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From Singapore, we traveled 5 hours by bus to the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. Traveling in Malaysia is quite easy and comfortable, with nice, and very well air conditioned, buses. Malaysia is also quite touristed, and we found its people friendly and welcoming. While the population consists principally of Malays, there are also many Chinese and Indians.
Having passed through the amazingly efficient, and impressive, Singapore immigration edifice, we entered Malaysia at Johur Bahru, where the sign to the left welcomed us. Upon entering the Kuala Lumpur city limits, some 4 hours later, the sign to the right warned of Malaysia's attitude toward drugs. In this respect, Malaysia and Singapore are much alike, while other Southeast Asian countries are far more lax about drug use.
The view from Merdeka (which means independence) Square, the heart of colonial Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia achieved independence from the British in 1957, and commemorated this by building a square celebrating their independence on the main cricket field.
Kuala Lumpur (referred to by all merely as "KL") is a large, bustling, chaotic city. Upon our arrival, we both decided that it was the most chaotic city we had yet visited. Clogged with automobiles, together with motorcycles and incredibly noisy motor scooters, pedestrians constantly have to be on their guard.
As a principally Islamic country, there are plenty of mosques in Malaysia. One of the prettiest is the Masjid Jemnak, which sits not far from the spot where KL's founders first set foot in town.
As with Singapore, KL has a thriving Chinatown and Little India. Here, some flattened chickens (why they're flattened like frisbees we do not know) hang from a street stall in Chinatown.
So in what city do the world's tallest buildings reside? Can you believe KL? While there is some dispute as to whether a building's decorative spires should be counted in measuring the height of a building, The Guiness Book of World Records does, and by that count KL's twin Petronas Towers are taller than Chicago's Sears Tower by 29 feet.
The Petronas Towers (Petronas is the state oil company) are very impressive in their architecture, construction and design. They really are quite beautiful.
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While in KL, we took the
time to arrange our Vietnamese Visas, which is necessary in order to allow us to
travel in that country. While typically we would have gone to the
Vietnamese Embassy in KL personally to arrange our visas, because we were going
to be traveling with some good friends of ours, Bo and Heidi Mullan, to and
through Vietnam, we wanted to make sure nothing went wrong with the
process. So we enlisted the assistance of a local travel agency that
routinely handles Vietnamese visas for its customers. The other
significant benefit of using the agency was that it allowed us to leave KL
instead of staying or returning for the visa (which would take at least 3 days
to secure), as the agency had an office in our next destination, Penang (roughly
5 hours to the north of KL), where they would send us our visas for
pick-up. Sure we had to pay a little more, but the convenience and
certainty were well worth it. Here we pose with the incredibly helpful
Mable and Walter.
