Short stay in Kuala Lumpur

The change from George Town to Kuala Lumpur was dramatic. George Town was bustling and dirty. Kuala Lumpur is also bustling but so much cleaner (only saw one rat in KL). As coach arrived in KL early afternoon the heavens opened and the rain was torrential. The coach terminal is obviously working over capacity as for my 36 hour stay there was always a queue of coaches waiting to get in. This delay worked to my advantage as a) I didn't have to get off until the rain had eased, and b) I could work out where I was on the map and worked out that my KL guest house was only a short walk 15 minutes away.

The Green Hut Guest House turned out to be as good as the Lonely Planet said. The welcome was friendly and my room was nicely decorated and very clean as were the shared showers and toilet. The highlight of KL is the architecture. The older streets, where I was staying are broken up by towering sky scrapers; offices and hotels.

My first evening's visit was to the KL Observation Tower which is supposed to be the best view in KL. I went there about 5.30 and spent two hours looking over the city as the place went dark and the lights go on. The most notable sight is the Petronas towers, two giant temple shaped buildings with an access bridge between making them like rugby posts but too high even for Johnny Wilkinson to drop kick over.The next day I did my own walking tour of the city centre, which took about 6 hours. Highlights were the old railway station, the national war memorial, Merdaka (Independence) Square, Little India (a few streets full of Indian shops and street cafes) and the Petronas Towers with the adjoining Suria KLCC (KLCC stands for KL City Centre, but its not) shopping mall. Where I had a Starbucks coffee and bought Lonely Planet for Australia.

My main complaint about Malaysia (and probably will be more so in Singapore when I get there) is the price of beer. As it’s a Moslem country I think it's heavily taxed and I'm afraid I got used to it being cheap in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. Here it’s about one pound 30p (9 ringets) a bottle or 2 pound 60p a pint. This forces one to look for special offers such as a bucket of 6 for 50 ringets. On my second evening I installed myself at a busy bar with my six bottles and a three course meal and watched football on the TV screen (can't remember who was playing now) and excellent live blues guitarist for a sound track.