My third and last day in Kuala Lumpur was the first day that the group I’d be traveling with met each other – over coffee at our hotel – and we went as a troop of fourteen to three locations in the city, along with having lunch and dinner together (while the company was great at both those meals, the eating experience wasn’t nearly as much fun as my prior two days).
Our first stop was the observation decks of the Petronas Towers, which I’d only seen from the outside in my first two days. We first went up to the 41st/42nd floor, where the “Skybridge” is between the two towers, with a chance to walk out across the bridge to catch the views. Some neat facts about the bridge, listed on a poster there:
- The Skybridge is “the highest 2-storey bridge in the world.”
- “The length of the bridge is 58.4 metres and located at a height of 170 metres from the street level.”
- And – really amazingly: “It is not attached to the main structure but is instead designed to slide in and out of the towers to prevent it from breaking due to strong winds.”
After that, we headed up to the observation decks on the 86th floor of “Tower 2” from which, of course, the views are incredible but no photograph does justice. A couple of neat facts about the Towers: they’re constructed of reinforced concrete and walls of 33,000 stainless steel and 55,000 glass panels, and the Towers were built to withstand winds of up to 15km/hour – about one third the strength of the winds in Hurricane Katrina. (The nighttime photos of the illuminated towers in the gallery below were actually taken my first evening in KL, one from outside my hotel and the other from inside the restaurant I went to).
The second stop was the Islamic Arts Museum in KL – the largest museum of Islam-related arts and artifacts in Southeast Asia, with, apparently, more than 7,000 items in the collection. So, yeah, no time to go through it all. I spent my time in two big areas. The first of these, had scale-models (still at good scale – maybe three, four, or five feet wide) of noted mosques from a wide-range of cities around the globe. The second exhibit was absolutely wonderful and fascinating – it was all about the the art and production of the Quran, including the vellum and paper used, inks and pens, binding, styles of writing, art on pages, and other related books – critical interpretations and the life of the prophet. And there was, of course, a beautiful collection of Qurans from across the years, in a wide-variety of sizes, even ones that were so tiny that you’d need a magnifying glass to read. I could have spent more time just pouring over this exhibit.
Our last stop was the “Central Market Kuala Lumpur,” in a building that dates to 1937, but at a location that has had a market since 1888. I’d almost spent time there on my first day in KL, but quickly realized what it was and knew I’d be back on day three. It’s got two floors, the second of which is more-or-less a food court, while the first is filled with stalls with clothing and art and tschotchke of all types; hats, shirts, pants, belts, children’s toys, masks, small sculptures, jewelry, food (crackers, chips, candy, dried fruit), coffee beans and ground coffee, books, stickers, pens, model-sized Petronas Towers, brass pots and tea kettles, masks, boxes, lights, bowls, socks, and more. And great people-watching!
But tomorrow – ah, day four – we leave for Borneo!!
Fred's Travel Blog 