Day 6: Thurs 21th Oct 2010 – Kuala Lumpur

 

After a very good nights sleep in our new room it didn't take too much encouragement from Wilma to go and sample the apartment complex's pool. Luckily very few of the residents actually seem to make use of this facility so the glare from our lily white skin out in the sun didn't blind anyone. We spent a few hours bobbing in the pool and laying about reading before our host showed up offering to bring us down some lunch to eat at pool side. Over lunch Wilma laid out the plan she'd come up with for the rest of the day, starting with a session at a Thai massage parlour.

This was to be my first professional massage ever and I now look forward to many more when I get to Thailand. Our feet, heads and necks were serviced for an hour, we all left in a very relaxed state and our feet felt like we were waking on a clouds. There wasn't too much time to dwell on this though as we had too head home to get ready for our the next event that had been planned for us.

The most famous landmark in KL is the Petronas Twin Towers. Standing just over 450 metres tall they dominate the skyline and my first idea of experiencing the towers would be to go there and get a lift to the top. Unfortunately this can't be done as the highest public viewing platform if the bridge that connects the two towers together which is only about half way up. The next part to the plan was centred around the towers but rather than going in them it involved looking at them, from a height, in a high class environment, with alcohol. We chauffeur driven to the Traders Hotel a few hundred feet from the towers where we ascended 33 floors up to the hotels pool bar. At night it's transformed into a very cool kind of lounge bar/night club which faces straight at the towers. We chilled for an hour or so soaking in well lit towers and making the most of the Kodak moment. Once we finished our beers and cocktails we were taken for a drastic change of scenery.

From the swanky Traders Hotel we made our was to a more typically Asian part of town. We rocked up to a Chinese restaurant owned by a couple that Wilma and Doug know. For those of you that haven't been to Asia I will try to describe what the restaurants here are generally like. They are generally open front shop spaces that look like that haven't been decorated in decades, mismatched furniture that all ways spills out onto the street if not the road too and all the cooking seems to be done somewhere within the view and not in a kitchen.



Deep fried ducks tounge

So anyway we had been warned that this place doesn't even have a menu, you just have too make a request and they do their best to accommodate. We ordered a selection of food trying some old favourites and and a few things we hadn't tried or heard of before. During our meal we were joined by the owner (who was a real character) and her son (who was so well spoken and came across so intelligent he almost seemed like some kind of a cyborg and I mean this in the kindest possible way). Although the owner is Chinese and her son half Chinese half Welsh I got a feel that we were mixing more with the locals and what its like living in Malaysia. Once all the food had gone we were exhausted from our tough day so headed home. Thanks for a great day Wilma.