Thanksgiving in Kuala Lumpur

Hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Nikki and I enjoyed ours in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Part 1 of our Thanksgiving meal took place at Carcosa Seri Negara, which was built to house the highest British representative in Malaysia in the early 1900's. We tramped through the surrounding gardens enroute, taking a shortcut through an open field, and arrived for the super fancy afternoon tea covered in mud. We munched on delicious scones and other snacks while monsoon rains outside rocked the hundred year old house, before taking a taxi to the art-deco style Central Market for some shopping and a visit to the fish spa. I was far too ticklish (read: wimpy) to handle the fish swarming around my feet, eating all my hard-earned calluses, but Nikki loved it! As night fell, we strolled around town checking out the Majid Jamek at the junction of the two rivers for which Kuala Lumpur is named, and various onion-domed and mogul-style buildings surrounding independence square (the country formed in 1957). We then made our way over to Chinatown for some shopping on the famous Petaling Street and part 2 of our Thanksgiving dinner at the small, cute, and delicious Old China Café.

Our hotel in KL (the Hilton) was awesome. Aside from the ever-exciting bidet, our 32nd story room had an amazing view and every amenity imaginable. The breakfast buffet was one of the best we've ever seen, with Malay, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and European food all well-represented (tried them all, of course). After gorging ourselves, we took the light-rail over to Petronas Towers – once the tallest buildings in the world. It turns out tickets to the sky-bridge are hard to come by, so we bought tickets to the Menara Kuala Lumpur, a nearby telecommunications tower, for a higher view. We spent much of the rest of the day touring the city via hop-on-hop-off bus, getting out to see locals making batik at a crafts center and snap pictures of various landmarks. We meandered back home through an ethnic Malaysian district, stopping along the way to sample various kinds of street food – spice-filled coconut rolls steamed over a boiling pot, corn-shrimp crepes, and steamed meat-filled buns called "pau." We also ate a bunch of other delicious things at a crowded local restaurant, but I don't know what they were, since we don't speak Malay and we ordered by randomly pointing at the menu.

We spent Saturday outside of KL, touring the countryside with a private guide (what a character – more on him below). First up was a jungle hike and canopy tour at the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia. The scenery was beautiful – we even saw some monkeys – though within 30 minutes I had a huge leech attached to my foot. I proceeded to scream like a little girl and run around with my hands waving for the next few minutes. The bridges built 100 ft high in the canopy provided an excellent view of the preserve, though one had to question the structural integrity of the aluminum ladders providing the principal support. Next on the itinerary were Batu Caves – huge limestone caverns where a Hindu temple has been built and the center of a festival that draws millions of people each year. The caves themselves were stunning and the huge statue in front and various shrines were interesting. The whole place was crawling with long tailed macaques, which were pretty entertaining. We scarfed down an Indian-style lunch, where various visually unappealing, yet very tasty concoctions were scooped out of communal buckets onto banana leaves.

Everyone took a nap in the car as we rode out to the Selangor coast, with a stop at a traditional Malay-style house (100 years old, built without nails), where the third-generation resident taught us about the historic economic drivers of tapping rubber trees and harvesting palm oil. Closer to the famous straights of Melaka, we visited a cannon-circled lighthouse surrounded by silver leaf monkeys. I'm pretty sure that feeding these animals can't be a good idea (for the monkeys or humans!), but as part of the tour we were given handfuls of green beans and subsequently swarmed by these cute little guys. We even saw a few babies, which are golden-colored when they are born. Continuing our activities of questionable environmental consequence, we took a boat out into the nearby estuary to see eagles feeding (attracted with chicken bits). The estuary/river itself was beautiful as the sun set, and we had a lovely seafood meal by the water before heading back out in the boat in the evening to see the huge numbers of fireflies that congregate nearby. Our chain-smoking guide for all of these activities was an interesting guy – generally friendly and knowledgeable, but a bit unprofessional, disorganized and strangely quirky. For instance, he insisted that we shower and change our clothes after the initial hike, as he didn't want to taint the leather in his car – I didn't know I smelled THAT bad! Though a little bizarre at times, the tour turned out to be a great way to see areas outside of KL in a short period of time.  

On our last day in Malaysia, we took the train south of KL to see the recently constructed administrative center called Putrajaya. This beautiful city is designed around a man-made lake, with tons of unique mosques, bridges, and government buildings, though it isn't slated for completion for a couple years. After a great $1 tour, we escaped the daily downpour by returning to Petronas Towers for a Malay-style lunch. In our last few hours before heading to the airport, we toured a pretty good bird park near the city center and paid respect to the nearby national monument (designed by the same guy that did the Iwo Jima memorial in DC). In all, it was a great quick trip and a good way to use the free business class plane ticket that I won in a race a few weeks ago. Next week we are off to Cambodia for another race – the Angkor Wat Half Marathon!