Day 14: One last gasp

Kuala Lumpur

Today was a weird day.  We left the apartment with high hopes--plans of many things to see on foot.   But the weather, us, and the city itself made that impossible.  We started out walking to the Kuala Lumpur Forest Eco-Park.  The name of the actual park is the Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve.  It was designated in 1906 as a permanent forest reserve.  It is the only bit of tropical rainforest left in Kuala Lumpur.  Originally 17.5 hectacres (about 43 acres) were designated, but urban development and especially the KL Tower built in the 1990s has eaten that area down, leaving only 9 hectacres (about 22 acres).  There is a 200 meter canopy walk through the rainforest; an elevated path through the forest canopy.  In reading reviews of it, several mentioned many stairs, but one suggested starting at the KL Tower which is actually the end and going backwards to cut down on stairs.  So, we tried that way and they were right!  You have to climb stairs to get from the carpark up to the Tower, but then all of the stairs are going down--much easier!  You walk across the bridges from platform to platform and at each platform go down a set of stairs (it must be going down a hill).  If you had started at the beginning, you would be going up stairs at each platform (about 7).  We came across one couple doing just that, each of them carrying a huge travel backpack.  They said that they were heavy and they were breathing hard as they came up the stairs.  Some reviews suggested bug spray for mosquitos, but we didn't come across any and some mentioned monkeys, but we didn't see any of those either.  The KL Tower had quite the tourist area with a zoo, snack stand, souvenir stall, and trips to the observation level of the tower (for about $25--we passed).   The walking portion of the bridges is broken in many places and deterioating, but the supports are still strong.  The park could use a bit more upkeep to restore it to its original state, but it is still something I would encourage others to visit. 

Birds at the zoo entrance (we didn't visit the zoo)

A  turtle and guinea pig we saw as we passed the zoo.

And upside down house (we don't know why).

The entrance to the Eco-Park

The beginning of the canopy walk

View from the canopy walk.  The juxtaposition of the tall towers and
the tropical rainforest was very interesting.

Joshua

Joshua looking thoughtful.

The air was quite moist and warm today.  Blue skies with small wisps of white clouds. On to the rest of our plan. 

Street scenes

Next were the botanical gardens and butterfly garden.  On the way, Joshua was very hard hit by the heat and humidity, and had to keep stopping in shops and hotel/business tower lobbies to cool off.  We bought water at the KL Tower before our walk and bought more at a 7-11 where Joshua went in to cool off. The weather app was forecasting a storm in about an hour.  We soon knew that there was no way we were could make it to the gardens.  So we went into the Kuala Lumpur City Gallery--an art gallery we saw.  It has many representations of the city by different artists.  It was free and it was air conditioned.

The city skyline

Pillars of Little India

I think this is the Seeretariat; the first building built by the British.

This was part of a larger presentation on a screen behind, then the buildings lit up.

Fireworks on the sceen after the presentation about Kuala Lumpur

A skyline you can walk inside of 

Then I suggested that we go to the market (one of the other things on our list that was nearby).  We crossed the Market Street Bridge.  It was originally a few fallen tree trunks, but a proper bridge was built in 1883.  It was named the Market Street Bridge because it led down Market Street (now called Leboh Pasar Besar in Malay, 'pasar besar' being the Malay name for a town's main market) to the market.  The bridge crosses the Klang River which became a natural symbolic barrier between the British Administration's center on the west bank and the Asian commercial and mining community on the east.  The town was originally an area of Chinese tin mines.  In the 1930s, a landmark cast-iron bridge replaced the old lattice girder bridge and was representative of the local advent of the Industrial Revolution.  In 1994, the cast iron bridge was demolished, though, and replaced with the current concrete bridge. 

Currently a textile museum

The River of Life

The market, however, ended up being mostly stalls selling tourist souvenirs and such.  There were a few nicer stalls as well as women offering to do henna designs and a stall with a tank of fish where you would soak your feet and the fish bite off the old skin.  We were curious what that would feel like.  Your feet would probably feel great afterward--nice and soft--and it would probably just feel ticklish, but the idea is kind of gross that fish are biting you and chewing your dead skin. 

The outdoor part of the market--most is indoors (air conditioned)

The eating fish pool

A scary looking keychain

After the market where I only bought one thing, we decided to find a place to eat where we could wait out the storm that was approaching. 

Malaysian flag

A swing-set in a public square (the only "playground" we saw in KL

A public square

The Urban Forest Trail with impressions of plants in the concrete

A rainbow pedestrian bridge

We couldn't find anything and were only about 10 minutes from our apartment when the rain started.  We decided to just go there and rest in our air conditioning.  We arrived and the storm began in earnest.  I watched from our 29th floor perch as the rain lashed and the lightning lit the sky and the thunder rumbled (counting how far apart they were).  After the storm, we went out to find dinner.  We ate a a bar/restaurant not too far from our apartment building.  We all ordered Asian (the waiter assured us that they were not spicy).  They were not spicy at all.  Randy and I ordered a wok-fried rice meal that contained vegetables, fruit, nuts, and seafood.  It was served in a large green leaf inside of a pineapple boat. 

You can see the pineapple boat that the meal is sitting in

Then we returned to our apartment.  None of us brought swim suits (we didn't know there was a pool here), but Randy said that he had some shorts that were of a similar fabric and wore those to go to the pool.  Tomorrow we will probably just leave from our apartment to go to the airport rather than venture out into the heat for a few hours then have to come back for our bags for our flight to Jaipur

We are not overly impressed with Kuala Lumpur.  It is a city too full of cars and motorcycles.  It is not pedestrian-friendly.  In some areas the sidewalks disappear and the crosswalk lights don't work very well and many times the crosswalks are filled with vehicles and motorcycles and you have to dodge them to try to cross safely.  The motorcycles dodge between cars, go on sidewalks and fill the bike lanes.  They don't always wait for green lights to cross the roads.  They are a menace!  We didn't find any grocery stores, only 7-11s with a horrible selection of food.  Then there is the weather, but they can't fix that.  They can fix how car-centered the city is, though. Tomorrow we move on to Jaipur, India.  India also does not have safe water.  More bottles of water. <sigh>