Day 4
This was to be our last day in KL as we fly to Oz at about 10pm. This gave us a final day of sightseeing; Good times. A lie in until only 7am; Bad times! We decided in order to maximise time we would get a taxi up to the Menara KL. Also the fact that it is based at the top of a hill persuaded Scott of the need to part with the well earned Ringits. Six crisp 1 Ringit notes later and we were at the base of a very large communications tower. The 4th largest in the world to be exact! The organisation here was less of the military precision of the Skybridge and more Disneyland! Our ‘tickets’ included a tour around a mock village, Cultural presentation and a pony ride (if under 50kg)! We skipped on all of the extras and went straight up the tower! Although, I think Deb was tempted with the pony ride.
We again took a lift up but this time the height was measured in meters instead of floors. The weather had been misty when we woke up and had only just begun to clear so we were unsure of the view we would get. We were not disappointed as the city appeared through the mist allowing us to pinpoint all of the major landmarks. We were given headphones and a personal video player which described the view as you walked around the tower. Although the Petronas Towers is probably more iconic the Menara KL gives the best views of the city and of course lets you view the Petronas themselves. Lots of photos later (hope you like them at http://picasaweb.google.com/knapp.scott) we got the lift back to ground level ears popping as we descended.
As we excited we walked over to the Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve. Scott knew there was a cache here so it was a joint effort to find. After searching almost everywhere whilst struggling with a signal under the dense rainforest canopy we eventually had a brainwave and checked just outside the main gate. There was a suspect tree there and we found it! Our first in KL! We walked through the forest looking for a second as Scott thought we were on a roll and our luck was in. Well our luck had changed after walking the same path twice through the same cloud of mosquitoes that must have thought all their birthdays, Christmas’ and Eids came at once as they descended upon us to inflict their bites of pain. We actually thought we had got off lightly with just one or two....
After the failure of this second cache and Deb’s continuous grumbling we made our way for the exit. We were unsure how long we must have been in the forest because as we were walking to an exit a group of people came in and asked us how far it was and what country we had come from! Maybe lost in translation or we just looked like we had been living there for days!
We next caught the monorail and bumped into an English contingent making their way to the Malaysian Grand Prix. However, the walk from the station to the Lake Gardens was a little longer than expected as we got lost several times and ended up in a bus station, on a main route out of KL with no pavements and all in the baking hot KL sun. This was by far the hottest day with sweat just sitting on our bodies. The Lake gardens has a lovely bird park which would have been fantastic to visit if we had time but we made do with a walk through the Orchid garden. The orchids were very pretty but we expected them to appear in a more ‘natural’ habitat but they were planted in pots under a canopy with a few misters dotted about to maintain humiditiy. Could have been and should have been better! We carried on walking through to the end of the gardens where we found a bench with a cooling overhead fan. Our saviour we thought until we noticed it wasn’t switched on! We thought the man sat upstairs was having fun at our desperation but then he came good and showed Scott the light(switch) which was the most pleasurable seat of the trip so far! We sat and compared sweat, blisters and bites. After cooling down Scott persuaded Deb they need to go and visit the National Monument so onwards and upwards (literally). When we reached the top of the hill there was a mighty big bronze statue designed and built in 1966 to commemorate the communism defeat. It was scorching hot and Deb found a cool(er) spot in the shade to collapse on the very cooling marble floor. A few photos later and it was down to the park to try and hunt out a final cache. However, after much endeavour, and Deb’s patience now non-existent, it was obviously not to be our day and we retreated down to the road where we hailed a luxurious air con cab back to the hotel.
A mocktail by the pool finished off our KL experience perfectly as we changed and got a cab back to the airport to fly off to Australia. We can hear those didgeridoos as we type.....
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