KL

I have about three hours until my sleeper train to Penang leaves, but I'm too exhausted at the moment to do anything but sit in this internet cafe (finally, I found one!).

I got into Kuala Lumpur at 6 am this morning--I took a sleeper train from Johor Bahru which is right over the border from Singapore. I didn't sleep too well on the train, so I was tired, but I wanted to get moving right away. I had to wait a couple hours before the left luggage office opened and I could get rid of my pack, and I decided to just buy a map of Kuala Lumpur rather than wait for the tourist office to open. That may have been a mistake.

Singapore was wonderful because I could (and did) walk everywhere. I had a great map free from the city and I walked all over Little India and Chinatown as well as the more historic and landmark areas like Esplanade Park and Orchard Road. Kuala Lumpur turned out to be quite a different story. I remembered reading some line in a Lonely Planet book about KL not being pedestrian friendly when I walked out of Sentral Station and discovered that I was moored by a total absence of sidewalks. Even though the place I wanted to go to was only a kilometer or so away, I had to take a taxi. I really enjoyed the place when I got there, though--Lake Gardens. It's a very landscaped park area, with walking paths and numerous different parks inside of it, including an orchid park and "the largest covered bird park in the world." Unfortunately I got there around 8:30 am, before anything had opened but I strolled around for awhile. There were a lot of exotic birds flying around, so I decided I didn't need to visit the bird park. It felt like a genuine jungle, albeit heavily tended.

I was planning to visit the deer park, which was free, when it opened at 10, but I started feeling hungry and dehydrated, so I wandered around seeking a restaurant that was open. I finally found a small cafeteria right where the taxi driver had initially dropped me off. The food there was cheap and really really good. The most exciting part though, was when I walked back down the staircase and discovered a troupe of monkeys wrestling in the trees and beneath them. I sat on the stairway and watched them for several minutes. A few stalked past me a mere few feet away; they noticed me but didn't really seem to care. The younger ones tussled around in a way that reminded me of kittens. Later a man walked up the steps and the younger monkeys started hissing at him; he pointed a tripod at them warningly and two monkeys simultaneously leapt atop opposite railings and watched him trudge up the hill. It was at that moment I remembered my camera, though I didn't catch the image. My camera has been malfunctioning lately--it thinks its batteries are low when they aren't, and thus sometimes it doesn't shoot and anytime it senses it needs to use the flash, it doesn't work. I got a couple pictures of the monkeys in close proximity, but nothing too impressive.

At the deer park I saw some tiny mouse deer, who really did resemble a cross between rodents and deer. A worker there banged on their cage a couple times so that they would run about and I could see the small babies that had been born a few weeks ago (they were scurrying about as well). It's odd to watch something the size of a chihuahua with the legs and feet of a deer scamper around--sort of graceful but jerky at the same time.

Anyway, the time spent in the park (seeing the deer park and the orchid and hibiscus parks) was over all pretty good, though the heat did eventually get pretty oppressive. I also visited the Menara Kuala Lumpur, the fourth tallest telecommunications tower in the world (it had an observation deck at the top). The rest of the day got sort of frustrating, with the combination of chaotic traffic and missing sidewalks with the fact that my map seemed to be missing many streets and even light rail stations. Maybe I was sort of spoiled by Singapore, where I could always locate where I was in a few moments on the map. Eventually in KL I would think "I wonder where I am, maybe I should look at the map," and then realize that I really had no way of knowing where I was, because either the intersection I was at had no street signs or the street wasn't labeled on my map. Kuala Lumpur was an interesting city, with interesting urban development and not to mention history, which I learned a little about on my visit to the Menara Tower. I like cities where I don't have to take a taxi everywhere, though. Things got more complicated this afternoon when apparently a large portion of the city lost power. Since the light rail couldn't run, it was hard to get a taxi--I was so hot and tired that I just decided to get the first taxi I could back to Sentral Station, regardless of how much time I had to spare. I think I have myself to blame to a degree. I think short nights of sleep and three long days of self-guided walking tours have understandably taken their toll. The sleeper train to Penang leaves at 8 pm and arrives around 6, so I'll have more time to sleep tonight, unlike last night when the train departed at 11:15. I'm actually looking forward to it. Even though it's no the most relaxing sleep, sleeper trains in general are pretty cool (based on the ones I've taken here and in Thailand). It's sort of like being rocked to sleep, if you don't mind the bumping and whining of the wheels.