Sunday, August 21, 2005

Moonlight and Roses - 18th August 2005

That was the theme of the DBU get-together on Thursday the 18th of August. The grand old hall was decorated with silver and blue balloons, while over the bandstand a dozen long stemmed roses hung suspended from the ceiling. Each table had a long centre-piece of silver cloth on which petals of red roses were strewn with a blue saucer holding a blue candle dusted with silver was shaded by a glass chimney. There were nearly 70 people present, all ready and waiting to have a rollicking time. The band Lazer was playing and they opened the evening with the tune ‘Moonlight and Roses’. They played a lot of romantic music and the dance floor was always crowded.

The caterers, Perera and Sons, had produced a wonderful menu for dinner which included seafood salad, lasagna and roast pork!!! For dessert there was my favourite chocolate mousse. I certainly enjoyed my dinner.

Then there was a game where a blue balloon was tied onto the wrist of each lady on the dance floor. Their task was to burst the balloon of the other ladies while preserving their own. No gent was allowed to ‘help’. Soon just two couples circled the floor each carefully preserving their balloon but not making any move to ‘attack’. Finally one person, yours truly, oh so gracefully allowed one of the organizers to burst the balloon and let the other couple win, otherwise we could have gone on all night! Am I not wonderful now??

The game for the gents was soo much more fun to watch. A dozen gentlemen were asked to get onto the floor, and a banana, dangling on the end of a twine was wrapped around their waists with the banana dangling a couple of inches off the floor. Placed on the floor, in front of each person, was a box of matches. Their task was to swing the banana and move the matchbox along the floor to the finishing line. Oh what fun we had with that! It was HILARIOUS!!! What moves!!! I must say all the gents on the floor were really great sports!

There was more music for dancing, waltzes, jives, cha-cha’s and baila and the ‘Moonlight and Roses’ ended by 1.30 p.m. with the band packing up to leave. What a lovely evening!

Thursday, August 11, 2005

18th July 2005 our fourth day in KL

Kumudu woke us up in the morning with a telephone call and wanted us to go to the Information centre to plan out the rest of our tour. So after breakfast which had my favourite sandwiches again, we followed her advice and walked over to the information centre and collected a whole lot of information. We booked ourselves onto a tour to Malacca for the next day as well.

Then, after a bit of discussion we took the monorail to see the old railway station which is supposed to be a ‘must see’ with its minarets and arches and beautiful domes. I do agree. It IS a ‘must see’ for anyone who appreciates beautiful architecture (and who doesn’t?). It is lovely! No one would believe such a lot of loving detailed care has gone into a busy place such as a railway station.

Our next stop was the Mosque. It is stunningly beautiful and simple and clean. We walked around a bit but couldn’t go it because it was prayer time. Then following the advice of our Information Centre we went looking for the tram car stop beyond the mosque, only to find that is was not functioning. Now I’m not too certain whether it was a temporary thing cos’ Monday seems to be a day when everything goes dead in Malaysia, or whether the tram was permanently out. Anyway having taken the long way around we panted our way to the butterfly park. They wanted 15RM entrance fee and after a quick look at the other attractions of the area and having gotten some advice from a friendly cab driver, we decided to give it a skip. I must admit our previous experience of the butterfly park of Singapore was a huge put off for butterfly parks. Singapore was such a rip off. They had pinned dead butterflies in glass cases and called it the butterfly park!! Stunningly cunning. Of course the people here assured me it was not the case in Malaysia, but we decided to skip it anyway.

We continued on our way and found the Hibiscus Garden. Anyone even vaguely interested in flowers should definably visit the hibiscus garden. It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! Apart from its beauty, the entrance is free as well!!!

One of the very few grumbles I have of Malaysia is their despairingly bad directions. One would be better off without their sign boards. They are horrible!!!!! There should be a law against their sign boards! What a lot of walking we did following these darned sign boards, while had they been clearer, we wouldn’t have walked our legs off!

Anyway, I digress. Let me go back to the gardens now. The approach to the Orchid Garden is through the Hibiscus gardens. So even if you are only interested in the orchids, you need to go through the other or give both a miss. I for one thought it was really, really beautiful and well worth the visit. In the middle of the hibiscus garden is a building that for some reason reminded me of the tales of Caesars’ palace. A pink building covered in orange hibiscus (I kid you not – orange) which housed a stream of water running the length of the building with two ponds on either side with a few benches alongside to sit and relax on. Beautiful and so refreshingly cool!

The Orchid Gardens were stunning. I had never seen totally orange coloured orchids before. They grew in gay perfusion and made our visit well worth it. Sunethra went crazy over them. A friendly security guard went through great lengths to show us the only orchid, I think, which has a smell. We dutifully sniffed the orchid, which surprisingly didn’t look very attractive, but smelt delicious. We later noticed that there seems to be another entrance to the gardens close to the bird park. Anyone doing the Lake Garden Area should definitely ensure that the tram is running, have a very good map and have very good walking shoes!

We went looking for the Deer Park and came across the Lake Gardens. Oh it is so beautiful. There is actually a lake! (No that was not sarcasm – I find a lot of places are so inappropriately named, that it is quite a surprise to find that it is not so sometimes) Again the place seemed closed and all the peddle boats docked, but what a lovely, lovely place it was. This area reminded us of the English parks with lovely bridges and large areas of flowers growing in abundant profusion. We sat for a bit of a rest and to take in the beauty. A bunch of school boys were having fun chasing the ducks around the parkland and into the pond. The area seems very large and just the kind of place to spend an evening of relaxation. Too bad we didn’t have that much time to spend there.

And guess what we found near the park???? The tram!!! I was beginning to think that it was a figment of my imagination and that no tram existed. But there it was – PARKED! While my sister and I had to trudge our way around the area – PARKED! Totally unacceptable!

Anyway, we finally located the Deer Park which was next on our list of the Lake Garden Area. Once again entrance is free, and I am not surprised in the least! They should PAY those who bother going there! Ramshackle is the word that springs to mind. It is badly neglected and not worth the trouble we went through to locate it. There were a few spotted deer and this we saw from a high vantage point close to the Bird Park. It seems to be a favourite jogging track for the residents of the area, but certainly not an attraction in my view. I was a hot and tired after the long walk and was in no mood to manufacture any reason why anyone in their right minds (and we were not?!*$*#) should go there!

Our final short stop was the Planetarium. We didn’t want to go all the way in, mainly because it looked like another LONG walk to get there. But while passing the grounds we saw a duplicate Stonehenge! Of course I had to stop there then. We took a few pictures in the fading light, and saw a few more ‘duplicate’ star finding or star gazing places.

Somehow our walk brought us neatly back to the Mosque. So in we trudged to have a look at the inside. Once again we were given long blue robes and matching scarves to don. The cool marble floors felt heavenly to our bare feet. We wandered around enjoying the spacious serenity and coolness of the place and then decided to visit the ladies wash room before going back. How glad I was that I did that! It was the first time I had been in a washroom for Moslem ladies. There were rows of taps where one could wash one’s face hands and feet, there were shower cubicles and a separate area for the loos. It was very clean and quite …… well…… fascinating I guess!

We parted with our robes and bid farewell to the security people and found ourselves near Petaling Street. This was familiar ground, so we quickly found the monorail station to take the train back to our hotel to watch Desperate Wives on TV before dropping off to sleep after quite a hectic day.

Day Three in Malaysia - 17th July 2005

We woke up again to the bustling sounds of the morning traffic of Malaysia. Breakfast turned out to be not too different from the previous morning. There were some switches made. There was rice instead of the noodles and vegetable puffs instead of the spring rolls and French roast instead of the sandwiches which I liked so much.

We had a consultation with our concierge at the hotel and on his advice went to Medan Tuanku station and took the monorail to Imbi looking for DVD players and an XD card for the camera. We went to one of the computer places, but inspite of it being 10.30 a.m., it was still closed. So we didn’t get to look around the place, which was called computer paradise or something like that. I think they start work after 11.00 a.m.!!!

Anyway, we walked around another plaza and paid 175Rm for a 258MB DX Card. Much later I realized that I had not even been given a receipt for the payment I had made! Clever me!!

I wanted to see the Bukit Binthang area. We gave it special attention cos’ most of the b&b places advertised on the net come from this area and it is supposed to be a very touristy kind of place. It did seem lovely though perhaps a little pricier that the other places we’d been to. We managed to get hold of a phone card for 15RM and called home.

The next stop we wanted to make was China Town. So we found another monorail station to take us there. It turned out to be lovely! We first visited a Chinese temple just outside the station, where an old Chinese man tried to persuade us to worship at his temple and demanding a ‘donation’ of 5$. There were some statues that looked the teeniest bit scary so we backed out of there in a bit of a hurry especially since the old man was very insistent that we WORSHIP there.

Right next to or rather just below the temple at road level is another large ancient looking building to honour the dead. It had a beautiful, intricately designed doorway that beckoned to us very enticingly. It was a huge, lovely red door with dragons painted on in gold. Very inviting! We went in, looked around and took some pictures.

We then found our way to the famous Petaling Street. Walked the entire length of it, and went into a Mall across the street for lunch in the Food Court. Our lunch turned out to be lovely too. It was called Nasi Pataya. Spicy rice covered with an omelette which is then decorated with sauce and accompanied by a soup. It was lovely! Of course it does take a bit of time to communicate one’s wants to those at the food courts. I would point to a picture and want to know what went into the dish before I ordered it. Imagine if I get a snake or something equally repulsive!!!!! Yucks!!! Lots of people seem to favour steamed rice and with a curry or two to taking the more ‘exotic ‘ dishes.

We walked about a bit more and popped into McDonalds for mixed vanilla and chocolate ice-cream. We were quite tired and wound our way back through Petaling Street to the taxi stand. The street comes alive in the night. The roadway which only had stalls on either side and a few folding tables in the middle in the afternoon was packed with people and little stalls stacked one against the other which had sprung up in a couple of hours. They sold everything from shoes to clothes and most of all to watches of every style and colour one could think of. The taxi guy wanted 25RM back to the hotel. which we had been warned would be waaaay too much. So we walked back to the monorail station, and went back to our hotel for just 2.20 RM per person! The monorail runs till at 11.00 p.m. in the night….. thank goodness for that!

Our First Full Day in KL - 16th July 2005

I got up with this great feeling of excitement and expectancy. It was our first day in KL. Had a quick peek out at wonderful KL, showered and went down for breakfast around 7.30 or so. The breakfast was quite good. I was happy after the miserable experience we had at the Garden Hotel in Singapore! There was cereal, toast, some delicious sandwiches, spring rolls, noodles, rice with chicken curry, half-boiled eggs, some local soupy thing with rice and all the accompaniments (I never did try that out!) pineapple juice and tea and coffee to finish off. Very nice indeed!

After breakfast we found our way to the train station and went to Masjid Jamek which we later found out was actually walking distance away. Anyway, not knowing this, we took the monorail and went the one halt. Just outside the station was this busy bazaar full of street vendors. Leaving it behind we followed our map to find the Masjid Jamek Mosque. We were not sure whether we would be let inside seeing that we were two ladies and especially since yours truly was dressed in a sleeveless T-shirt. The security person turned out to be very sweet indeed. He led us over to a rack of long garments and scarves, had us don these and then gave us permission to walk around the mosque. The only thing that didn’t please me was his request for a 5RM ‘donation’! I saw two other European tourists having to dish out similar ‘donations’. Anyway, we had some fun taking pictures of the two of us in our very Moslem looking costumes.

We then found the SLT Ahd Samad Building which is some kind of a court house. Too bad it was the weekend, or else we may have been able to have a peek inside as well. The building itself is very beautiful. We walked along the entire stretch ending up near City Point which was a lovely lacey looking building. We crossed over and walked back past the Merdeke SquareIndependence Square, where the tallest flag pole in Asia stands proud. We also visited the history museum in the same grounds. There was a club built in the English style, with a large lawn, bowers and graceful arches outside. What a lovely touristy area it was. There were large buses disgorging loads of eager tourists with their cameras. They were such a little time for taking photos before being shooed back to the buses; I was so glad we came on our own and could explore the place at our own pace and pleasure! The last in that area was a fountain in the shape of very large flowers. We took pictures there too.

We were soon quite hungry and thirsty after all this unaccustomed exercise in the hot burning sun. So we walked around until we came to the Magu Curry House. We were given a plateful of steamed rice with a range of curries to choose from. The curry which looked nice and spicy turned out to be like chutney… quite sweet and horried! Our over-eager waiter who was describing all the delicacies of his land even offered himself to take back with us!!!! His very kind offer was ……ahem…. regretfully……well… declined.

We then found our way back to the market place, tried out the sugar cane and rose water drinks and then after quite a bit of inquiring, found our way to the Indian Night market which only operates on Saturday nights. This I would recommend to anyone visiting KL. Don’t miss the night market in Little India. There is quite a price difference in the goods and there’s this wonderful ambience. What a pity it was our first night there, or else I would have bought a more things to take home with us.

Malaysians love their food. Everything smelt delicious. There were whole areas dedicated entirely to food of all types. We got some roast chicken for dinner and bought a swiss roll which looked heavenly and chocolaty. We tried out dried cherries and sweets and even had some bean curd and honey which looked like the Sri Lankan curd and honey…. Only it turned out to be a lukewarm, tasteless concoction….. Ugh. The ladies selling it were enthusiastic in its virtues of being good for the skin and so on. Well not for me!!! Thank you!

The sweets of Malaysia were very attractive in a multitude of shapes and sizes. Most of them were made out of creamed rice and flour. We pounced on some chocolate looking sweets only to find that most of them tasted the same - rather bland, cool and with no particular taste. The chocolate ones we pounced on with glee – well, they didn’t taste of chocolate in the least! There were loads of fruit, mostly sold by the kilo. Some of the fruit I had never seen before. What fun we had exploring the new tastes and sights of KL.

We had been out the entire day and were feeling pretty tired by the time we reached the hotel. We dined on roast chicken and with great anticipation opened up our soft and fluffy swiss roll. That turned out to be quite a disappointment for a sweet tooth such as myself. They use very little sugar indeed! I must admit I didn’t like it very much though it looked so appealing. Oh poor me!

Monday, August 08, 2005

Malaysia - here we come!!

We left Colombo at 7.10 a.m. on the 15th of July 2005 on Flight No.UL 312. Mum and Dad came along with us to the airport to see us off. We landed in Kuala Lumpur at 10.45 a.m. (Colombo time) 12.45 noon KL time. They are two hours ahead of us. I must say the flight was a pleasant one with a friendly crew and decent food.

Having landed in the KL airport, we had to take the aero train to the baggage claim. That, I thought, was very impressive. Imagine having an airport large enough to have to take a train ride to get to the other end of it - Wow! Having cleared immigration quite easily we then proceeded to the taxi counter.

A note to other greenhorns such as ourselves who are too sure about how to set about this…. use the airport taxi counter located just within the premises. As you leave the main doors leading to the reception or waiting area, you find loads of touts for hotels and taxis and limos and so on. The people are dressed kinda officially and yell out quite imperiously making you feel that you have done something wrong and need to speak with them and clear it up… you will then find yourself pressured quite expertly into tours or whatever. We had this experience the first time we landed in Thailand, and learned never to respond to these commanding voices!

Anyway, we went over to the taxi counter where we booked a taxi to our hotel, the Grand Centrepoint Hotel. The taxi only cost us 67.40 RM. We then went out to the gate indicated and found another helpful individual out there to help us locate a taxi which took us to the hotel, if rather the long way around.

Grand Centrepoint Hotel, is not has grand as it sounds being a kind of budget hotel, but I was so glad to see it. My friend Kumudu had already booked us in for three nights, so in we went to register ourselves and then upto our room (No.503). What a lovely albeit noisy view we had. I could see the Sogo shopping complex straight ahead of us, and the Maju complex and University, then to my left, I could see the Communication Tower and the monorail line.

Practically as soon as we reached our room the phone rang. Kumudu had been worried cos’ we reached the hotel late. Anyway, she came along to see us to welcome us to KL and accompany us to the Sogo Shopping Mall from where she took a taxi home.

Sunethra and I wondered around, found a hawker street food stall and had our first Malaysian meal, Mee Goreng Mamak which cost all of 3.50 RM per plate. It turned out to be a mixture of noodles and various kinds of meat and fish and prawn. We walked around a bit more imbibing the atmosphere. We soon felt rather tired and went back to the hotel for a hot shower, hot tea and then to bed. Thus ended our first day in Kuala Lumpur.