Cameron Highlands to the KL malls

I can recommend the D'Chennai Curry House in Tanah Rata - they do a great Roti Canai. Basically wrap something up in a roti, like chicken & vegetables, fry it sealed, and serve it with a curry sauce. Great!

Malaysia's multi-cultural makeup of Malays, Chinese, and Indians makes for a varied cuisine - there's no one typical Malaysian dish. While Roti Canai is an Indian staple, Malays go for Nasi Lemak, while the Chinese have all sorts of options depending on background and location, perhaps with Zhap Fan (mixed rice) being a common denominator. I'll give an update on these as I try them. But out in the markets it's hard to get away from satays - chicken or beef on skewers cooked on a charcoal grill and served with a peanut sauce at a hawker stall on the side of the road. Cheap, filling and delicious

Interesting too that while Malaysia has a multicultural society, ostensibly living in harmony, there are divisions. The local papers continue to call on all races to put aside their differences, but just as in NZ, some (ie the Indians here) are in a poorer socio-economic grouping, and friction results. Nothing visible to me as a tourist though - all it means to me is different food, different faces, and different market choices. As in all other countries in Indochina, I feel perfectly safe wandering the streets at any time

But back to my travels. I leave the excellent Twin Pines guesthouse on Saturday, and catch the bus to KL. It's only 200km or so, but the bus makes frequent stops at the whim of the driver, and it takes a boring four hours

Fi's recommended the Red Dragon guesthouse in KL, and as luck would have it, it's in the heart of Chinatown just a few minutes walk from the bus station. I check in to a cheap room at only 30 ringitt ($10) per night. Single bed, fan, shared bathroom, and an internal room - no windows. A bit stuffy, but nice and quiet.

The guesthouse is quite easy to find. Opposite KFC, just round the corner from McDonalds, Nandos and Starbucks! But they're all spurned in favour of hawker stall satays.

I cruise the huge Chinatown markets, but nothing really sparks my interest. Perhaps I'm just getting a bit jaded by cheap T-shirts and trinkets.

Sunday is an interesting day. I'm off to the Petronas Twin Towers to take in the view and do a bit of window shopping. The guide book says to get there early for tickets, so I catch the train to KLCC and am there 10 minutes after the 8.30am opening time. I'm thinking that on a Sunday morning there won't be anyone there, and I'll be up and down in a flash so I can check out the malls.

The assembly area is a seething mass of humanity at 8.40am. I'm finally guided to the end of the queue that snakes backwards and forwards for half an hour before I even reach the ticket counter. By now the free tickets are for the 1pm viewing slot. I resign myself to a wasted half day

But it doesn't turn out that way. After a coffee and muffin at the San Francisco Coffee Shop I set out to explore the KLCC mall at the base of the towers.


It's huge! On the ground floor are all the European fashion houses - Bally, Chanel, Gucci, Cartier, Escada, Hermes, Tiffany, Georgio Armani, and more. I pass them all by. Nothing really interests me, and anyway, I'm already sporting my Rolex. (Actually they did have some nice stuff, most with unmarked prices. I guess if you have to ask, you can't afford to be in there.)

I wind round and round each successive floor, and finally get to the electronics section. My old Imate Jam phone/PDA is on the way out, and I'm looking for a replacement. The HTC Tytn II looks good, but at a price. I'll check out comparitive prices at other malls and on the Internet before I make any buying decisions.


In no time at all 1pm rolls around, and I've only just finished the mall - not a wasted morning at all. The view from the sky bridge that connects the two towers is stunning, and it's a comparitively clear day too.


I head south towards more malls in the Bintang Walk part of town, and look back to see this nice shot of the towers framed between the trees. I was only on the bridge, but that seemed high enough!

The Bintang malls are confusing. You enter a small walkway, and suddenly Tardis-like a huge three-dimensional chessboard of shops disappear off in to the distance in every direction. It's easy to get disorientated, and after a while the shops have a sameness so you don't know whether you've actually been there before or not. Exhausted, I struggle out in to the street again to get my bearings.


Security is pretty tight. I'm not sure what this guard would do if a shoplifter ran past - shoot him in the back?

I find a few comparitive prices on the HTC - a fraction cheaper in these malls, but on the Internet it seems a bit cheaper again in Singapore. I decide to leave it till then - a bit more Internet research, and I have a mate in Singapore who can point me in the direction of a good shop. I really don't want to repeat this mall experience in Orchard Rd.

On Tuesday I'll take in a bit of the non-commercial side of KL, and visit the old square and the park for a change of pace before I catch the bus to Malacca. After much thought I've decided against Borneo - not the right time of year, and I don't have enough time if I'm going to do KL, Malacca and Singapore justice. There'll always be another opportunity to come back to this part of the world.

It's also a time to think about my Mum. She was born on 8 Jan, and died on 7 Jan 2005, a day short of her 86th birthday. Hi Mum! Happy birthday - miss you. Hope you and Dad are enjoying my blog :-)