We slept, dreamt and woke feeling so totally refreshed…..from an amazing night at the Hotel Istana!!! So great to be in Kuala Lumpur!!!

Our first afternoon and evening in KL were spent checking into the hotel (which was a little dragged out by a lost internet booking) and eating a fantastic meal provided by room service. We ate and ate….. all three of the meals were huge!! In fact we managed all day on that one meal and finally fell into a deep, exhausted and much welcomed sleep.

Our first day drifted by with no stresses or strains!! We headed to the Petronas Twin Towers (we had a bizarre taxi ride with a rather sexist driver who tried to blag us by saying the towers were closed – and we should allow him to take us on a tour of KL)  we got there a little late…..which meant our tickets for the tower visit were not until 4.00pm that afternoon. So we went to the Science Discovery Centre at the towers to kill some time. We went in at about 11.30am and did not come out until 3.15pm. We rushed the last few exhibits and could probably have been there for another hour without to much trouble. It was very interesting and we enjoyed a lot of what was on show. Tehya was a little young for lots of what was on offer but she still managed to have a great time too.

The only negative aspect for us was that we had not realised (in our naivety) that the Discovery centre and the Petronas Towers were owned and built by one of Malaysia’s biggest oil company’s and much of the Science centre is more about Petronas and how it provides an amazing service to Malaysia and her people – which is probably true – but we did start to feel that we were being indoctrinated – propaganda at its finest!!!

This feeling did not decrease when we entered the towers for the free tour and video – which culminated in a trip up to floor 41 and a walk across the bridge that is suspended between the two towers. The building is spectacular and the bridge is very impressive. Personally I feel the buildings are much more beautiful from the outside and I preferred to look at the exterior structure than walk across the bridge.

Afterwards we walked to the KL Tower to get a view of the twin towers – but as we arrived the skies opened with a most intense rain storm. We waited it out for about an hour but it was not going to lesson and we really wanted a good view of the city so we decided the best option was to head back to the hotel and try again the next morning. We got soaked to the skin on the way back and hid several times in door ways and bus shelters to try and avoid the rain. In the end we ran towards the hotel, finally giving up and going to eat in a very expensive looking restaurant to escape the rain. It was the best decision we ever made – what looked like an exclusive wine bar on the outside turned out to be a very friendly, rather shabby, very good and incredibly well priced restaurant – who provided incredible food. We ate pasta and brushetta and drank cold beer – shivering from our wet clothes and the coolness of the air con. We got home at around eight o’clock – exhausted again and still cold (for the first time in 7 months) had hot bathes to freshen up and got another well appreciated good nights sleep. We were feeling so chilled out and had so much more to visit in KL that Gavin went back online and rebooked the hotel again on the same deal that we had arranged before – so instead of leaving tomorrow for Penang we now get to stay for another two days…. Horray!!!!!

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