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.
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