M-whY

I probably should've left town right after seeing the Petronas Towers. KL is just another big city. Crowded, dirty, with pushy taxi drivers offering me a ride wherever I go. Yeah, I know they're just trying to make a living, but they way they kept pointing at me, asking "Taxi? Taxi?"... a couple times I really wanted to bat their hand out of my face. I've learned that it's a easier to blend in when I leave my daypack behind. (Well, for me at least. If you're caucasian, you're gonna stand out no matter what.) But the streets of KL be confusing, and the only decent map I had is in my LP, so rather than walk around with it in my hand, it's easier to stuff it in a backpack and carry that around instead.

Thanks to Jon, who asked if McDonald's is any different overseas, I've been on a fast food binge of late, eating at the golden arches and the other popular American franchise, KFC. I think back home, a marketing campaign has tried to change KFC from Kentucky Fried Chicken to Kitchen Fresh Chicken. Here, it's still affectionately referred to as Kentucky's. At McDonald's, there's still the cheeseburgers and quarter pounder, but there's no double quarter pounder. That's a specialty reserved for us fat Americans. KFC has fried chicken, made in both regular and curry recipes. No honey barbecue wings though. Nothing weird has caught my attention; the menus are pretty similar to the that of the US. Except everything is at half price.

I had a Big Mac meal for about RM 8 (US$1 = RM3.7) and went for a walk around to see the sights. There's the KL Tower, one of the tallest of it's kind, but I've already been up the CN Tower in Toronto, the tallest in the world, so making the trek across the city didn't quite appeal to me. Along the river is Masjid Jamek, a mosque set among a peaceful setting of palm trees. Open to visitors who adhered to the dress code (proper attire could be borrowed at the entrance), I took a walk around the pavillions, where men and women sprawled out on the floors. A couple blocks away was the large rectangular lawn of Merdeka Square, the traditional heart of KL. A large Malaysian flag flapped in the breeze, towering over a line of smaller banners. A couple museums were also situated nearby. I wandered through one of them (admission was free), primarily to catch a breather from sun, before moving on.

I got a little lost, and ended up at the train station, when I really wanted to get to Masjid Negara. One of southeast asia's biggest mosques, Masjid Negara also serves as the national mosque of Malaysia. I was there by 4:00pm, and according to the LP, it should've been open. However, once again, my guidebook contained erroneous information. I know my edition is not the latest, and southeast asia is a region that's changing very quickly, but you'd think the 2004 version wouldn't contain so many mistakes! If I wanted to go inside, I'd have to wait around for an hour and a half. Had the clouds overhead not been threatening rain, I might've waited. Instead, I started heading back. Rain never killed anyone, but I wasn't in the mood to get soaked.

Many places I stay at have a TV room with a collection of movies, either on VHS, VCD, or DVD. This hostel seemed to have something playing 24/7. I settled down on one of the couches and watched Spiderman 2 on the big screen. A bootleg copy of course. What do you expect? This is southeast asia!

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