May 7th, 2006 - Entrapment Revisited

We left Malaka after the Dutch ship museum and a quick zip through the histrical quarters and then it was on the bus to Kuala Lumpur (KL). We arrived early in the afternoon and through the scortching heat finally found a decent backpackers to call home for a few days. Shopping and eating are two of the Malaysian cultures favorite things to do, hence it was no surprise that there were tons of street vendors for fresh food and markets and shopping centres. Every day and night we would hit a new food court and with the fusion of Chinese, Indian and Malaysian cuisines there was always quite a selection. Laure and I always stuck out like a sore thumb, because we'd never now whether to help oursleves to the buffet or sit and be served and although communicating to well educated information agents and travel guides, trying to get the locals to understand is a whole other battle. It's hard enough trying to get a size, price and meat type let alone trying to figure out if its spicy or not for Laure's sensitive tastebuds. That afternoon we dropped by the tourist center and were informed that it would rain from 4-7 every night for the next few days. This was not a normal occurance just freak luck. It didn't dampen our spirits though (get it dampen...?), we just stuck to the Monorail and shopping complexes instead.

The next day we headed off early to the Petronas Twin Towers with the Skybridge. We signed up for a 2:00 tour and then headed accross town to the KL Tower and little india. The KL tower was a SE Asia version of the CN tower and although the view was nice, it was just an expensive tourist attraction and was not very personalized - waste of time. After a quick bite it was off to Petronas and man were they cool. Not only was admission free but they provided a documentary of the history and building specifications of the towers all of which proved extremely facsinating. They had a little museum with Tesla control for mock lightening storm demonstrations and other neat little giniky exhibits. The Skybridge visit was 15 minutes to explore and the view was equally breathtaking as the top of the KL tower. That afternoon we met up with a friend of ours from McGill who lives in KL. She took us to a local coffe shop ad we caught up on current events for the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening..she insisted that we stay another day and that we stay with her and her parents.

The next morning we did a short day trip from KL to the Batu Caves - a hindu shrine built into some massive open caves. Without knowing what to expect, we were really impressed by the grandeur of the Hindu monuments and staircase to the entry of the cave. There were wild monkeys roaming the caves and they were notorius little thieves, stealing several bags of fruit from Hindu women and children ready to make their offerings. Some of them had obviously acquired a taste foor sweets and one of them was even drinking from a soda can after pulling out the straw. We met up with Joanna on her home turf and met her parents. They have a lovely home on the outskirts of KL and were overly generous and hospitable people. Joanna and us went out for dinner at an indian donation restaurant. No prices just whatever you can afford to give for an educational indian buffet. The food was great and before rolling back to the house we stopped by a trendy night club strip and popped into a shisha bar for a couple of drinks before bed.