Sleep 0, KL 1

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - 30th November 2009

In a move away from the norm on this blog, I'm going to briefly adopt a writing style honed to perfection by a Miss Z. Anderson of (the original) Gotham City.

29th November 2009:

• 8.45am-9.30am: wake up, have shower, make breakfast, brush teeth, get changed, leave
• 9:45am-4.45pm: Sentosa Island (+transport) with Neha (another Pembrokian visiting Singapore)
• 4.45pm-5.45pm: Another shower, pack things for Kuala Lumpur
• 6pm-10.30pm: Night Zoo safari with Neha with transfer to/from her hostel
• 10.30pm-11pm: Walk 2km from Little India to Golden Mile Complex to catch KL bus
• 11.30pm-4.30am: Bus journey - too cold/short a journey to sleep.

30th November 2009

• 4.30am-5am: Walk around aimlessly in deserted KL city streets. Get some Malaysian cash from an ATM.
• 5am-5.30am: Overhear some British accents and befriend a motley crew of a couple from Cornwall, a guy from London and two Norweigian girls - all have been up all night. Have a sociable beer before they get a taxi home.
• 5.30am-7.15am: Sit in 24 hour internet cafe as nothing else is open. Pass time/bring blog up to date.
• 7.15am-8am: Walk to Petronas Towers to join queue for tickets to observation bridge
• 8am-8.45am: Towers closed to public on Mondays (who knew?!) - spend hours taking photos of Towers from various angles.
• 8.45am-10.30am: Walk to various tourist spots (galleries etc), have breakfast.
• 10.30am-3.30pm: Take Monorail to Chinatown - walk around, see sights, have lunch, walk around some more, see cool historic buildings
• 3.30-6pm: Discover massive rainforest by the side of a main road - go exploring up random dirt path. Turns out to be massive protected rainforest (see below) - get totally knackered but v.satisfied. Walk back into town.
• 6.30pm-present: Wander into Times Square Mall. Mind-bogglingly massive. Have dinner.
• 11.30pm-4.30am: Bus leaves back for Singapore.

Roughly speaking, I've not had a proper bit of shut-eye in about 36 hours, and in the interim period have walked all over Sentosa Island (a big theme-park style semi-man-made island to the south of the city), all around the Night Zoo, all the way from Little India to Golden Mile, and then spent all of today (16 hours since 4.30am) walking all over KL - all of which in typically equatorial humidity. I'm absolutely shattered, and have resorted to spending a lengthy period of time here in the internet cafe not so much for the internet as for the comfortable chair and the air conditioning. However, I don't think I have ever been more satisfied with any other 36 hour period of travelling - especially when I come to write it all down, and you realise just how much you've done and how much you've seen (and how far you've walked... although you can't really replicate that in words).

Today in KL has seemed like a dream. The fact that I arrived in the middle of the night has given my time here a strange time-warped dimension - it's as if I've somehow fabricated extra hours in the day. Such a feeling prevailed throughout the day - every time I looked at my watch I was continually surprised as to how early it was. Looking back from the evening, you realise just how easy it was to see so much when you just wander around (especially with a map!).

KL has been cool (though definitely not literally) - it didn't immediately stand out to me in the way Singapore did, but then no other city ever has. But wandering around - and wandering about I did - you gradually get a feel for the vibe of the place. The Petronas Twin Towers are the standout attraction, but there's far more to the city that them. All the same, they are the most beautifully constructed skyscrapers you'd ever want to see - their towering height is elegantly balanced by a gradual tapering of its chrome structure; the tapering itself grouped into 5 distinct blocks symbolising the 5 pillars of Islam. Photos will follow once I'm back in Singapore.

KL's finest feature in my eyes was, however, found by complete accident on my way to pick up another Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt to add to my collection. Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve, it turns out, is located in Kuala Lumpur City Centre and represents about 10 hectares of preserved land that remains in the same dense natural rainforest state that was existent pre-urbanisation. The only human influence has been the construction of the KL Tower - a communications/observation tower (v.similar to the CN Tower in Toronto) right in the middle of it. However, as you're trekking up the dirt paths rising steeply from the busy city roads underneath, you are soon totally surrounded by dense growth, and the sole sound is the whining of crickets or the rustle of monkeys jumping around overhead. The air is thick and dense with moisture, and as I worked myway through the overgrowth I soon found myself constantly wanting to scratch the incessast itching on my arms, legs, face - pretty much anything exposed - as all sorts of bugs, flying or otherwise, feasted on my (presumably) delicious O+ blood. It's damn hard work, and you sweat like a pig - and after about 45 minutes walking there's not much worse than looking up to see a never-ending set of stairs stoned into place ahead of you. I counted 152 - one after another - and sat and panted like a dog for 5 minutes afterward. What made the whole experience so good for me, though, was not just the satisfaction of being out with nature, but the fact that this place was not mentioned on my map, or on any of the tourist destination landmarks around the city. I didn't see a single other human all the while I was walking... it was just me, the bugs and the monkeys. And it was awesome.