Kuala Lumpur -- Day 2 -- Selamat Ingal!

I skipped the rich breakfast spread at the hotel, because Perng decided instead to take me to a local Indian eatery. I checked out of the hotel too, since I was leaving for India later that evening. Anyway, the breakfast at the Indian eatery was great. I had murtabak (stuffed naan unique to Malaysia), rava dosa, excellent kopi (coffee), while Perng had kottu paratha (chopped paratha with meat toppings), idly (strangely with veggies and chicken).

He drove me through Petaling Jaya neighborhood, formerly a middle class neighborhood with factories, through parts of KL and Chinatown. The architecture of KL has changed since the 80's with the rising fortunes of Malaysia and the subsequent introduction of neo-Islamic buildings by the erstwhile Prime Minister, Mohatir Mohammad. Many newly constructed official buildings have signs in Arabic, where previously there was no known influence. We had coffee, chatted about Malaysian and Chinese history, and finally Perng dropped me off at KLIA Central Stesen (sic). I dropped off my luggage at KLIA (15 MYR) and took a metered cab (8 MYR) to the orchid garden (admission 12 MYR) and also visited the excellent KL Bird Park (admission 35 MYR for tourists, 15 MYR for Malaysians). I enjoyed a good couple of hours there, returned to KLIA Central and proceeded to Pudu Raya bus station to board my bus to Singapore.

Bus ride to Singapore: The bus was scheduled to leave at 5.30 pm and I had arrived an hour early. I had two chicken burgers (6 MYR) and a soda at a stand. Enjoyed it. It was murderously hot, sweaty, dirty and replete with exhaust fumes from the buses. There was huge throng of wailing kids, women in conservative Muslim garbs, teenagers, old people, beggars and what not. I waited patiently for the bus -- 5.15 pm, 5.25 pm, 5.45 pm, 6.00 pm and still no bus. I was nervous about missing my flight from Singapore. A co-passenger, Sam from Singapore, was sympathetic and assured me that I was in the right place -- after all, at that point, time was paramount. The bus finally arrived and departed at 6.20 pm; that meant arrival in Singapore at approximately 11.30 pm. The bus was fortunately comfortable, but we were stuck in heavy rush hour traffic of KL with traffic approaching speeds of 10 kmph (~ 6 mph)! After an hour or so of stop and go traffic, we were finally on the highway. The bus driver played some action-thriller on the DVD player and I paid little or no attention to it. Around 9.00 pm we stopped for an "unscheduled" break at a roadside eatery. I had some noodle soup to stave off hunger. The bus was delayed by almost an hour-and-a-half when we reached the border town of Johar Bahru. We went through Malaysian emigration and a few hundred meters of walking through Singapore immigration.

Things were looking pretty bleak. To top it all, I had no Singapore currency. I traded just enough Malaysian ringgits with some passengers for cab fare. I probably paid too much. Sam, the afore-mentioned gentleman, helped me through Singapore customs by taking me through the channel for Singapore residents. A big thank you to Sam and Singapore customs!! Without them there might not have been a visit to India at all. I got off at the very first stop (Woodlands), ran 200-300 meters with my baggage and all, and jumped into a cab for a 30 minute ride to Changyi airport. I made it in time (12.43 am) before the gates closed for my flight at 1.25 am! Whew, that was close! I settled into my seat for the JetStar Asia flight to Bangalore. I'm nervous as I write this episode. Home at last!

Kuala Lumpur -- Day 1 -- Apakabar!

My first day in KL, I woke up relaxed and breakfasted at the hotel at an additional 15 MYR (~4 USD). The spread was fantastic, all sorts of meats, vegetables, noodles, potatoes, pancakes, Indian dosa (written as tosa), Chinese noodles etc. The richness and variety of Malaysian cuisine were in full display. Mind you, this was just breakfast. Imagine lunch and dinner! Food was going to be great in Malaysia. Completely satisfied, I walked to the neighboring bus station to get bus tickets to Singapore for the next day, but they were all sold out; I had to go the main bus terminal at Pudu Raya. At any rate, I took KL rapid transit (2.60 MYR) to get to KLCC, the train station for Petronas Towers.

Petronas Towers is the crown jewel of KL tourism, and it is promoted everywhere. The admission is free, but you have to get a ticket and wait your turn. Security is very, very tight. Since you are on a schedule, there's nothing to do but to shop and eat. With 2 hours to kill, I strolled through the KLCC shopping center -- it's beautiful architecturally, but boring. I stepped outside for a stroll and met these three British teenage/twenty-something girls on a holiday in KL. They were also scheduled to visit the towers at the same time and hence I decided to have lunch with them for company-- at Pizza Hut. I know, horrible isn't it? With all the interesting food in KL, these girls wanted only pizza, that too pepperoni. What a letdown? Anyway, we were put in different groups, so we parted ways. The visit to the towers was ho-hum. If you've seen one skyscraper, you've seen them all. Fortunately, my camera batteries quit on me and I was spared the pain of taking more tourist pictures. A good thing too.

I then took rapid transit to Masjid Jamek station and walked through the streets to get a feel of the street life. The streets are noisy, polluted and crowded, vehicles belch smoke and drivers honk and amidst all this commotion, the three main ethnic groups, Chinese, Malays and Indians conduct their businesses and blast their brand of music from loudspeakers. The cacophony is colorful and you can tolerate it somewhat but the heat was something else. It was blazing hot throughout and you had to drink copious amounts of fluids. After walking an hour in the heat, I reached Pudu Raya street, where is located the long-distance bus terminal. I bought a ticket for the 6.30 pm bus to Singapore for the following day. The ride was supposed to take 5 hours, leaving me sufficient time to catch my flight to India at 1.45 am, or so I thought...

I wasn't in much of a mood to do more sightseeing, and it was too late in the afternoon anyway. So, I went back to my hotel in Petaling Jaya. For the first time in my trip, I actually felt bored. Somehow, I did not like KL at all -- from a sightseeing standpoint. I lay in my bed and watched TV -- some soccer, the beginning of The Bourne Supremacy with Malay subtitles and some stupid music show. What was interesting was that I was able to comprehend a few words in the subtitles.

Malay is an interesting language and spoken widely with many variants, extending from Malaysia and Indonesia to southern Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore. According to Wikipedia, there are very few true Malay words and therefore a majority of the vocabulary is words borrowed from other languages with Malay spellings. For example, stesen (station), bahasa (Sanskrit bhasha=language), dunia (Arabic duniya=world), katil (Tamil kattil=bed or cot) and putera (Sanskrit putra=son). So, if you are familiar with many Indian languages, grasping the meaning of many Malay words will not be difficult, however, the grammar is a different ballgame.

I went out for a walk with my iPod and explored the neighborhood around the hotel. I checked my email at an internet cafe (3 MYR/hour) and had coffee and cake at The Coffee Bean (14 MYR). After another hour of wandering around, I went to a local Indian restaurant and had dinner -- some chicken biriyani (4 MYR) and roti pratha (similar to Indian paratha, but deep fried). It was a tasty and satisfying meal -- a big change from the lunch at Pizza Hut that afternoon. I returned to the hotel, called my buddy Perng and made arrangements to meet him for breakfast the next day. Instead of watching TV, I read parts of Catch 22. Time to sleep!