Malaysia: Sweet, Sweet Civilization

When we were trying to figure out where to go after Nepal, it basically came down to where we could find the cheapest flight, which landed us in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia. We only stayed there for three nights, since we kind of saw it as a stopping over point on the way to Southeast Asia, but we wish we had spent longer there. What a nice city!

The Petronas Twin Towers at night

I'm not sure what I (Kenzi) was expecting, given that I was woefully ignorant of Malaysia (that's why we travel, to learn about other places, right?). KL was a breath of fresh air, literally and figuratively. It is a big, modern city, with some of the swankiest shopping you can imagine. It was warm and humid, but not unbearable. Coming from Nepal, we were bewildered by the smoothness of all the highways, the well functioning plumbing, and the lack of air pollution.

Before our arrival, I knew of at least one thing I really wanted to see there: the Petronas Towers (ala the 1999 movie "Entrapment"). Completed in 1996, the twin towers were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004, when they were surpassed by the Taipei 101 tower. They have 88 floors, and a sky bridge half way up connecting them. The tour took us to the sky bridge first, which had great views of the city, but especially the grounds immediately surrounding the towers where they are building many other new skyscrapers. KL seems to be a booming city.

An adorable group of children getting ready to up the Petronas Towers

Inside the sky bridge, 1/2 way up the Petronas Towers

Looking down from the sky bridge

Looking down the other direction from the sky bridge

Selfie from the sky bridge

Then we got into the elevator again, and headed up to the viewing level near the top. The views were indeed spectacular although we went on a cloudy day.

The view from one tower to the other, with the TV tower in the background

A vertical panorama showing the height a little better

A view of Kuala Lumpur from the top of the Petronas Towers

KL is diverse culturally and religiously, but seems to manage it really well (or at least it seemed that way in our brief time there). We've been out of Muslim territory for awhile, but Malaysia is majority Muslim, but also has Buddhists, Christians, and Hindus. Culturally, it is majority Malay, but also has Chinese, Indigenous people, Indians, etc. It really felt like a successful melting pot.

Lest you think Malaysia is perfect based on our report here, we did talk to a Grab (Grab is the cheaper version of Uber here) driver who in his limited English was expressing some frustration with the corrupt Government. However, that's been a theme across our travels; Taxi drivers like to talk about Government corruption, no matter what country you're in.

Aside from the Petronas Towers, we also visited a good aquarium called Aquaria KLCC, a bird park (we've never seen SO MANY peacocks!), and made a couple trips to the Vietnamese embassy to get our visa for Vietnam figured out.

The underside of a large ray as seen walking through the tunnel at Aquaria 

Octopus!

The large tanks at Aquaria. This was right before the scuba divers came and fed all the sea creatures. 

Bill eyeing one of a bazillion peacocks at the KL bird park. 

Eye to eye with an ostrich, whose eyelids, by the way, close from bottom to top rather than top to bottom. 

Not very well camouflaged, right? 

Flamingos!

Hello, stork!

We tried the infamous durian fruit via some durian macaroons. As with many durian foods, they smelled funky, but tasted pretty decent. Bill definitely liked them more than me though. It's difficult to get past the smell of durian.

An all-durian shop at one of the MANY malls in KL

This is what an actual cut open Durian fruit looks like, about the size of a watermelon

A durian macaroon

Another really cool highlight of our time in KL was experiencing "Dining in the Dark", something that Bill has wanted to do for a very long time (and it was much cheaper here!). In case you're not familiar, a Dining in the Dark experience is just that, eating in complete darkness. You are served by folks that are blind or visually impaired. Our friendly and very competent waiter's name was Yus. Apparently he was not always blind, but lost his sight over time. To get you accustomed to tasting things and trying to figure out the flavor components, they start by serving you a drink in the lighted bar area and having you guess the three flavors of the drink. We didn't do very well. Our three flavors were green apple, lemongrass, and lychee. Then, you do another exercise with a blindfold, where you try to find four paperclips in a container full of rice - it's harder than you think.

Then, you are led into the dark dining room. Bill held on to Yus's shoulders, and I held onto Bill's shoulders, and we trailed along behind Yus as he led us to our table. It is definitely a weird experience to be in pitch black. As you would expect, your other senses go into overdrive. We heard quite a bit of mouth clicking, which is how the waiters use echolocation and also signal to each other so that they don't run into each other.

Before walking into the Dining in the Dark restaurant

Yus oriented us with our silverware and drinks, then brought us our appetizers. They easily accommodated Bill's vegetarianism and my gluten intolerance. It was a set menu with lots of items for you to practice tasting all the flavors without your eyes to help you. There were five appetizers, two soups, four main dishes, and four desserts, all in smaller portions of course. Everything was very tasty. We really struggled to identify some things and easily identified others. We spilled things and used our hands more than you would normally. And even occasionally had a bite of air, those times when we didn't actually get any food on our spoons. Yus was very attentive and explained things very well. And when we were all done, he managed to corral us and lead us out into the bright light in the same way we'd followed him into the dark. Once we were back in the light, our hostess showed us descriptions and pictures of everything we had eaten, so we could see how much we guessed correctly. We probably got about 25% of it right. We need more practice! All in all, it was a very pleasant and eye opening experience. If you get a chance to do something similar, we suggest you take it.

After dinner, looking at the menu of what we ate, and realizing that we only got about 25% of it correct. 

Thanks Malaysia for pampering us!

Next up: Vietnam!