Hello again, well it doesn't take much to figure out that we have let the blogging lapse a little... well the reason for this is that we have a virus on our memory card so the photos are currently... unavailable... we are working on this (they aren't lost fortunately) so we delayed the blog as well.
So we touched down in KL and wandered slightly
dazed from the journey around the shopping malls, fast food restaurants and general hub bub of KL. A personal delight for me is that Malaysia is the home of Proton! For anyone who has known me long enough will understand why there is now a photo of me alongside a lime green Proton...
dazed from the journey around the shopping malls, fast food restaurants and general hub bub of KL. A personal delight for me is that Malaysia is the home of Proton! For anyone who has known me long enough will understand why there is now a photo of me alongside a lime green Proton... Well we were going to try and get back to the shoestringer ethos after enjoying the minihotels of Vietnam and so we headed off to our £5 a night hostel to the dubious comfort of our room... despite the frugal nature of the place there were a surprising number of people tapping away on swish laptops but hey ho. The place itself was like a rabbit warren but we had a great time hanging out with other travellers, watching dvd's in the lounge areas and listening to the torrential monsoon downpours going on outside... we both encountered a bearded half naked man during nighttime trips to the communal bathroom who appeared to sleep in the lounge... this use of every possible sleeping area went someway to explaining how a building, that we estimated to hold 20 rooms spread across 3 floors could hold enough people to account for the approximately 100 pairs of shoes you had to clamber over on your way up the stairs... now either there were people paying £2 to camp on the roof (scarily possible if you consider half naked bearded couch sleeper) or Imelda Markos had moved in upstairs and has developed a thing for well worn flip flops.
Apart from the eccentric hostel we visited the Petronus towers, sat through a 15 minute promotional video on the Petronus company and then wandered around a sky bridge for 5 minutes taking photos... we then spent a couple of hours shopping for books in the massive mall underneath... some things don't change no matter how far from home you are.We took some time to visit the main mosque in the city, it was the first time either of us had been inside a mosque and we weren't quite sure what to expect to be perfectly honest. 
The people were very friendly and lent Debbie some rather fetching mauve robes whilst we had a wander around the gardens and prayer areas in the central courtyards. The interesting thing about the whole experience was the number of men who were stretched out, facing toward Mecca whilst having a nap... it was unexpected and we did wonder whether the call to prayer had the added benefit of waking up the truly pious and sending them on their way back to work/home... maybe they could try something similar after songs of praise to send people back to the kitchen to do the dishes?
The building itself was really beautiful but like so many places in KL the times have moved around it and from the courtyard you can see a large HSBC, a KFC and a burger king with a 7-11 nestled between them with a soundtrack of honking cars and metro trains from the surrounding main roads and overhead lines, the place was peacfull but as soon as you stepped outside you were back into the hustle and bustle of modern KL.
It was whilst exploring the city that we encountered something that was to become depressingly familiar over the next couple of weeks... Malaysian men like to stare at women... hmmm actually that's not quite correct... they like to leer and it's not good. Still we hadn't come there to be stared at, or indeed to hear about the latest underwater oil drilling technology... we had come to Malaysia to see some wilderness and after a couple of days we boarded a bus to head to Taman Negara which is the largest national park in peninsular Malaysia.
The people were very friendly and lent Debbie some rather fetching mauve robes whilst we had a wander around the gardens and prayer areas in the central courtyards. The interesting thing about the whole experience was the number of men who were stretched out, facing toward Mecca whilst having a nap... it was unexpected and we did wonder whether the call to prayer had the added benefit of waking up the truly pious and sending them on their way back to work/home... maybe they could try something similar after songs of praise to send people back to the kitchen to do the dishes?The building itself was really beautiful but like so many places in KL the times have moved around it and from the courtyard you can see a large HSBC, a KFC and a burger king with a 7-11 nestled between them with a soundtrack of honking cars and metro trains from the surrounding main roads and overhead lines, the place was peacfull but as soon as you stepped outside you were back into the hustle and bustle of modern KL.
It was whilst exploring the city that we encountered something that was to become depressingly familiar over the next couple of weeks... Malaysian men like to stare at women... hmmm actually that's not quite correct... they like to leer and it's not good. Still we hadn't come there to be stared at, or indeed to hear about the latest underwater oil drilling technology... we had come to Malaysia to see some wilderness and after a couple of days we boarded a bus to head to Taman Negara which is the largest national park in peninsular Malaysia.
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