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 Square – Independence 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!
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