We have just left Kuala Lumpur after three days exploring the city. It has been a comfortable temperature around 29 C with a few showers and no sunshine. It is the beginning of their monsoon (December to January) and they have had severe floods in the east of Malaysia.
We did a city tour on the hop-on-off bus stopping at several places including the Bird Park, Botanical Gardens, KL Menera Tower and Shopping Malls. The aviaries were interesting, some too small for the larger birds e.g. owls and kites, but there was a large selection of ibis and herons but fewer smaller birds than we had expected. The communication tower gave a good view of the city although the smog limited the distant details. The tower is the tallest (421 m) in the city and apparently the place to dine as it rotates so your view continuously changes. We found it difficult to pick out our hotel at KL Sentral (incidentally, a good hotel well situated for the station and airport shuttle) but you do get an excellent view of the Petronas Twin Towers.
The city was very congested most of the time we were out with lots of road works and building construction.
We also did a trip to see the Batu caves which are about 13 km north of the city. They are part of a Hindu monument and popular pilgrim destination (we were told that 1.5 million attended in 2007) with the largest statue of Lord Murugan (the Hindu deity of war). This was amazingly clean given the number of pigeons around and humid atmosphere but it is protected by 300 litres of gold paint, so I guess this helps together with an annual clean. There were 272 or maybe 276 steps (I started to count but lost track when I met the resident monkeys (Cynomolgus)) up to the enormous limestone caves reported to be 400 million years old, certainly the longest stalactites I have seen! Just below the main cave was a sign to the "Dark cave" but this is closed to the public as it remains untouched, all 2 km of it, stalagmite heaven I assume.
After a couple of days in the hustle and bustle, we were thinking it would be good to get out into the wider country but not this time as the holiday is ending. Until next time, cheers; now on our way home to the storms and cold!
We did a city tour on the hop-on-off bus stopping at several places including the Bird Park, Botanical Gardens, KL Menera Tower and Shopping Malls. The aviaries were interesting, some too small for the larger birds e.g. owls and kites, but there was a large selection of ibis and herons but fewer smaller birds than we had expected. The communication tower gave a good view of the city although the smog limited the distant details. The tower is the tallest (421 m) in the city and apparently the place to dine as it rotates so your view continuously changes. We found it difficult to pick out our hotel at KL Sentral (incidentally, a good hotel well situated for the station and airport shuttle) but you do get an excellent view of the Petronas Twin Towers.
The city was very congested most of the time we were out with lots of road works and building construction.
We also did a trip to see the Batu caves which are about 13 km north of the city. They are part of a Hindu monument and popular pilgrim destination (we were told that 1.5 million attended in 2007) with the largest statue of Lord Murugan (the Hindu deity of war). This was amazingly clean given the number of pigeons around and humid atmosphere but it is protected by 300 litres of gold paint, so I guess this helps together with an annual clean. There were 272 or maybe 276 steps (I started to count but lost track when I met the resident monkeys (Cynomolgus)) up to the enormous limestone caves reported to be 400 million years old, certainly the longest stalactites I have seen! Just below the main cave was a sign to the "Dark cave" but this is closed to the public as it remains untouched, all 2 km of it, stalagmite heaven I assume.
After a couple of days in the hustle and bustle, we were thinking it would be good to get out into the wider country but not this time as the holiday is ending. Until next time, cheers; now on our way home to the storms and cold!
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| View of the city from the KL Menera Tower; the Perona Twin Towers are in the frame. |
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| A view of the Botanical Gardens in KL. |
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| At the Batu caves. Notice the steps beside the statue that lead into the limestone caves. |
