I do my bit for Visit Malaysia 2007

And here we have the Petronas Twin Towers (the worlds tallest twin towers since those really shoddy horrible looking ones over in the US fell down in that dramatic, but hilarious manner a few years back). You can see these from anywhere in KL - depending on the level of haze prevailing that is.
They're big and shiny. Like two very big shiny man made things.
How could I have waited so long to post a picture of Petronas on my blog? (I hear you ask) well because every bugger that ever comes here takes pictures of this place, and since I go past it every day and can basically see it from absolutely everywhere it kind of becomes a bit bland dunnit. Oooh, wow, big building, shiney.
Nicely lit at night though, all credit to them for that.
You can get a free ticket up to the skybridge between the two, which is quite fun but you don't get to stay more than 10 minutes because it's reet busy.
That seems pretty decent to me, the chief symbol of this new city, the chief tourist attraction here and you can go in for free. Petronas also have quite a decent art gallery inside the shopping centre under the towers, that's free too and often has some pretty good stuff in there.
The things you can do with petrochemical cash eh.
And who said having wars for oil wasn't worth the effort?





Next we have Petalling Street, the main shopping drag in chinatown, where all the tourists go shopping. You can get some bargains if you're ready and willing to get some haggling going, and the smells are pretty, well, erm, pretty smelly. Lots of nice food, tropical fruits, clothes, DVDs, sunglasses, bags, food, shoes, trinkets, tourist tat, music, hats , booze and any number of other things. The area is called Pasar Seni (meaning Art Market, Pasar being a bit of an altered version of the arabic Bazzar I rekon).
You get to see lots and lots of authentic white backpackers being ripped off, which is quite fun. See on the bottom right, there's one, ready for a ripping.....

Then around the corner from Petalling Street you have the Sri something-or-other temple, which is lovely. One thing about those Hindu fellas, they have got some top quality gods. This whole temple is full of really nice colourful statues of dieties, minor and major. They sure know how to make nice temples these chaps. I really enjoy it here, and it looks very good on camera. This is a shot of the entrance, this tower thingy is about 10 meters or so high, maybe a bit more, I've never measured it like.













This old boy has a roadside sugar cane juice stall. He's proper good. For just 1 Rinngit - 15p or something- you get a glass of fresh squeezed sugar cane juice. He's got this shaving thing which he uses to shred the big blocks of ice by hand. He's a lovely chap and his juice is nace. Sugar cane is just about the best thing on a hot day when you're feeling utterly dead, tired and drained because it just pumps raw sugar straight into the bloodstream whilst at the same time being cool, refreshing and thirst quenching. Handy if any diabetics are nearby and go hypo. It's not that sweet either, because it's unprocessed, just sweet enough.
You can just about see the silver cane mangle (behind the bundle of cane tied together in the middle) which you push a section of cane through. The juice just oozes out and rolls down the side into the collection tray.
Yum. Oh he sells coconut milk too, but it just ain't a patch on the sugar cane lah.


And these people are in Central Market (a new place where tourists can buy the same tat at higher prices because it's indoors and has Air Con). They sell really nice cakes, cookies and stuff.










Meat!!!! One great thing about chinatown is that you can buy the flesh of the swine here. Raw or cooked these chaps will flog you a huge chunk of dead sow here no bother. In most supermarkets the Non-halal is stuck away in a tiny corner with the booze and rat poison, muslim Malay people at the checkout won't even touch a packet of ham with their bare hands (often non-halal is dealt with by a chinese or indian member of staff, or several carrier bags wrapped round the hand).
At stalls like this in Petalling street you can hold you hold your head up high and say "I'd like a kilo of your finest spicy sausages please!! The ones made out of pig!!!" and nobody will look at you like a leperous scummer.
I've met muslim guys here who freely admit to having the odd drink now and again, but find the concept of eating gammon absolutely vomit inducing. Fair enough. But bacon and egg sangwiches man, I do miss em, the bacon here is utterly rubbish.