Meeting up with friends in KL
Door: Alex
13 Februari 2013 | Maleisië, Kuala Lumpur
Meeting up with friends in KL.
Or: How I lost my inspiration for coming up with good titles for my blogposts
After a long and uneventful ride with beautiful sights, during which I met another German dude and bought fruit and met a Professor of Nutrition at KL University who gave me his card in case I was ever in trouble in Malaysia (how sweet is that!) and managed to write most of this and the previous blog post, I found the hostel where I would meet Luke and Suzanne. And it only took me an hour from the train stop that was 50 meters away.
So there they were, Luke and Suzanne, glorious and tan, with no product in Lukes hair and no jewelry on Suzannes hands.
We went out for some food for me - they'd already eaten - which turned out to be sateh. Crayfish sized animals they call 'shrimp', some chicken and some lamb, and it was lovely. Then a little random walk around town which took us to a field where kids were launching LEDs with chopper blades attached to them, making the lights go down more slowly. When we got back I met some nice people (like Edward from Hong Kong) at my room in the hostel, which sucked because as you may have noticed, I hadn't had more than 5 hours of sleep a night in the past 4 days. I went to sleep around 2.
The next morning at 8, I got out of bed, and found a big surprise! This hostel had free breakfast included! I raced upstairs to find bread, a toaster, tea and sugar. And some kind of radioactive substance called 'jam'. I opted for toast and sugar and talked with Luke and Suzanne about the plans for the day. We were about to get a tour from one of the people they had met in Thailand, so we saw the Batu Caves, a big cavern housing a Hindu temple. After that, we were driven to the Royal Palace in the classic Malay driving style, although there was no honking the horn this time. The palace was nice and quite big, but apparently the Royal family had moved to a much larger palace. We finished our tour of KL with a drop off at the Petronas Towers. This could have been interesting if they weren't charging 80 RM to go to the top. So we saw the outside. And the food inside. And then we went to the Kampung Baru, an old Malay village in the middle of the big city. This is where I finally tried a rambutan. Yum.
Before heading back to the hostel, we went to the biggest mosque in Malaysia, where we donned purple robes and walked around barefoot. It was amazing. We started talking to one of the outreach people there, Normah,and then when we thought it was time to leave (before the prayer started), she asked us if we wanted to see the prayer itself. We obviously went with her, had some tea while the Qur'an was read, while talking to her about Islam and asked her questions that she openly and honestly answered, even the ones about evolution and gay people. She then took us back upstairs to see the prayer itself. It was amazing. Impressive. Just... wow. This was the most incredible experience I have had on this trip.
Later that night we had some drinks on top of a building and waited until the Petronas Towers turned off the lights, supposedly an amazing sight. So we saw the towers turn off all the lights, virtually at the same time. So yeah. Amazing. Um. Not.
The next morning included some shopping, some cake and some fish nibbling on my feet. Which was weird and fun. Then it was time to go to Malacca, my last stop before my return to Singapore and then home. Sigh.
Not that I won't be happy to see all of you again of course :)
Or: How I lost my inspiration for coming up with good titles for my blogposts
After a long and uneventful ride with beautiful sights, during which I met another German dude and bought fruit and met a Professor of Nutrition at KL University who gave me his card in case I was ever in trouble in Malaysia (how sweet is that!) and managed to write most of this and the previous blog post, I found the hostel where I would meet Luke and Suzanne. And it only took me an hour from the train stop that was 50 meters away.
So there they were, Luke and Suzanne, glorious and tan, with no product in Lukes hair and no jewelry on Suzannes hands.
We went out for some food for me - they'd already eaten - which turned out to be sateh. Crayfish sized animals they call 'shrimp', some chicken and some lamb, and it was lovely. Then a little random walk around town which took us to a field where kids were launching LEDs with chopper blades attached to them, making the lights go down more slowly. When we got back I met some nice people (like Edward from Hong Kong) at my room in the hostel, which sucked because as you may have noticed, I hadn't had more than 5 hours of sleep a night in the past 4 days. I went to sleep around 2.
The next morning at 8, I got out of bed, and found a big surprise! This hostel had free breakfast included! I raced upstairs to find bread, a toaster, tea and sugar. And some kind of radioactive substance called 'jam'. I opted for toast and sugar and talked with Luke and Suzanne about the plans for the day. We were about to get a tour from one of the people they had met in Thailand, so we saw the Batu Caves, a big cavern housing a Hindu temple. After that, we were driven to the Royal Palace in the classic Malay driving style, although there was no honking the horn this time. The palace was nice and quite big, but apparently the Royal family had moved to a much larger palace. We finished our tour of KL with a drop off at the Petronas Towers. This could have been interesting if they weren't charging 80 RM to go to the top. So we saw the outside. And the food inside. And then we went to the Kampung Baru, an old Malay village in the middle of the big city. This is where I finally tried a rambutan. Yum.
Before heading back to the hostel, we went to the biggest mosque in Malaysia, where we donned purple robes and walked around barefoot. It was amazing. We started talking to one of the outreach people there, Normah,and then when we thought it was time to leave (before the prayer started), she asked us if we wanted to see the prayer itself. We obviously went with her, had some tea while the Qur'an was read, while talking to her about Islam and asked her questions that she openly and honestly answered, even the ones about evolution and gay people. She then took us back upstairs to see the prayer itself. It was amazing. Impressive. Just... wow. This was the most incredible experience I have had on this trip.
Later that night we had some drinks on top of a building and waited until the Petronas Towers turned off the lights, supposedly an amazing sight. So we saw the towers turn off all the lights, virtually at the same time. So yeah. Amazing. Um. Not.
The next morning included some shopping, some cake and some fish nibbling on my feet. Which was weird and fun. Then it was time to go to Malacca, my last stop before my return to Singapore and then home. Sigh.
Not that I won't be happy to see all of you again of course :)
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