I left Jakarta on March 1 and had an uneventful trip and arrival. Three goals for Singapore: arrange travel to Kuala Lumpur; buy a mystery book set in Bangkok; and meet a pal for dinner. Oh, four goals for Singapore: catch up on my blogging; arrange travel to Kuala Lumpur; buy a mystery book set in Bangkok; and meet a pal for dinner.
I accomplished three of four. Dinner with a pal involved drinks, dinner featured duck tongue (presented in the lower jaw, and I'm quite sure I didn't know that ducks had jaws as such), durian and drinks in a dive. My dinner companion later claimed the durian was "the soft tourist option". He is made of tougher stuff than me. Everything I ate tasted of durian for 2 days.
The mini bus to take me to the bus bus came at the uncontionable hour of 7:15 AM. At this point, given the drinks in a dive went latish, I did not taste durian. My senses were generally stunned.
I did get to the bus, the bus did get to Kuala Lumpur and I did check into a decidely down market hotel. I had reservations at some top notch credit card burning hotels coming up, so prudence seemed in order.
Kuala Lumpur was nice. Its got several really good museums, including the surprisingly wonderful Islamic Arts Museum and a brand new Textile Museum across from Merdeka Square. Its got lots of good colonial architecture, oddly based on Mughal Indian proto-types (those Brits!), and some stunning new buildings as well.
I do not have a picture of the Petronas Towers to post> The twin buildings briefly had the title of world's tallest. I've never liked the photos I had seen of them and maybe durian (or duck tongue) is full of long lasting endorphins or similar mood elevators, but I thought they looked graceful.
While I am admiring the towers, it starts raining really hard. The decidedly upscale mall next door was long on high end shops and short on food choices. I ate at a Chili's. I hang my head in shame.
Two final thoughts about Kuala Lumpur. It has saints working at the central train station booking office. I had made a mockery of some online reservations which they kindly sorted out.
And it has one of the most vile road patterns for pedestrians I've ever seen. Its not that the drivers seemed particularly tough. Coming after my time in Indonesia, the Malay drivers seemed down right modest. But the intertwined spaghetti bowl of free ways right through parts of town was basically impossible to get across, except through regrettable displays of brashness.
I took a mid-day train March 3 for Butterworth. It was late getting in, but the ferry to Penang was still operating and the short ride with Penang's lights in the offing is not far off of Hong Kong Star Ferry for eye pleasing fun. And no one was pushing or shoving or spitting.
Penang really has the colonial architecture thing down pat. I feature for you the hotel I stayed at, The Eastern & Oriental, as a good case in point.
The hotel was instantly lovable in that the bar was open late and served some local spicy noodle concoction. As I ate my noodles and sipped my drink, I was trying to sort changes to the hotel from my only other visit 20 years ago. At that point the hotel was clearly a faded beauty. The ceiling fans actually worked for a living and I'm not positive the elevators operated. Now the place is something passed gentrified into an all suites property. When the tab for the noodles and drink came, the tab roughly matched what I think my last stay cost all in.
Penang has got some great Chinese architecture. The locals claim the private temples and homes beat anything post-Mao China has to offer. Don't know, but it made for some pleasant wandering.
At one of the sites (off of Cannon Ball street, named for obvious reasons during a testy time between some Chinese factions a hundred years or so ago), a film crew was making some kind of period piece. As best I could tell the Japanese soldiers were not the good guys. This actor, happy enough have his picture taken between shots, seems not to be in the De Niro method acting school (and to any British friends reading, I am quite sure that is a peace sign).
Malaysia has a big Indian population, and it seemed well represented in Penang in both the shops and the good architecture, mainly mosques and temples.
The morning of the fifth I have time to wander around seeing a couple more sites before taking the ferry back to Butterworth for a long train ride to Bangkok.
And that, at a brisk romp, is my night in Singapore and three days in Malaysia.
I accomplished three of four. Dinner with a pal involved drinks, dinner featured duck tongue (presented in the lower jaw, and I'm quite sure I didn't know that ducks had jaws as such), durian and drinks in a dive. My dinner companion later claimed the durian was "the soft tourist option". He is made of tougher stuff than me. Everything I ate tasted of durian for 2 days.
The mini bus to take me to the bus bus came at the uncontionable hour of 7:15 AM. At this point, given the drinks in a dive went latish, I did not taste durian. My senses were generally stunned.
I did get to the bus, the bus did get to Kuala Lumpur and I did check into a decidely down market hotel. I had reservations at some top notch credit card burning hotels coming up, so prudence seemed in order.
Kuala Lumpur was nice. Its got several really good museums, including the surprisingly wonderful Islamic Arts Museum and a brand new Textile Museum across from Merdeka Square. Its got lots of good colonial architecture, oddly based on Mughal Indian proto-types (those Brits!), and some stunning new buildings as well.
I do not have a picture of the Petronas Towers to post> The twin buildings briefly had the title of world's tallest. I've never liked the photos I had seen of them and maybe durian (or duck tongue) is full of long lasting endorphins or similar mood elevators, but I thought they looked graceful.While I am admiring the towers, it starts raining really hard. The decidedly upscale mall next door was long on high end shops and short on food choices. I ate at a Chili's. I hang my head in shame.
Two final thoughts about Kuala Lumpur. It has saints working at the central train station booking office. I had made a mockery of some online reservations which they kindly sorted out.
And it has one of the most vile road patterns for pedestrians I've ever seen. Its not that the drivers seemed particularly tough. Coming after my time in Indonesia, the Malay drivers seemed down right modest. But the intertwined spaghetti bowl of free ways right through parts of town was basically impossible to get across, except through regrettable displays of brashness.
I took a mid-day train March 3 for Butterworth. It was late getting in, but the ferry to Penang was still operating and the short ride with Penang's lights in the offing is not far off of Hong Kong Star Ferry for eye pleasing fun. And no one was pushing or shoving or spitting.
Penang really has the colonial architecture thing down pat. I feature for you the hotel I stayed at, The Eastern & Oriental, as a good case in point.
The hotel was instantly lovable in that the bar was open late and served some local spicy noodle concoction. As I ate my noodles and sipped my drink, I was trying to sort changes to the hotel from my only other visit 20 years ago. At that point the hotel was clearly a faded beauty. The ceiling fans actually worked for a living and I'm not positive the elevators operated. Now the place is something passed gentrified into an all suites property. When the tab for the noodles and drink came, the tab roughly matched what I think my last stay cost all in.
Penang has got some great Chinese architecture. The locals claim the private temples and homes beat anything post-Mao China has to offer. Don't know, but it made for some pleasant wandering.
At one of the sites (off of Cannon Ball street, named for obvious reasons during a testy time between some Chinese factions a hundred years or so ago), a film crew was making some kind of period piece. As best I could tell the Japanese soldiers were not the good guys. This actor, happy enough have his picture taken between shots, seems not to be in the De Niro method acting school (and to any British friends reading, I am quite sure that is a peace sign).Malaysia has a big Indian population, and it seemed well represented in Penang in both the shops and the good architecture, mainly mosques and temples.
The morning of the fifth I have time to wander around seeing a couple more sites before taking the ferry back to Butterworth for a long train ride to Bangkok.And that, at a brisk romp, is my night in Singapore and three days in Malaysia.
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