Kuala Lumpur Day One

The young man on the travel desk was very helpful. He accepted our reservation for the evening cultural tour, recommended the historical tour of Malacca and marked on our free map where to get the hop-on hop-off bus. 

In other cities we have found these very useful to orient ourselves and see the major sights. This one was not so  good. The seats were much too close together and seriously uncomfortable for someone with Heritage-length legs. 

The commentary was not very well synchronised with what we were looking at (or was I just looking on the wrong direction?). But we did get a smattering of history and see some big buildings. 

We went most of the way round the circuit before hopping off to visit the Butterfly Park. It wasn't as well stocked as I remember from my visit several years ago, but it was very nice all the same. 

Two things happened while we were there. One of the many prayer hours came round and we heard the call - from two separate mosques. The irreverent picture of competing muezzins sprang to mind. "Worship at Abdul's. One extra prayer free.". I will no doubt be struck with a lightening bolt. 

The second event was rain. It started gently, faded away and then came back harder. And our waterproofs were back at the hotel. Luckily the gift shop stocked umbrellas for just such an emergency. And then the rain faded away again. 

We grabbed a taxi for the short journey to the Bird Park. It's not as big or as good as Singapore's bird park, but it is well worth the entrance fee. My camera was working overtime since many of the birds are in walk-through aviaries and are not seen through  bars. 

Sore feet and the threat of more rain persuaded us to ignore the bus and take a taxi back to the hotel. 

The evening cultural tour took us to a night market in Chinatown. You will not be surprised to learn that the Rolex watches and Gucci bags are not authentic. Several touts tried hard to entice us into their DVD shops and only desisted when told them we had no tv and read books instead. 

Eve did want a new handbag and entered into negotiations. Eventually we decided that we didn't like that bag. The stallholder's final offer was about 40% of the initial asking price. This was vital intelligence when Eve  bargained for a bag she really liked. First ask 270 ringgit (about $110). Eve's counter offer 20 ringgit. "you give me heart attack." the final bargain was struck at 125 for a bag Louis Vuitton has unknowingly donated his name to. 

All this nearly made us late for the bus to a theatre restaurant where we piled our plates high before being entertained by dances from various cultures within Malaysia. And very colourful they were, too. We decided that the compere was the most colourful of all - overdone makeup and camp as a row of tents. Nothing very wrong with that, but the pest talked too much and detracted from the dancing. 

Since this was all for the tourists we had to have some audience participation. I got shoulder tapped to have a go with a blowpipe. Yes, please. Long ago I read they were easy to aim and you simply have a puff. That's truly all there is to it. I got two balloons with one dart. 

Finally everyone who wished could go on stage and learn a simple traditional dance. We both went and made fools of ourselves.