malaysia: kuala lumpur

i’m waiting in doha, qatar during a 6+ hour layover.
we got here at about 6:30AM
and it was already over 85 F.
that and the 7-hour red-eye flight from KL
– as the locals call it –
had definitely cooled me towards a short adventure in doha.

the girls are playing in a kid’s rec area near the food court where i’m lounging.
ishaq is passing time on his laptop.
aya just woke up from a short nap.
i’m procrastinating from the so-called breakfast menu that the meal voucher provides
– french fries, some kind of indian-inspired roti, and water –
and wishing i had a good dwell magazine.

aside from this layover,
our trip to malaysia was wonderful.

what we saw of the country and its people
left me wanting for more.
the weather was moist and hot
and the land full of all types tropical greenery.

to preface the sights,
malaysia is made of mainly three groups of people:
malays, chinese and indians
– from largest to smallest –
and their cultural footprints were all over the city.
according to various guides,
the maylay are into the government and uniformed services
(police, firemen, etc.),
the chinese are more business-minded,
while the indian are more into the service sector
(doctors, lawyers, accountants, and the like).

we did a city tour of KL
– it’s a good way to quickly get the tourist attractions out of the way
and focus on what you really want to do in a city, touristy or not.
we visited the oldest hindu temple in KL,
Sri Maha Mariamman Temple,

full of all types of aromatic flowers
and saronged gut-bellied male attendents
in this partially open-air temple.
before you go in
you see shoes strewn outside a 15-foot (or so) door

and a tower whose surface is covered with carved figures.

vendors outside sold strings of flowers or fruit for devotees to offer the deities.

we put our shoes to the side of the door in front of
shelves full of plastic containers for visitors to put their shoes in.
when we returned for our shoes
the attendant dutifully asked for some change for watching our shoes!

we visited Thean Hou Temple,
a colorful chinese temple on a hillside.

there was a statue of goddess who looked like
an asian virgin mary.
whenever someone kneeled before her
water spewed out of her little down-turned flask at a cock-eyed angle
which devotees cupped in their hands and wiped over their heads.
there was a set of small man-made ponds on the side of the temple
that almost had more turtles — of all sizes — than it had water.
many of them were basking motionless with their necks stretched towards the sun.

afterwards we stopped to take pictures next to the guards
in front of the royal palace, Istana Negara.

there were two very smartly dressed guards on each side of the gate.
two were on foot,

and two on horseback.

all of them looked…umm…moist from the humidity.

next we went into the nearby lake gardens area
that housed numerous interesting sites including
an orchid garden, hisbiscus garden (malaysia’s national flower),
butterfly park, bird park,
and well as the islamic arts museum
and several other buildings and city institutions, it seems.
in addition masjid negara
(negara meaning “national” in malay)
was just outside the garden area.
we just drove through the lake garden area while on the tour,
but appearing like a tropical oasis in the city,
it peaked our interest
and we vowed to return another day.

we made a quick stop at independence square,
Merdeka Square,

and then headed to the KL tower.

KL tower or menara kuala lumpur,
is the “fourth amongst the tallest telecommunications towers in the world”.

it had an observation deck and a revolving restaurant,
neither of which we went to
because the girls were getting tired near the end of this 3.5 hour tour
– a 3 hour tour, a 3 hour tour…remember gilligan’s island…anyway… –
so we chilled on the grounds for a bit,
bought some expensive water
and headed out for the last stop.

we went to this batik shop.
the guide took us back to the work area
and let us view a quick demo of how batik is made with wax
drawn freehand — amazing! — on stretched out fabric or with block prints.
then they set us free in the main shopping area.
i got the girls some batik dresses and me a couple of sarongs to use as scarves
– a big head and lots of hair requires those things.

later that evening we went to a indian restaurant
and ate off of a banana leaf.

the food was delish and it was fun for the girls to eat with their hands.

we decided to go out again that night to little india.
i wanted to get me some light indian summer shirts
to make the weather in amman more bearable.
i didn’t find any that i liked but did get a malaysian-style prayer outfit.
they’re comfortable, cool, and easy to slip on over anything.

walking to find a place to eat
– we LOVE indian food –
we came across a grand opening of a fabric store.
as part of the grand opening they were giving away free food.
the store was 5 levels of fabric!

my mother’s dream,
but, good lord, how much fabric can you have.

the next day we decided to head out to the bird park:
Taman Burung Kuala Lumpur,
“The World’s largest Free Flight Aviary”.
it seemed like the peacocks ran things cause we saw them all over the park.
the humidity seemed to rise above the standard 90%.
one of the peacocks harrassed sanaa until it got a piece of her ice cream
that fell as she was running away.
i guess it was hot, too.

afterwards we went to jumuah in the beautiful masjid negara.

in addition to an enclosed prayer area

there were covered, open-air, marble courtyards with small pools and fountains.

shoes had to be removed before entering the courtyard
because the courtyard is part of the prayer space as well.
at the entrances to the courtyard

are these nifty cantilevered steps that you could tuck your shoes under
so that step still remained clear.

in addition to being beautiful in the prayer areas,
masjid negara was also surprisingly clean in the common areas.
generally, i never go into a masjid bathroom without shoes.
and there are some masajid that i’ve been to where i know
to make wudu — and keep wudu — before i go.
except for masjid al haram in mecca
i’ve have N E V E R seen a cleaner bathroom and wudu area.
usually the busiest day of any masjid is friday
so you know to expect a lot of…um…evidence of traffic
but this masjid was spotless.
i didn’t understand a word of anything but quran
but i throughly enjoyed my jumuah prayer there.

next we had brunch at another gorgeous building just down the street:
the islamic arts museum.
while i feel that usually museums present historical objects in a stuffy manner,
its exhibits were actually very compelling.
i could have spent a long afternoon there.
one of my favorite exhibits were to scale miniatures of masajid around the world.
other interesting sights were the
arms & armour, quran and manuscript, and textiles galleries.
there was also an exhibit titled “Neither East Nor West”
that displayed pictures of figures in the muslim world
– muslim and otherwise.
the pictures showed how people were able to mix and blend
their culture with those they came across as they explored and traded throughout the world.
as a bonus, the museum shop had,
among many other interesting things,
an excellent collection of children’s literature.
the building itself was a refreshing blend of
modern and traditional islamic architecture.
it seemed like a tailored, cool, crisp oasis even amidst the lake gardens.

the next day we took a day trip to genting highlands.
genting is a place city folks go to get away from the heat
and chill out in the mountain rainforests.

i think our guide said it had 6000 or so rooms,
more than any other hotel.

we had to take a gondola up to the hotel complex!

in addition to the hotel are indoor and outdoor theme parks.

we went on the outside theme park,
mostly getting on rides that the girls could do.

– don’t sleep on the teacups!
they ain’t no joke! –

it brought back childhood memories
of me stretching my back while standing next to the ruler
so i could get on a particular roller coaster.

“mommy i can ride this one!” sanaa would exclaim after she “measured up”
at the entrance to a ride.
or “maybe i can ride this when i’m five years old,”
she’d say seeming as if she was trying to talk away her disappointment
at not being able to get on an exciting looking ride.

we’ve plenty of video for the grandparents.

ishaq and i did tag team of one of the adult rides
– he would ride while i sat with the girls
and then vice versa.
it was a roller coaster ride,
but your body was parallel to the ground.

after coming back from genting that evening
we tried to see if we could go across the bridge at the petronas towers,

but it was closed.
there’s a mall, suria klcc, at bottom of the towers
with 6 levels of high-end stores
like tiffany & co. and christian lacroix.
you know, places i don’t even need to browse in.
usually if there are less than ten pieces of clothing on display
on wooden hangers,
i can just save my time and move on.

(i think this is where my camera battery totally died
and i’d discovered that i’d failed to pack my charger.
of all things to forget…)

maghrib came in before we got to the towers though,
so we went to a nearby masjid,
Masjid Asy-Syakirin.
again we had to remove our shoes before entering a covered, open-air, marble courtyard.
the wudu area had showers!
one sister demonstrated for us that folks actually use them
when she went in the stall
and started taking off her clothes,
hanging them over the shower stall wall.
mashaAllah, the recitation was beautiful and peaceful.

the next evening we did the chinatown tour.
our guide called our attention to a buddhist temple
just a few buildings down from the hindu temple
we’d visited earlier
the temple housed a god of fire with — fittingly — a red face.
on each side of the steps was a lion.
“which one is the male?” our guide asked us.
on first glance we were puzzled,
just taking them for regular, fierce-looking, chinese lions.
as we continued to look we saw that
one lion held a money bag in it’s grasp
and the other held a baby.
so, of course, the female lion was the one with the baby lion in her paw.
our buddhist guide noted that while you could find
hindu temples and mosques open at all hours of the day,
buddist gods held business hours.

anyway, KL’s chinatown seemed to be
two intersecting partially covered pedestrian corridors
where you get harassed from end to end
by vendors hawking their wares.
same ole chinatowns all over the world:
a lotta stuff, cheap prices.

afterwards we went to dinner and a show.
as we entered through the entrance
the dancers played a little drumbeat for us.
they later performed dances representing all the cultures in malaysia
as we ate a buffet dinner in the grand hall.
it was kinda kitchy, and sentimental in a propaganda-ish way
that we’d been hearing on all our tours
– “us malay, chinese and indian malaysians all live together in peace! rah! rah! rah!” –
but it was fun.
they had the girls dancing on their seats.

the next day we headed to a smaller airport outside of KL
and took a short flight on air asia to the island city of penang.
the flight was so quick that they don’t even give you the requisite snack of
pretzels and a drink.
no, they don’t give it to you.
you gotta buy it!

more on penang in the next post.

but before i end,
i have to give a big-up to our accommodations in KL.
the novotel hydro majestic KL hotel is THE best hotel i’ve ever stayed in
mostly because i just love the modern furniture and fixings,
but the service was excellent, too.
i will look for a novotel in every place i go after this.