So long for now, KL

From the cafe I’m sitting in right now, I definitely feel like an expat. Georgetown (on Penang Island) is firmly on “island time” – the Westerners around here seem to be content to sit down with a beer, have a smoke and watch the traffic go by as the locals. Nobody seems in a hurry to do much of anything, and the sales clerks here are much more subdued, so much so that when I went to get some credit for my cell-phone, the guy woke up with a start!

As for what I’ve actually been up to in KL… I spent my first full day in the country with two Americans I had met on the flight – Charlie and Rasheed, who were both on holiday from their graduate studies in Sydney. We first explored the luxurious KLCC shopping centre at the base of the Petronas towers (think Entrapment w/Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones) and picked up some afternoon tickets for the Skybridge visit. We also happened to run into a 103″ plasma TV, which was probably the coolest gadget ever. After thoroughly soaking up the A/C, we departed the Christmas decoration that was KLCC and headed for Chinatown.

Where KLCC was clean, orderly and luxurious, Chinatown, not surprisingly, was not.  We headed into a couple of temples, which was slightly disturbing to those of a Judeo-Christian upbringing. Something did feel slightly wrong with polytheism and idol worship. Nevertheless, we saw a Hindu wedding party waiting outside the temple, and they happily and enthusiasticly posed for my camera (the bride is in blue):

This must be what it will be like in Bangladesh, and it will certainly be fun to photograph people there. Anyways, enduring countless hawkers pitching their products, I only bought a sports watch ($6) and some bootleg Adidas ($22). After walking through the main center of the city (Merkada Sq., where they declared independence from the UK), we returned to visit the Petronas towers skybridge that connects the 41st floors on both towers. It was very nice, but I would like to try and visit the Menara KL tower where you actually go to the top.