Having a better idea of the layout of Kuala Lumpur we headed to the Golden Triangle. This is the name for the main CBD area of town and is home to the majority of large companies, big-chain hotels and high-end shopping outlets.
It’s also home to the Petronas Towers, once the world’s tallest building at 452m high. The 88 floors have 32,000 windows and 58 elevators. Their height was surpassed in 2004 by Taipei 101, and more recently by the Burj Dubai, but they still remain the world’s tallest twin towers. This is all very impressive but doesn’t get over the fact that close-up they’re actually pretty ugly. Unlike the elegant Burj Dubai there’s little or no design evident and it looks poorly thought through, but all this is forgiven by the night time lighting, which makes it look like a crystal chandelier rising from the city.
You’re able to go up to the 170m high sky bridge between the towers for a view over the city, but it seems more sensible to go up the nearby Menara KL tower which is 100m higher and has a view over the city including the Petronas Towers.
South of the towers is The Pavilion KL, a new looking shopping mall with a dazzling array of high quality but very reasonable restaurants offering cuisines from all over the world and at the entrance is a bakery run by Malaysia’s ex-prime minister.
The Pavilion opens out onto a large terrace which leads to a crossroads of Jalan Bukit Bintang and Jalan Sultan Ismail, KL’s main shopping area. With all the shop signs and neon advertising it’s reminiscent of Tokyo’s Ginza area and caters to most budgets.
Coming off of Bukit Bintang is Changkak Bukit Bintang, a street that only really comes alive at night when all the open air bars and restaurants open. It’s also a great place for budget accommodation as it’s bordered by the cheap eats of Jalan Alor and is within easy walking distance of most attractions.
Feburary the 14th is obviously Valentine’s Day in many places, but with Malaysia being a two-thirds Muslim country they’d put a fatwa1 on it as being unreligious and damaging to young people. With this in mind I picked a German place for dinner that was unlikely to contain many Muslims: http://elcerdokl.com … The name is Spanish – click through for a hint with sound.
As it turned out this was unnecessary as the Malay youth were out in force ignoring the fatwa and had even rebelled as far as also dubbing it ‘No Panties Day’, but the widespread popularity of this was harder to ascertain.
1 A fatwa is a religious ruling issued by Islamic scholars, not simply a death sentence as some newspapers would have you believe.
I vote to change the name of Valentine’s Day into “No Panties Day” all over the world. It would be a much more secular name anyway. Separation of church & state after all.. 🙂
We moved up to Penang a few days later, where the ladies celebrated Valentines Day by lining up and throwing oranges into the sea. The best throw attracts the best husband apparently