KL

From Miri I flew to KL, the huge capital of Malaysia. I arrived in the afternoon and checked into my very well situated guesthouse in the Bukit Bintang (shopping district) neighborhood within 3 minutes walk of the monorail and MRT and 15 minutes walk of most major sites and districts like the golden triangle, KLCC, china town, merdeka square, and little india. The area around Bukit Bintang is very arabian and middle eastern, with a popular street called Ain Arabia. So I explored around there a bit and had a tasty lunch at an Iranian place. The women in this area go much farther than the typical malaysian women who just wear the head scarf, but here they wear the entire black outfit with only their eyes showing. There is also a big chinese hawker street Jln Alor, right next to my place that I checked out as well. After exploring my area I walked towards the Menara KL (KL tower), the 4th highest communication tower in the world. On the way I strolled through a tiny rainforest reserve in the center of KL. At menara KL I rode up to the observation deck at 277 meters or something like that for an awesome view of the city. People had told me the sunset was great up there, so I brought a book and was just waiting for it. Unfortunately the sunset never came as a huge storm rolled in, but that was very cool in itself. The rain and clouds were so thick that at times you couldn't see a thing, but then everynow and then the famous petronas twin towers or some other building was peek through for a second. It was interesting b/c the sky and city looked extra ominous from this bird's eye view and of course it's a bit frightening to be in the city's 2nd highest structure and have lightning crashing all around, though of course they obviously have lightning rods and such. When the rain cleared there was a very good view of the city at night as well. After that I walked to KLCC where the iconic and giant Petronas towers are located. They are twin towers built by a chicago company with an islamic design. Until 2000 something they were the tallest buildings in the world. At night they were quite impressive b/c the outside is all shiny steal and glass and they really light it up, so they stand out even more. They really stand out in KL b/c the city is large but doesn't have a very high density of skyscrapers. I'd say denver has more and overall taller skyscrapers, so the petronas twin towers really stand out.

The next day I got up early to go to the Indonesian embassy to get my 60 day visa for indo. I had my fake return tickets, my proof of sufficient funds, etc. Everything that I thought I had needed according to their website. When I arrived at the embassy, they wouldn't let me in; however, b/c you were required to wear shoes and long pants and a collared shirt. Great, I just had to laugh at that b/c the website made no mention of that and it was the first embassy I had been to where this was a requirement, and of course standard traveller wear in the tropics is sandals, shorts, and a t-shirt. So I went for the long walk back to the hostel to put on some pants and shoes Most of the embassies, aside from a small few are more or less downtown. The indo embassy of course was several km's out and had no mrt connecting it. Of course the walk if you just have to do it a couple of times is not big deal especially since I like walking, but now I was going to have to walk there and back at least 3 times, and KL is a very hot and sweaty city. But oh well. Got my stuff, came back to the embassy, and even talked in my shirt. The thing that cracked me up the most was that there security for the embassy involved not letting people enter who were showing too much flesh, but they had no metal detector, x-ray, or even someone looking through bags. Just very interesting to me that they were more concerned with someone showing their ankles off than any sort of bomb or what not. Completely different than the US fortress embassies I'd visited before where you even had to leave your backpack, after it was x-rayed outside in storage. Once there I filled out all the paperwork and was ready by 12:05. The embassy closes from 1-2:30 for lunch. When I went to hand in my stuff, the woman informed me I would have to come back later as they were closing for lunch. I couldn't believe this as it was only 12:05 (well 12:25 according to the clocks in the embassy), and I mentioned it to her. So I was thinking I'd have to come back again that day, but as I was packing up all my materials, one of the other women decided it was ok for me to hand in my stuff, which took all of 30 seconds to give her my photos, flight copies and passport.
The rest of the day I explored the city and did loads of walking. I walked down to china town and it's famous petaling street and some of its temples. Then I walked on to Merdeka square, which is where they raised there flag for the first time after gaining independence from England 52 years ago this august 31st. So all over the city there were lots of flags flying everywhere so that it looked a lot like the US independence day, especially since there flag is sort of a copy off ours with 13 red and white stripes to symbolize their states and then a blue square, except that instead of stars it has 1 star and a half moon, which I believe is an islamic symbol. But from a distance the flags look identical. Merdeka square has lots of old british buildings and stuff from the colonial era. After that I walked on to little india to get some tasty indian food.
The next day I took a bus 13km out of the city to Batu Niah Caves. They are these giant, though not long, caves with 200 some steps leading up to them where there is an importnant hindu shrine as well as a giant (at least 100feet high) statue of some god on the outside. 100's of thousands of hindus come on pilgrimage here everyyear, and there was quite a lot when I was there. On the return back I stopped off at lake titiwangsa before the city center to walk around it as it has nice views of the whole city skyline and is pretty quiet. Lots of school children were out for lunch and nearly everyone wanted a picture with me. I felt like a movie star with the paparazzi. Getting pretty tired of it by the end of the walk. After getting back to bukit bintang I showered and prepared myself to go back to the indonesian embassy. Another american staying there had had success getting one with his fake tickets from orbits, so I was hoping my doctored united ones would do the same. Got to the embassy...and got the visa! So that was good. After picking it up I strolled along a different route to get to the KLCC area. On the way I passed the highly guarded US embassy with the stars and stripes proudly flying way up high. Kind of felt good to see the real thing, hadn't seen one in a long time. The building was a stylish and fancy building, so I took out my camera to take a picture, but the security quickly came running over to tell me that was not ok. But I asked and they would let me wear shorts inside if I wanted. =)

A sorta ironic thing about the US embassy was that it was a mere 100m from the Iraq embassy. The only thing inbetween them was a small mercedes branch office. I didn't notice any guns pointed at each other though.

After that I went down to KLCC to visit the aquarium, which is supposedly the best one in SE asia. It was definitely pretty cool and the best part was this really long tunnel with a moving walkway if you wanted where all around you reef sharks, tiger sharks, turtles, and manta rays were swimming around. It was really pretty neat.
After that I went out to do one thing that KL is famous for, and that is shopping. Just in the bukit bintang area they had 7 huge malls (one with a roller coaster inside). Really overwhelming really. But there were two things I needed: a lonely planet book for indonesia and size 13 shoes. I figured KL would be my only chance to find big shoes as when I was looking for sandals in the other countries they never had my size. In the end I'm pretty sure that I was looking for the two hardest things in KL to find. I went to 5 big bookstores just like a borders and they were all sold out of the lonely planet. Unfortunately this usually means one thing and that is that a new edition is coming out, but I didn't have time to wait until next month of the new one to come, even though it'd be much more up to date, b/c i wasn't sure if in indonesia I could find it, since kalimantan definitely didn't have any. Luckily earlier I had randomly stepped into a fancy bookstore that had one copy and I had kind of hid it behind the Hawaii lonely planet books right next to it just in case. I didn't want to buy it here b/c the back of the book listed the price as US29 dollars, but they were charging the equivalent of US55, so I had hoped to find a better price later on, but I ended up lucky to get that one. And the shoes...I went into 6 of the malls department stores. the more local brands like power they only had sizes up to 9 or 10 and the shoes like nike, adidas, reebok, they only had up to 11. They malls also had nike, puma, adidass, shops, but they only sold the brand new and best shoes from those companies, so you were looking at 200+ US dollars for a pair of shoes, which to me I couldn't justify. The 7th mall had a pair of asics that were 13's. They fit lenght fine, but I have very wide feet and they were "asian" cut width, so they were very tight. I thought though I'd have to take those, until walking to my guesthouse I happened to pass an outlet store run by indians, who tend to be taller. They had some asics that were 13 and us sizing, so I got them.

On the 21st...Happy Birthday Bro!!! (and also to you Ashlin, if your parents are reading this), I waited in the long, long line to get a ticket to go up to the skybridge of the petronas towers. Got my ticket for 3pm and just kind of hung out and did some errands like mailing a package and such to my parents. I checked out the cool physics based museum they had for petronas which was pretty cool. They also had a big poster of the 10 highest buildings in the world. It amazed me how far advanced the US had been in building. The empire state building, built in 1931 is still in the top 10 and was the highest building until like 1974 when the sears tower in chicago were built, and that was the tallest until the wtc twin towers were built, which must have been in the the 80's (they had not mention of them in this exhibit). But since then all the tallest buildings of been in asia in places like shanghai, dubai, KL, beijing and all in the 2000's.

KL was a pretty cool city. Extremely modern and western, but of course with the asian flair. It was much, much more walkable than like bangkok and easier to explore. And of course cleaner more modern. But it's more of a ritzy type place. Where as bangkok is a backpackers haven with cheap eats, cheap markets and such, KL has nicer places to eat and is more expensive even for the street stalls and it has fancy state of the art malls with designer brands and huge fancy hotels everywhere. The backpacker scene is much quieter. It was crazy to be back in a city where I saw outback steakhouse, baskin robbins, TGIF, the north face, timberland, etc, etc. I decided of all the asian places I've been so far, this one is the best fo Aunt M, b/c although it's not much of a backpackers place, the higher end places to eat and hotels are still much cheaper than back home and the dutchess would enjoy the fancy shopping and fine dining as well.

I took the afternoon bus from KL to Melaka which was supposed to only take a couple hours, but with friday rush hours out of the city, I didn't get into melaka until after 10, so there were no busses running to the city center. Before paying the always too high for westerners taxi fare I decided to head over to the tesco superstore which was just across the street as i had found out at other tescos that they often have free shuttles to and from the city. This shuttle wasn't going anymore either, but I had asked 3 girls at the entrance who had a booth for unicef and they told me they were leaving work in about 30 minutes and heading into town to party, so I should come with them. So I headed off with them. They were all living in KL but were quite a diverse group: Aster (malay portuguese mix), Bivani (indian), and Diana (Boba nonya chinese). We went out to a couple cool bars (especially one called the geographer) with live music and some clubs and stayed out until past 4 in the morning.

Yesterday I explored around Melaka which used to be an extremely important port city and has a colorful colonial past. It was first conquered by an indonesian empire, then by the portuguese, then by the dutch, then by the british, then the japanese, then the british again. So it has lots of buildings with portuguese, british, and dutch styles as well as the typical china town and little india. I actually really liked the town b/c it is much cheaper than KL and I think better food and more character. My guesthouse is a nice and tiny place with a great owner, a nice rooftop deck, a good tv room with lots of movies (we all watched australia yesterday during the heat of the day), and a fun group of people staying there: a retired american who is here for a couple months, a dutch family on holiday, and a british couple. And then as it is the weekend, the town, especially the jonker walk in china town is bustling and full of stuff. At night there are street vendors everywhere, karaoke, and chinese line dancing going on. This is perhaps malaysia's biggest tourists destination, but mainly for malaysians, so they are out in hordes at the night fesitivities. I like it and I like the feel. Reminds me a bit of the summer weekend festivals in estes or boise where it can be more of a local feel to it. Last night, I again met the unicef girls and we went out for some more late night dancing and music. I was supposed to leave today for sumatra but decided to stay one more day b/c I like the hostel and the town so much and b/c I just know right across the strait, the cities aren't so nice at all, so I thought I'd just stay one more day.

Ramadan, the time of fasting for muslims has started here. It's not such a big deal in malaysia b/c of the high chinese population, but I'm a bit worried for indonesia as it's much more islamic and stricter as well. I might be relegated to eating only at after sundown and before sunrise with the rest of them when away from the big cities. so that should be interesting