32. Scenes around Kuala Lumpur

The following photos were taken from the Tourist bus. I have done some as a collage rather than post too many individual ones - somehow it seems more interesting this way.

Above: KL Tower
Sitting in the bus I could see this tall striking looking tower looming up on the left hand side of the bus (lucky for me I was sitting on the left side wasn't it?) and thought how simply wonderful it looked with dark green foliage around it.

Above: Tower close-up
If you enlarge the photo you can see the detail in the underneath part of the pod. The tower (officially known as Menara Kuala Lumpur, but everybody refers to it as the KL Tower) was built in 1994 and it is used for telecommunication.

There's stairs and lifts to the top where you can enjoy a meal in the revolving restaurant. Each year so a lcoal told me, there's a race to see who can run up the stairs and get to the top first. You'd have to be very fit - it's like, 420 metres of stairs to run up!

Above: Coffee shops and strange shapes
Had I not been pushed for time, I'd really like to have stopped and had a coffee at this place, then taken a stroll around the Honolulu Club - I wondered why there was a the Totem Pole there. The three strange looking bark things made me think of the three wise monkeys for some reason. Taking a closer look they could be huts.

Above: Petronas Towers
I was really disappointed at not being able to spend time here or at least stand outside these magnificant towers and get a really good photo. Alas, I have to content myself with a silver coloured fridge magnet! (The magnet looks good I might add and each time I go to the fridge I am reminded of the great trip I had.)

You could say that the Petronas Twin Towers are to Malaysia what the Eiffel Tower is to France - an instantly recongisable symbol. They're one of the world's tallest buildings.

At a cost of $1.6 billion that's a lot of tower! They were designed by César Pelli and Djay Cerico, have 88 floors and are the tallest twin towers in the world.

Above: Fountain and foliage
Some more scenes of KL I saw from the bus window. The fountain is outside Pusat Konvensyen where major events are held. The bridge in the lower right hand side is an elevated viaduct for the KL Monorail while the Romanesque stone object on the middle right is.... an ashtray for smokers! I stood here later and thought how ingenius were the architects of this - so much nicer than a plain public rubbish bin.