of all varieties, like goldfish and catfish. I remarked that the goldfish must be huge because of the warm weather - Emma remarked that this was probably only part of the picture! An Indian-Malay waiter swiftly arrived at our table, dressed in a smart olive green shirt and a black tie, but without a cap, and took our tea order. We then rose to collect some fruit juices from the open counter, and a plate each of a choice of varieties of melons and fresh fruits from the huge selection counter, a well-lit marble affair stretching about 4m in length. We ate this fresh mixture before going for the main breakfast course!

The fish outside the restaurant window, large not just because of the heat (yeah right!)!

The restaurant served a huge range of foods from many cultures, the food served either side of an aisle just in front of the kitchens which lined the wall just to the right of the restaurant entrance, and formed of a marble island to the left. To the right nearest the door it was serving traditional English foods like hash browns, eggs, bacon, sausages. To the left were more selections of fruit, and a cereal and milk selection, as well as a selection for the Chinese including noodles and noodle dishes. Further down the aisle were more traditional Malay dishes, to the right a chef stood making roti canai, the best description of which is "flying pancakes" - a ball of flour and oil about 3" in diameter is repeatedly squashed against an oily surface by the cook, until it is about the size of a small pizza, at which point he picks it up from one edge and flings it around in a circular fashion, eventually stretching the dough until it is a couple of feet in diameter and about a millimetre thick! They then fold it multiple times, trapping air between each layer, into a square shape about 8" wide. This is then placed on a hot oil surface and fried until crispy and golden brown. You can ask to have an egg roti canai, where egg is spread across the roti's surface just before it is folded. We chose a plain roti each, and took this on a plate to a circular counter at the end of the aisle (also black marble!) upon which stood about ten silver domes covering a variety of Malay dishes, from types of rice to chicken, lamb, vegetable and other varieties of what would best be described as curries. Roti is eaten with these dishes and the sauces from them, so we chose a good selection of each and I sprinkled a bit of sugar over mine, before we returned to the table. To our amusement when we returned, our table had been completely cleared of the remaining fruit juices and tea, complete with teapot - we must have spent too long away! A very flummoxed waiter arrived quite quickly, incredibly apologetically, and we laughed with him but still ordered another pot of tea!

First delicious breakfast complete, we headed back upstairs and, flicking briefly through the morning's New Straits Times newspaper that we'd found hanging on our doorknob in a light cotton black bag marked "newspaper", we readied ourselves to go and explore the gardens to the south of the KLCC twin towers, before Nabila arrived. We took the same path to get to KLCC as we had done before, that is, across the pavement before the hotel and out to the left, seeing the same two homeless women still perched on a low wall outside the building site just down the road. We hugged the building site by hanging a left down a side road just before the green and silver Petronas headquarters, heading directly to the park and fountains of the KLCC complex. The first thing of the well-designed landscape which caught our eye was the tremendous water features, scores of coordinated waterspouts firing vertically and in some cases, at angles, from a sweeping pond feature overlooked by the many levels of the Suria KLCC shopping centre, its two straight magnolia wings hugging the concreted area around the fountain, the glass of the central restaurant area forming the central piece between the two wings. A very wide set of low concrete stairs led to a series of glass doors announcing the entrance to the air-conditioned shopping centre. Emma and I took a perch on a couple of low steps surrounding the pond, to admire the fountains and soak up a bit of the nearly mid-day sun. The breeze off the water was cooling, but we were still sweating buckets under the fierce intensity of the light from our nearest and dearest star. We noted two classes of uniformed children trundling through the fountains, from the direction of the shopping centre, probably upper primary school-aged and all wearing blue polo shirts emblazoned with 'Selangor' - the Malaysian state surrounding the Federal Territory of KL to the south, west and north.

After a couple of minutes we got up from our oven, having watched the many combinations of the fountains displaying their programming in front of us; we headed to the left, toward a large concrete stepped terrace sitting behind a flat area, surely for use by shows or displays that might be put on there from time to time. We climbed them, entering a sparsely forested and grassy area, penetrated by footpaths. The higher ground allowed us a better view over the fountains and their ponds toward the main building complex; to the other side of the high ground a large (and indeed, unexpected) swimming pool shone azure blue in the bright sunlight, dotted with a few swimmers and paddlers, and even boasted a couple of water slides. A third pond lay to the right of the swimming pool, and was connected to it via a water outflow complete with mini-weir, and the main body of water with the fountains by a few water channels, over which a silver-railinged arched concrete pedestrian bridge passed, which we now headed for. We battled our way through a crowd of Chinese tourists taking selfies and family photographs from the photogenic location atop the arched bridge, complete with their mini umbrellas to shade them from the harsh sunlight, and after taking a couple of selfies and panoramic shots ourselves, headed on from the bridge and turned to the left, away from the buildings and hubbub into a quieter area of the KLCC park, and found to our surprise a strip of red and green athletics track, labelled as being 1 mile long, terminating with some superfluous anti-bicycle barriers, in that the track was not fenced-off from the concrete pathway running next to it! We walked the whole circumference of the track, stopping to admire the flower gardens outside various skyscrapers such as that of the Exxon corporation, before returning to where we'd started.

We headed back to the hotel lobby via our 11th floor room to freshen up, to await the arrival of Nabila, who was going to take us around some more hotspots of KL again, poor thing, starting first with the famous Hindu site of worship, the Batu Caves, sharing the same name as a nearby river, Sungai Batu (batu meaning rock). This highly important Hindu shrine was dedicated to Lord Murugan, and served as a focal point in Malaysia for the festival of Thaipusam early each year. Nabila arrived in her grey 4x4 under the imposing awning at the front of the hotel, and we set off past the twin towers and out toward the caves. Thankfully the traffic was lighter today! She had been up until ungodly hours doing work, for an upcoming promotional event we would attend a couple of days later held at an education centre. Nabila took us up Jalan Ampang again, and headed out of the city to the north, over the muddy red River Klang which flowed through the city centre from the west, a totally managed river channel, basically left unceremoniously to flow by itself through giant concrete ditches, covered in graffiti and silt. Apparently many of the city's homeless took residence in these concrete ditches, and were severely affected by the annual floodwaters of monsoon season. While the residents of KL take pride in their city, apparently they have no such interest in its water features unlike the likes of the Seine, the Rhine or indeed the Thames. 

Spelunking

At some point of the journey on the dual carriageway to the caves, we found ourselves paralleling a new development which was to be KL's next major transit system, an extension of the KTM/LRT train network. I could tell we were nearing the caves as the terrain was becoming increasingly hilly, the buildings reducing in density and trees beginning to emerge in the open spaces. Then around a corner to the left of us, amidst a sudden appearance of brightly painted ornate religious symbolism of monkeys, golden arches and snakes very typical of Hinduism, we saw a tree-covered outcrop of rocks, easily 200m tall and stretching for several miles in either direction to the left of us. The rocks were grey, sedimentous forms, with huge overhangs and vertical columns formed from millennia of stalactites and stalagmites joining together thanks to the regular heavy rainfall in the area. There were dozens of black caverns within the rock structures, huge caves stretching unknown distances back into the limestone cliff; into one such black hole, a huge staircase rose, complete with two handrails down the middle of it, and from the road we could see dots of people ascending and descending the huge structure. Nabila said there were well over 200 steps to the top, and the area was covered with monkeys ready to steal peanuts, sweets and drinks from the hundreds of unsuspecting tourists milling about the area! 

Standing proudly in front of the staircase, and the second most prominent feature of the attraction, stood an enormous solid figure, that of Lord Murugan, painted metallic gold, brightly coloured against the grey and green background of the mountain behind. Dwarfing even the staircase, with milling tourists appearing like models before him, he stood bolt upright, with a peaceful look on her face, topped with a golden cap looking a bit like a spinning top. The god was decorated with immense golden necklaces and bracelets, and wore traditional flowing trousers down to his bare feet. In his right arm he held a giant spade, its blade level with his head decorated with symbolism and supported by a lean staff which reached down to the ground, terminating in a golden ball, itself easily a metre in diameter. The figure was propped up against an upturned golden horseshoe structure, intricately decorated with countless numbers of flowers. 

Murugan, the deity to whom the cave shrine is dedicated, standing proudly against the backdrop of the huge staircase and limestone caves

Nabila parked the car close to the entranceway to the staircase, across a potholed carpark with faded yellow and blue parking markings. We exited, and adjusting to the blast of heat from the near mid-day sun, albeit slightly overcast, as well as avoiding the open sewers, we crossed from the carpark to a pedestrianised area lined with many small wooden, open-fronted shops selling fresh coconuts, makan, and of course tourist souvenirs. Already visible were dozens of grey monkeys of all ages milling around, both sitting down in the middle of the paths, completely tame, or seen walking easily along the crests of the rooftops and sitting on chimneys, poles, or whatever perches they could find. We passed through the ornate entryway to the staircase, a highly decorated traditional Hindu styled set of archways and shrines set atop a set of four light blue columns, serving as much as a crowd control measure as well as a point of entry. Apparently during the festival of Thaipusam, these caves and the surrounding area are basically one heaving mass of pilgrims to the site!

We looked up the steep, concrete and narrow-stepped staircase, ascending at a near 1:1 angle straight up to the caves, only turning slightly as it reached nearer the mouth of the complex itself. It made you feel tired just looking at it! Emma was soon to do the Three Peaks Challenge in June with some of the cast and crew from HMP Bure, having signed up to do so in a moment of sheer craziness, and we jested that this would be good practise for it! There were at least a hundred other people dotted about the staircase, at varying stages of ascent or descent, kids and adults alike, interspersed with many monkeys and indeed families of monkeys, dotted around the staircase and taking up tactical positions atop lampposts, handrails and posts on the way up. Praying to all the gods we could think of, the three of us started the long and steep climb, stopping occasionally to let our poor calf muscles release their lactic acid buildup!

Incredibly we all made it to the top without so much as a coronary or blackout, calves burning, hearts pumping and lungs starving for oxygen. More impressively none of us were mugged or even approached by our furry simian friends. Not yet anyway!! Emma and I branched off to the left, just before the cave entrance, on the advice of Nabila, toward a secondary cave system ominously titled the "Dark Cave". It was accessible through a rough concrete path, worn down by years of trampling and heavy rain; to its left was a storm gutter, covered in plant growth and containing many years of discarded crisp wrappers and drinks cans. The path hugged the cliff face, and turned to the right, first consisting of a dozen rough cut steps and then sweeping to the right and heading back upwards, rounding the corner toward a huge hole in the cliff face, with steep sides meeting the floor at an angle of about 70 degrees. Further back in the Dark Cave were a row of hard hats and a ticket desk, with about a dozen tourists waiting on a bench behind a piece of rope slung across two bollards, all awaiting a tour of the system. We only really had time for a selfie, so this was achieved before heading back to Nabila and the main caves.

Cheeky! A couple of monkeys waiting for loose bags of peanuts to snatch from unsuspecting tourists.

Nabila opted not to follow us into the main cave system, having been there numerous times with previous tourists! The main cave, its towering roof already overhanging above us at the top of the main flight of stairs, was accessed by a further flight of about twenty stairs, this time far both in terms of the steps themselves and the width of the whole flight. These led to a pavement section, about 30 yards square, at either side of which stood a couple of souvenir and drinks/ice-cream stalls, and oddly, a shop selling remote controlled helicopters. Futuristic temple! Now actually within the mouth of the cave, we looked back and saw the panorama of north KL stretching out in front of us, the twin towers gleaming in the distance and the telecoms tower visible some way away from them, separated by the white and grey colours of the skyscrapers and industry between them.

The main cave was enormous, easily the size of St Paul's Cathedral. Its high roof was barely visible in the dim lighting, even though a couple of natural skylights filtered small amounts of light into the arena. The floor of the cave was flat and concreted, with some areas of thicker material forming tiny hillocks from years of constant sediment-laden water dripping down onto the cement from the roof. Water flowed down quite heavily in some places, and a few stalagmites (stalactites cling TIGHTLY to the roof; stalagmites MIGHT reach them one day) protruded upwards in some places. The walls of the cave contained numerous small shrines to various gods, some relatively new and brightly coloured, others ancient, crumbling and faded. All showed the blackened and worn areas of countless thousands of tourists and pilgrims having touched them for good luck or to pay respects to their deities. A cockerel crowed somewhere in the cave, its crow echoing hauntingly from all the walls. The high-pitched yet quiet squeaking sound of hundreds of bats was just about audible, though only every now and then would you catch a glimpse of these elusive nocturnal animals flying high up in the craggy cave roof.

Spot the bats? Neither can I - this is a hybrid long-exposure shot! Good try though.

We walked deeper into the cave, approaching a huge skylight at the end. Another staircase greeted us, this time steeper and with even smaller steps, with only a concrete wall running up the middle of it at about hip-height to hold on to and prevent the surely injurious fall to the bottom, should one lose one's footing on the worn and wet concrete surface. Getting nearer the stairs our jaws nearly dropped as, many many metres above our heads, the cave roof opened up into a massive skylight, surrounded on all sides by trees clinging to the rocks as if by magic. The skylight filtered a strange blue-hued light into the end of the main cave, and water dropping down from small rivulets carrying old surface runoff from previous rains took about five seconds to hit the ground below. We climbed the stairs, amidst similarly wide-eyed visitors wealding DSLRs and mobile phone cameras, and after about 30 steps found ourselves on yet another plateau, this time circular and about a hundred metres across. Just off to the left hand side of it stood another shrine, this time a modern building covering numerous beds of incense sticks smoking before statuettes of gods, goddesses and golden religious figures. The far left of the platform consisted of a shallower segment of wall, leading up in a sort of tunnel to yet another figurine sitting calmly in the shadows. A couple more cockerels crowed to the right of the plateau, just beneath an iron railing marking the edge of a raised concrete platform, now dilapidated, but having served some use in the past or maybe during religious festivals. We took a slow walk back out of the caves the only way possible, i.e., the same way that we'd entered, and stopping to buy three ice lemon teas (probably the best drink in the world ever, in such a hot country especially), we started the descent down the main flight of stairs in search of waiting Nabila, narrowly avoiding being mugged by an incredibly brazen monkey whilst I attempted to phone our energetic friend who was by now waiting at the bottom of the stairs, due to the large amount of monkeys targeting stationary individuals! Stopping a couple of times to take photographs of monkey families, but this time far more cautiously guarding our ice lemon teas, and definitely not placing them in back pockets. And so ended our tour of the Batu Caves - well worth a visit!!

Feeling Royal

We skipped lunchtime makan, none of us feeling particularly hungry, and our next stop from the caves was the new national palace, or istana negara. It was situated within the Bukit Damansara district, bukit being the Malay word for hill or place of high stature. This was quite central in KL, slightly to the northwest of the centre of the city. The palace had a huge dual carriageway leading up to a car park and tiled pavement spread out before its main gates, we noted a couple of tourist coaches parked up in the car park on the left. Nabila dropped Emma and me off to approach the palace gates over the mosaic tiles of the pavement while she went and parked the car. Looking behind us, we could see the avenue leading to the palace from which we'd just arrived, lined with streetlamps bearing huge royal banners and the words Daulat Tuanku - long live the King.

The closed twin main gates of the palace were ornately decorated gold and black metal structures, easily 4m tall by 8m wide. They each bore the crest of the Royal family in their centres, and were situated within a huge concrete and marble white and gold archway, three times taller than the gates, the lower parts of which were covered with polished dark grey marble tiles. Within the walls surrounding the gate and arch, themselves topped by golden domes, and their bases inset with peaked arches within which stood both armed policemen and mounted guards on two white horses, one each either side of the gates. Beyond the gates you could see the massive, symmetrical, sprawling palace set atop a green hill, its white walls coming to a gradual peak topped by a giant golden dome, bearing a large golden spike at its zenith. We did the touristy thing of taking photographs of each other at various positions along the wall, and indeed in front of the horse and its mounted guard, before heading back to the car across the grand pavement and moving on to our next destination.

The (New) National Palace, or Istana Negara, sitting atop Bukit Damansara.

From the palace we travelled southeast towards the centre of KL, and saw the familiar white front of the old central station passing to our right, with its dozens of arches and solitary bell tower, before turning left at the end of the road it was on. This took us past the national mosque, which passed us on the right hand side; we noted numerous stalls selling water and nibbles along the pavement outside the mosque; across the road from it there stood grand-looking buildings of some major law courts, and what looked like the headquarters of a major TV company, with a nearby building sporting the Al-Jazeera logo. In the daylight we could see the mosque had an intricately decorated exterior, a sort of meshwork of petals formed from hollow concrete bricks, and large white corrugated concrete roof suspended on black pillars. The mosque has a capacity of 15,000 worshippers, and was opened in 1965. At its centre protruded a shallow-angled broad pyramid-like blue roof, apparently a 16-point star when viewed from above. Towering skywards from the mosque's low-lying structure to one corner, a huge square white minaret emerged from the mosque, terminating in a sharp point. A pair of giant loudhalers could be seen at the top of the minaret, as will all mosques in Malaysia, used to call the Muslims to prayer 5 times a day. As we passed these buildings, we could see large directional signs intended for tourists, with arrows to the points of interest around here, including the KL Bird Park, Butterfly Park, Planetarium, Mosque and the Islamic Art Gallery, which is where we were now headed.

A modern building, bright white and very rectangular, the Islamic Art Gallery had an unassuming appearance, save for four huge golden domes placed in a square pattern upon its roof. We parked up to the rear of the building, further up the road away from the station and masjid negara, and walked along its exterior to find its entrance, signified by high glass panels enclosing a pure white, polished marbled atrium behind. Descending stairs to enter, this apparently being the side-door and not even the main entrance according to a guard on the door, and descending another flight to the ticket desks, we bought three tickets to browse the museum of art. Cameras not allowed, our tickets permitted us to browse the modern Islamic art gallery downstairs, its theme being calligraphy, and we marvelled at the dozens of huge, brightly painted uniquely patterned canvases hanging from the labyrinthine walls of the display hall, all of which contained original Arabaic script in a stunning combination of effort, art and geometry.

Upstairs in the museum, accessible via a long zig-zagging concrete ramp to the edge of the glass-walled atrium, we browsed a gallery of objects of Malaysian heritage, stretching back to the days when the indigenous people had spilled out of India and the surrounding countries to the north, inhabiting the Malay peninsula; artefacts from battles and peacetime alike filled the upstairs two rooms of the museum, items of traditional royal clothing and coins, with pearl-coated chairs and cots and thrones thrown in for good measure. The ceiling of the museum contained the insides of the vast golden domes outside; each dome was painted in a unique intricate and colourful pattern, resembling something you'd see from a well-designed spirograph.

The intricately decorated interior of one of the four golden domes of the Islamic Art Gallery

Before we returned to the hotel for the evening to await meeting Carolyn and Cindy at 7pm, and after my phoning the 3-UK customer service desk and telling the Indian lady on the phone "I am abroad - in a different country", much to Emma's and Nabila's amusement, we just had time to visit a craft centre in KL, selling tourist memorabilia in the form of traditional woven baskets, insects set into glass, clothes, jewellery and postcards. During the journey, whilst still in the downtown district of KL, we passed a building shaped like a cylinder, squeezed in the middle. It consisted of grey glass, and white concrete lines forming the outside supports. Nabila commented that this building contained offices responsible for registering Muslims for pilgrimages to Mecca.

The downstairs of the wooden and thatched craft centre boasted some small craft huts, making things like wooden carvings (the smallest, thumb-sized items selling for as much as RM500 each!), weaving, and even Batik cloth, famous in this part of the world for its dazzling colours and light cotton material. Batik (pronounced bat-ache) is made by stretching out a piece of fabric and drawing lines on it with hot wax to delineate objects such as flowers, animals, or abstract shapes. These delineated regions are then exposed to water-based dye, brushed on by a skilled operator, the dye and water allowed to flow and blend with other dyes within the waxed-off region to make a graduated solid colour. Once all the regions are completed, the piece resembling a stained-glass window, the wax is melted off during the washing process and pure white lines of thin exposed material are left separating the brightly coloured dyed regions, forming stunning colours and designs.

An example of carefully crafted, brightly coloured Batik cloths

After purchasing some postcards and some typically tourist keyrings (kjur-ings, according to Emma) we headed for Habib, a jewellery shop recommended to us by Nabila's mum, to see if where was any 22ct (91.6% pure) gold that might be worth buying! In England you'd be lucky to get 22ct gold, certainly most jewellers don't stock it, and Malaysian gold prices are very good.

Nightlife in Chinatown

My cousins Carolyn and Cindy arrived to pick us up from the hotel, both them and us having battled the rush-hour traffic on Jalan Ampang to get there. Carolyn was driving her new model grey Proton Saga, rear seatbelt buckles still boasting their protective wrapping, as seems to be the case with many a Malaysian's car! We departed to the west, taking us very slowly past the twin towers, now lit up from the inside and outside. Debating where to take us, Carolyn aimed for KL's Chinatown district, otherwise known as Petaling Street (Jalan Petaling). Finding that their originally planned place to go was not open, she perused the area and finally found an underground car park, enough room for about 20 vehicles, and we walked to the main street of the area. Jalan Petaling and its area was brightly lit and decorated by hundreds of red and yellow lanterns criss-crossing the streets, hanging from cables like Christmas lights. The place was buzzing, a veritable hive of activity, with hundreds of small stalls selling all products from Prada shoes to Rolex watches, all at suspiciously too-good-to-be-true knock off prices of about RM30 - about ₤5, complete with Chinese and Malay merchants beckoning the unsuspecting tourists to buy buy buy! 

Swarms of people of all races populated the noisy street, one avenue of which was actually covered by glass panels to ward off any passing storms; the whole area had an aroma of cooking chestnuts and spicy food, with the occasional strong whiff from the open sewers and the occasional pong from a durian stall carried by the warm breeze. Carolyn, who had on an incredible, brightly coloured traditional Chinese long dress, took us all to a restaurant at the end of the main strip that she had been to before with her partner Alvin a few times; it was an open-fronted affair with overhanging corrugated iron roof, supported by a couple of wooden pillars at either end. About a dozen round and square plastic tables, some red and some white, were spread across its courtyard, populated by diners eagerly munching their noodles and rice from brightly coloured plastic dishes and sipping on ice lemon teas through straws. The kitchen of the place would not have exactly earned it a 5 on the British food-rating scale, probably not even a 1 to be honest; the place was simply a concrete room with dingy lighting, a "kitchen" to the back consisting of a couple of gas stoves and massive cauldrons, with a few frying pans sitting on hobs. All the equipment was coated black with soot and oil from years of use. It didn't really bear thinking about. The waiter arrived within 5 seconds of us sitting down, ready to take our food order already. Traditional British waiting requires at least a 10 minute window of deliberation from the newly arrived guests; Chinese waiting style doesn't really deserve the word "wait" at all! Emma and I perused the laminated menu thrust into our hands but could not come up with any decision, so we left it up to my two cousins instead. Drinks order consisted of a Coke Light for Emma, and I had a cold fruit tea that Carolyn had recommended to me. 

The "waiter" arrived minutes after our order with a selection of colourful plastic spoons, chopsticks and bowls, and a bowl of very hot water; Before I could ask why, Carolyn had already started washing the chopsticks and cutlery in the hot water, before distributing them among the four of us! I would never have thought of doing that, and would probably have given myself Bubonic Plague in the process. Thanks for saving our lives Carolyn!

No idea what to order! The four of us at the restaurant on Jalan Petaling, with the selection of food chosen by Cindy and Caroline.

Once we had eaten our main meal, mainly consisting of a selection of three types of noodles and a multitude of flavours based around fish and chicken, we got up and walked along Petaling street for a bit before the car was shut into the carpark which was due to close at 10pm. The girls suggested we buy a coconut to drink, Emma never having tasted fresh coconut water let alone held the huge, immature green seed pod before, so this is what we did, before leaving for the car via a local newsagent to buy the something similar to Gaviscon, on Carolyn's advice, in case our stomach couldn't handle the street food! Luckily, this was not needed.

Our first proper coconut. Simply slice it several times with an axe to pop off the top, drop in a few ice cubes and stick in a straw. The seasoned professionals at the stall can do this in a couple of seconds. Tourists need not apply - unless you want to go to A&E. A pint of fresh coconut water awaits, and you can scoop the juicy and succulent flesh from the interior walls as you go.

From Jalan Petaling Carolyn kindly decided to drive us in the opposite direction to our hotel, and toward where she lived, to let us taste some of the Far East's most polarizing fruit in terms of opinions of taste, the Durian, so called "King of Fruits". Cindy's university campus was also in this direction, Petaling Jaya, so we headed west along the toll-road connecting it to KL for about 20 minutes, passing through ornate gantries announcing our departure from the Federal Territory of KL and arrival into the neighbouring state of Selangor. After a bit of hunting around, and remembering directions and phoning friends, we finally found ourselves pulling up to some small eateries, brightly lit and still filled with people. Our arrival here was itself an assault on the senses - despite the air conditioning in the car set to recirculate the air, the ammonious odour of the durian was easily smelt in the car, sort of a cross between rotting vegetable matter and chopped onion. Piles of the fruit were then seen stacked high on racks and standing alone throughout three stalls announcing via huge advertising banners "all you can eat durian" and "a-la-carte durian from RM9 per person" - they sold NOTHING other than these fruits, and yet were still busy! The stalls were in a row, at the back end of a marketplace within the "SS2" district of Petaling Jaya, just off a main road along which stood brightly lit shops and hotel fronts. Plastic tables and chairs greeted us as we approached, the diners being cooled by huge fans wafting atomized clouds of water over them as they ate. We took a seat, Carolyn and Cindy going to order a durian for the four of us to try. It arrived, already cut by a skilled axe-wealding waiter.

The durian is a green fruit, about the size of a honeydew melon, but covered in inch-long spikes which hurt to touch, let alone hold. It grows on trees, scattered throughout Malaysia, and is harvested in great numbers later on in the year. Whilst its harsh exterior does not scream "eat me!", peeling open the fruit with an axe or sharp knife reveals soft white flesh, guarding the seeds themselves; the seeds are covered in a layer of orange/yellow pulp, and this is the tasty bit. The pulp has the texture of custard, and is covered in a soft membrane much like custard skin after leaving it out for too long. You more suck the pulp off the large central stone, as opposed to biting through it. As soon as you do so though, if you can brave the olfactory slaughter first, you are bombarded with an immense cacophony of flavours and smells right from the off. I personally thought it was delicious, if incredibly sickly sweet; a ridiculous mixture of apple, melon, banana and onion, with a strange hint of lime. All Emma could taste, however, was onion. Between the four of us, Cindy and I ate the majority of the fruit, Emma making her way through one portion of pulp before being overpowered! Carolyn also made a valiant effort. We threw away the husks and stones into a bin provided, before washing our hands thoroughly with water and tissue provided, and Carolyn's thoughtfully brought baby wipes! The whole tasting experience cost only RM27, or just over a fiver. I'd happily do it again!

Durian! God help you if it falls on your head. The yellow flesh is the tasty bit.

Before we returned to the hotel, Carolyn dropped off Cindy at her dorms at the University of Malaya, the first university founded within Malaysia, which at the time was called Malaya, while it was still a part of the British Empire. It was formed in 1949, and is a collegiate type university, all on the one campus which boasts a large central lake and even a hill, offering courses to bumiputras (the native Malay population) and Chinese students, ranging from accounting (Cindy's course) to engineering and even medicine. The campus was huge, Cindy pointing out the different student dorms and the lecture halls, sports complexes and various amenities, even though it was dark. Students were still milling around, and some of the sports pitches were still lit up and in use. We dropped Cindy off at her dormitory at the far end of campus, before heading back to KL and being dropped off in our hotel by Carolyn. Emma would not see these two again during her remaining stay in Malaysia; I hoped to see them at least once more, likely in Kota Bharu, before leaving for England in just under two months time.