4th Day in Kuala Lumpur
KL is a big cosmopolitan city vibrant and alive especially late at night. Luk noticed it right away…watching the 20 something girls dressed in the latest Asian fashion. Today she came out of her hotel room sporting a white mini skirt with over the knee black stockings with lace at the top and new black patent shoes.
Populated mainly by Malays, Chinese and Indians and various other groups, it’s difficult for me to identity the ethnic origin of many of the people. Certainly few Thais. Islam is on the rise in Malaysia and you see many muslim women with hibabs (called tudongs here) and long dresses but haven’t seen many full-face covers from the middle east that you often see at Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok. If it’s multi-culturalism you want this is the place to come!
Chinatown pretty ratty. Wide four-lane streets in parts and narrow meandering streets in the rest. The Golden Triangle could be NYC…mall after mall after high-rise mall with expensive stores and restaurants of all kinds. And then there are the Petronas Towers and the Kuala Lumpur Tower…stunningly lit at night. The transportation system is excellent…trains and monorails go to all parts of the city.
We’ve eaten at Mexican and Chinese restaurants, at Malay food stalls where you never know what you are eating, had Turkish coffee and roll-ups and I still want to eat at a Lebanese restaurant next to our hotel…the Sungei Wang Hotel (probably Chinese) on Jalan Bukit Bintang. This morning the breakfast at KFC was pretty bad. Today lunched at Shakey’s Pizza for $4…pretty good. Outback Steakhouse across the street but at 45 ringit (about $15) it’s too expensive for us. Very few clubs. You have to know where they are. Last night we ate at a Malay restaurant….not what we were going to get. Turned out it was Murtabak (kind of an omelet) Mee Goreng (Hokkien noodles with a kind of cut up doughnut underneath and distinctive sweet sauce on top). There is a Hokkien indigenous group in China and there are many Chinese in Malaysia so I guess this is where the noodles come from. Doug had pepper steak ($4) and the waiter tacked on Nasi Goreng which we didn’t have…so we just figured that was his tip.
Yesterday we went to a fish acquarium with the longest underwater tank in Asia. Doug and Luk went to see “Iron Man” in an iMax theater (they loved it) and today Doug is taking Luk to see her first iMax movie entitled something like T Rex. I declined…
Last night the police herded about 30 young guys into an official police “bus.” For what I don’t know. I do know that the government is cracking down on young muslims many of whom like to imbibe in the clubs. And they round up illegal immigrant girls who are here to accommodate them if you know what I mean.
The big news in the media here now is a debate about whether women should get permission from their families to travel alone. Can you imagine the snarl this would cause in train stations and airports? And I guess a single woman with no family here would be SOL.
I have a sense there are a fair number of westerners living and working here…walking down the street like they know where they are going…like in many other Asian cities. Some Australian and European travelers are hauling backpacks. Why they travel with such big loads is more than I know.
Sitting behind me in the patio, under the mister fans, outside a Starbucks…on Wifi…is a Malay twenty-something. She’s been on MySpace all afternoon.
We’ll take the train all the way to the airport Sunday morning…about 70 km outside the city. Doug will have his Thai visa tucked safely away.
Tags: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Zoe
Leave a Reply