Koala Limpar

I have arrived in the city, and it is a welcome mix of bustle and relaxation....the relaxation part is that i am on the 12 floor of the Hilton hotel in KL, and am enjoying the pampering very much.

Upon leaving the airport though, I instantly felt as if the more relaxed nature of Langkawi has been replaced by the drive to make money. That is city living I suppose. When I enquired about a taxi fair from the airport to the hotel i was told it would be 60 Ringgits (about £10) and this was a major shock, as i had got used to travelling across Langkawi for only 20 Ringgits.

To be fair though, I did not really appreciate how far out KLIA (airport) is from the city. The taxi ride was a good 40 minutes drive and he was going some too! The whole layout of the city seems to be geared around creating space and as such everyone is considerably less stressed than their London counterparts.

After i checked in to the hotel, I thought I would make the most of my day in Koala Lumbar by popping up the KL tower. This really was quite impressive as I was about a 1000ft up in the air. From this vantage point, i could also see the Petronas towers, so i took a few snaps of the city from this vantage point.
The Petronas towers, as seen from the KL tower. It just goes to show how high up this thing was!! Apparently it is the 5th highest observation point in the world. For reference, all the other buildings around it are normal skyscrapers.

At the bottom of the tower is a patch of jungle in the middle of the city, which has been preserved, rather than just hacked down in the name of commercialism. There was a free tour of this, so i went along and met a few fellow Europeans - the Swedes on the tour, being fair haired, took the brunt of the mosquito attacks, which was a welcome relief, as i had forgotten my can of Hoffmeister!! This was a short but nice tour, we saw monkeys, which the tour guide seemed wholly unimpressed by, but us Europeans were snapping away like Japanese tourists. Then at the end of the tour, the guide excitedly pointed to the distance proclaiming that there was a dog. I took a token snap to make her feel better, but it was soon deleted.

The monkey is nicknamed by the guide as David Beckham, because he has a Mohawk hairdo a la Becks. See made a joke that the monkey could not play football, and was not impressed with my comment that "neither can Beckham".

After that i walked down to the Petronas tower, which houses a shopping mall the likes of which i have never seen - think of the size of Lakeside, but on 6 levels. It has every shop imaginable, and quite a few that i could not have dreamed of. Every single designer store you can think of was in there (even Marks and Sparks); Louis Vitton, Christian Dior, Rolex, Paul Smith, Gucci, Armani, Chanel to name but a few - Lets just say i know a few people who might blow their bank accounts if they ever got here!! :D
Unfortunately i could not get up the Petronas Tower, as it was too late, but to be honest, I have heard that the observation deck is not as high as the one on the KL tower, so I don't think I have missed out on that much.

Tomorrow morning I head off by train to Singapore. It is an early start, but should mean I get in to Singapore by early afternoon, so I can do a bit of mooching around. Looking forward to travelling through the Malaysian countryside.

Speak to you all in Singapore.