Greetings from Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is an ultra-modern city which looks set to position Malaysia as a true global economic superpower.  With ultra-fast high speed trains, universities for technopreneurs, a ‘cyber’ city (Cyberjaya), modern high rise buildings with fantastic architectural designs (including the Petronas towers, which for a while were the tallest buildings on earth), widespread use of the English language, a spectacular highway network with multiple lane highways all seemlessly connected, a highly affordable subway / lightrail train network, and massive brand-new shopping malls spread out over 5 levels - we found KL both easy to get around and impressive to behold.

We arrived at Kuala Lumpur’s low-cost carrier terminal and stayed in the tiniest hotel room imaginable (which we knew in advance) - Tune Hotels advertise a 5 star bed at a 1 star price, the point is that the room can just fit the bed, and not much more.  We weren’t planning on spending much time in our room, and the hotel was very close to the airport, so it suited us fine.

The airport is a fair way out of KL central (another reason for staying near the airport was an early morning departure).  We arrived early afternoon and hungry after our flight, headed to nearby Putrajaya / Cyberjaya to visit a mall for some dinner (Ed, a retired mortgage broker who we sat next to on the plane recommended this to us).  The suburb was beautiful, with seemingly no expense spared.  Arriving at the train-station we were caught in a stunning thunderstorm.  It felt like we were right underneath it with the thunder rattling the ground and deafening the ears!  

We had one full day in KL, were we chose to head into the central city and look around.  In the end we headed to the area now occupied by the Petronas towers.  The towers are surrounded by the KLCC park, a large park with water fountains, lakes, playgrounds a mosque (which it felt like the whole city went to at 1pm), and information about the city - offering up many stunning views of the towers whilst also allowing us to participate in the lunchtime activities of the locals.  

We also had a bit of luck, managing to secure tickets to go to the Petronas skybridge  (we’ve heard horror stories about people queuing from 4am to get up the towers).  After being shown into the video room (which we thought would be about the construction of the towers but ended up being a propaganda video about Petronas’ virtues) we proceeded up the tower which gave a great view over the city and especially the park we had previously circumnavigated.