Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

It's weird to be in Kuala Lumpur (KL) because this whole trip, I've known this was one of our last stops, which means that because we are here we are nearing the end of our trip.  At the same time we still have nearly 2 weeks left, which is a good length trip in and of itself, so I like to think we're not that close to the end.

KL is a really interesting city, mostly due to the juxtaposition of the old and the new, the inexpensive and the cheap and the variety of cultures, and we have been doing some interesting things here.

Such as eating really yummy food in really gross places.

Like this alley, for example, where Anson saw rats coming up from the sewer.  We're used to this type of eating by now, though and it really in our experience, the best food is the least expensive food.  It's amazing that such a delicious meal can cost less than 9 Ringgit (3.1 Ringgit to the USD).  We've had a couple more expensive meals in Malaysia though such as Steamboat (hotpot) in Cameron Highlands and Din Tai Fun (you know the dumpling chain that's also in Seattle, Kelly?).  Compared to the ~10 Ringget meals we are used to eating those meals seem expensive, being 40-50 Ringget, but really they're still way cheap...er, I mean inexpensive (Dad), since that's how much you'd spend in dollars on a comprable meal in the States.

We also saw Betel leaf chew being made on the streets, which we of course did not proceed buy and try ourselves.  Or maybe we did and maybe it nearly made me puke.  Either way I can tell you that there won't be any red-stained teeth in the future for these two Browns!

We also visited a Hindu temple.

And saw many examples of the new by the old, just two of which are pictured below.

And learned why there is a sticker on the ceiling of our hotel in the shape of an arrow that says "Kiblat" (it's the direction of Mecca for Muslim prayer).

And took lots of pictures of the city.

When I decided to wear my white dress, we pretended like I was a particular British princess visiting SE Asia.

But the game of pretend kind of fell to pieces when it was time for me to put my borrowed and requisite Mosque attire on.  It wasn't quite as gorgeous as hers.

And we ate more delicious food in slightly less yucky places.  But really, I wish these restaurants would stop ripping us off.  8 Ringget for two lunches and two ice teas?!  Come on!

We also went to the Sky Bar (a bar that is WAY too cool and expensive for us, but cheaper than the touristy city-viewing tower) on the 33rd story of Shangri-La hotel to see the city view and took lots of pictures of the Patronas towers, which were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998-2003.  In fact, according to Wikipedia (which is a very reputable source, cited by one or more museums in SE Asia), Malaysia was the first country to out-build the US in terms of tallest building.

So naturally, we took lots of pictures of the towers.

But my favorite picture we took that night didn't have record-breaking buildings in it, just the shadows of two average-sized people.

Of course, you can't visit KL without visiting Batu Caves.

Which are full of way-too-tame monkeys, which were mostly fun to see and take pictures of - I think monkeys are more fun to see in their natural environment.  My favorite part, of course, was the dog whose job it was to guard the bathrooms from the monkeys (which I have a video of but again cannot get it to upload).

I nearly got attacked by a male with giant teeth after taking the picture below.

And my final photo was not taken near Batu Caves (it was taken in a park near central KL where we also saw monkeys), but I had to post it because it was so apropos to a prior post.

Cameron Highlands, Malaysia

Cameron Highlands is a popular weekend spot for Malaysians and a international tourist destination.  It is full of produce farms, tea farms, markets and rainforest.  You can buy Cameron Apples here, which look like eggplant, but the vendor said are indeed fruit.  We bought one but have yet to try it because he said it was four days from being ripe and so far it's only been two.

Yesterday we did an organized tour to hike to the giant Rafflasia flower and see the biggest and most famous tea plantation up here, Boh.  

This is us in the funny hats that one of the tour guides made for everyone.

This is Anson by the flower.  It was super hard to get pics because they let the entire tour of like 30 people go up at once and it wasn't really on a trail, but a steep eroding hillside.  Honestly, I am surprised it hasn't gotten trampled.

This is the bud of a flower.

And a hanging bud that they said would bloom in four days.  Rafflasia flowers take 190 days from being a tiny bud to full bloom, then they only bloom for about a week.

Here is us near the tea plantation, which was super pretty.

We thought the tour was only supposed to take us to the flower and the tea farm.  But our guide decided to make a few extra stops (a butterfly/insect park and a strawberry farm), I think because he gets kick-backs for doing so.  We weren't going to complain, because how often do you get to go to a an insect park where your tour guide takes the giant, bizarre insects out of their cages for you to hold?  Not very often.  

Leaf insect

Elephant beetle with a long black nose that was embedded in this sugar cane and was velvety to the touch.

Rhinoceros beetle

These were frogs that suctioned onto the side of their tank!  Very neat!

Plus, it was fun driving around in the extreme amounts of traffic (it's Malaysia day today and therefore Cameron Highlands has been super busy due to the holiday weekend) and passing all the cars by driving in the wrong lane and honking to alert oncoming traffic (going the right way) as we sped around curves.  I am not joking that it was fun, it really was.  But its fun-to-scary ratio was drastically increased when we weren't the lead car in the wrong lane...

The original plan was to head to the Perhentian Islands today.  But we didn't get back from our "half day" tour until after 7pm (partly due to the extra stops and partly due to the traffic... of course we probably wouldn't have gotten back until 10pm if our driver had stayed in the right lane the whole time) and after finding out that the 3 budget places on the islands with decent reviews didn't have any availability, we decided to stay in Cameron Highlands another night.  It was too stressful trying to plan getting somewhere else by the time 9:30pm rolled around.  So we thought it'd be better to take the time to really plan today.  Now the next stop is Kuala Lumpur, and we plan to hit Tioman Island (further south than the Perhentians) right before we go to Singapore.

We didn't have any plans for today so we slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, booked our hotel in and bus to KL and then went strolling aimlessly.  The town we are staying in is only about 4 blocks of shops and restaurants and we've strolled the main area at least 10 times.  But today Anson spotted a sign at one of the main intersections that said "Mardi - 500m" with an arrow pointing to the right.  We had no idea what Mardi was but decided to check it out, since it was only 1/2 a kilometer away.  Turns out it's an agricultural research center with amazing gardens, and more tea fields (it's actually the home of the first tea fields up here).  They had an herb garden with Stevia in it, you know like Stevia extract? We tried a bit of a leaf and it is, of course, super sweet!  Yummy!  I could have probably eaten the entire plant.  A definite must-grow in our garden... once we have a garden... or a house...

So that was fun.  Stumbling upon such places unexpectedly is always a highlight, I think!

PS - Bridget asked what I was drinking out of the bag in my last post.  It was just lime juice.  All the to-go drinks come in bags tied with a pink string made into a handle.  I am just holding it like that cause I am silly.