Highlights from Kuala Lumpur (Update Week #4)

Well I am back in Banda Aceh after spending a few days in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I booked my ticket from Banda Aceh to Kuala Lumpur on Air Asia, one of the local budget airlines (the ‘Easy Jet’ of Asia), back in March and I recently figured out why it only cost 20 GBP – when my friends and I arrived at the BA airport for our flight, we learned that Air Asia had decided to change their flight schedule and go to Kuala Lumpur the following day (but had not bothered to contact us…), so we just went home and came back again the next morning :-) The 2nd time around we were successful and we made it to KL without any further delay. I took the photo below from the plane just as we were (finally!) leaving Banda Aceh…










In KL, I stayed at a lovely guest house close to the city centre and got around easily using the local light rail system (LRT). Over the course of 4 days, I explored Chinatown, the Central Market area, the butterfly park, the oldest Anglican church in Malaysia, Independence Square, Little India, the Petronas Twin Towers (one of the tallest buildings in the world), the National Gallery, the city centre park area, visited friends, etc, etc – and yes, in the midst of touring around, I actually did make it to the Indonesian Embassy to extend my VISA :-) My overall impression of KL is that it is colourful, convenient and very consumer-focused - basically a ‘Western’ city in the middle of Asia. It was very nice to be an ‘anonymous’ tourist in KL after being constantly scrutinized in Banda Aceh. In addition to buying many Malaysian souvenirs I also enjoyed the familiarity of being able to shop at stores like Marks & Spencers and Tescos :-)













Kuala Lumpur is also very multi cultural, and I realized one evening that during that day, I had visited a Sikh Gurdwara, a Hindu temple, a Catholic church, two Islamic mosques, two Buddhist temples and even watched part of the Wesak Day parade (which recognizes the birth, enlightenment and death of Buddha).

After such a busy long weekend, I was happy to come back ‘home’ to Indonesia although I almost did not make it back into the country – my VISA was alright of course, but because I have a CANADIAN passport and Canada has several cases of swine flu, there was some panic at Banda Aceh customs and immigration until I could explain (in my limited Bahasa Indonesian!) that I was not sick and I had not been to Canada for months, so I was not bringing any diseases into their country :-)

Since I have been back in Banda Aceh, there have been several downpours of rain, which has made it a little cooler. We also have a new pet in our house, a little frog who likes to hang out in the kitchen and keep out of the rain. I am continuing with my local language lessons, and have started to learn how to describe things by their colour, size and shape, which is fun for me but I think it drove the people at the market crazy this morning when I asked for each thing in such detail...

I am not sure what my next adventure will be, but I am sure something exciting will happen again soon!