July
14, Saturday
I wake up at 7:30 and have a lazy morning until 9:30 when I go down for breakfast, which is included in the price. There is a restaurant on the 6th floor of the condos, where the pool, exercise room and spa are located. The terrace area covers both residence / condo towers.
The "al fresco" dining area
The infinity pool on the 6th floor
They have a huge breakfast buffet with lots to choose from. I opt for a table out on the terrace rather than in-doors.
I’ve decided to go out and walk around based on the “photocopied walking map” that the hotel has handed out. The funny thing is that the concierge tells me that it is much too far to walk to the Menara KL Tower and that I should take a taxi. I don’t want a taxi this morning; I need to walk so I head down Jalan Pudu (Jalan means street) heading west. I can see the Menara Tower in the distance and it doesn’t look like it’s that far. I took what looked to me like a short cut on the map and ended up at the bottom of a hill. You guessed it, the tower was at the top of the hill, and the road was NOT going in that direction. I decided to keep following the road anyway and within a short distance found the entrance to a park managed by the Forestry Department of Malaysia, “KL Forest Eco Park”. Turns out the park has a pathway up the hill to the Menara KL Tower.
The Menara tower on the left and one of the KL Petronas Towers bottom right in the distance.
Look up.... look WAY up.
There is a reproduction of a traditional Malaysian village at the bottom of the tower. Muslim school kids were visiting; check out the girls' school uniform.
I made it up the tower via the elevator. The views of the city were great.
Kuala Lumpur, fromt he top of the Menara Tower
Hey ! I found the Swiss Garden Residence towers (zoom: grey, topped with a red flour on the roof)
I can distinguish mountains in the distance, but the haze is too thick. There are lots of green spaces as well
The Petronas Twin Towers straight ahead.
Zoom on the top of the towers
There also appears to be a lake in the distance. I definitely need to find a good map of the city so I can identify what I'm seeing in my photos.
A beautiful mosque with a blue roof. KL's version of the "Blue Mosque"? {No, found out later that it is the National Mosque; their Blue Mosque is located in Selangor and has a beautiful round blue dome.}
One of the maps I obtained shows the Swiss Garden Hotel at the bottom, and the Menara KL Tower in the middle. As you can see from the roads "YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE", which is why the concierge was advising me to take a taxi. There are no straight streets in Kuala Lumpur; must be because of all the hills; they are all winding roads. I walked all the way west then back up North-east before finding the path in the park.
The traffic in Kuala Lumpur is bad, not just during rush hour, it’s bad all the time. This was Saturday and there were still traffic jams all the way through the ride through the city streets. They even cut out a few stops, by-passed them completely, due to traffic. Hopefully there weren’t any people waiting at those stops because the bus would never come back to pick them up !
There were many stops where I would not be interested in exploring further, but there were definitely some that peaked my interest. Since my trip today started at 12:30, my ticket is good until tomorrow at 12:30 pm. I plan on getting back on the route early tomorrow morning to return to
The National Museum,
We then continue on to the stop for Parliament Building, National Monument, Lake Garden, Butterfly Park and Bird Park. If I visit all of these tomorrow, I'm not sure I can get back on the bus before the 12:30 deadline, If not I can take a taxi.
Jalan Petaling market area
Need to find out what this interesting building is. Although there is supposed to be an audio-guide on the tour bus, it seems to be a "hit and miss" type of recording.
Sultan Abdul Samal Building in Merdeka Square; these were the government buildings at the turn of the century.
Wow. Simply amazing.
The architecture of the surrounding buildings is also interesting
At the base of the Petronas Towers is a humongous mall
At 4:30 I had finally located the ticket office to go up to the observation decks. I had a bit more than half an hour to wait so I rushed back into the mall area on the 6 shopping floors within the towers to find a place that I could grab a quick bite. Again, my guardian angels were there because I probably found the only restaurant on that entire main floor. A coke and a plate of beef nachos fit the bill and I was back in the waiting line just in time to go up with my group. Entry up to the observation decks is limited: 20 people every 15 minutes, and you only have a limited amount of time while you are there.
From the top observation deck, looking across to the other tower.
Wow, they have terraces out there and that has to be 80 floors up
From the Petronas Twin Towers looking at the Menara Tower. Kind of nice to have been up both towers on the same day.
and the views of the city are spectacular from the 86th floor observation area.
as well as from the skybridge joining the two towers. (170 meters from the street level)
View from the skybridge, looking down at the park entrance from which I took the first picutre of the towers from below.
The bottom portions of the Petronas Towers are actually a series of buildings, supporting the huge towers.
There is a water park at the back and it also accesses the Aquarium
By the time I got back out to the street it was just past 6 pm and I realized that I had missed the last bus and would not be able to get back to the stop nearest to my hotel (stop # 7 at Tengkat Tong Shin). I took out my new city map, which also shows the monorail and light rail routes and stations. I thought that there would be one close to the Petronas Towers, but it looked like I would have a considerable walk to get there. I figured that I would start walking but would keep an eye out for taxis as well.
I walked, and walked, and walked. Finally I had to backtrack a bit to get to the Raja Chulan Monorail station.
This was the monorail station at Raya Chulan
The ride on the mono-rail was quite scary since I was on the very first car and could see that the train is literally "hanging" over the edge of the central pillar. It actually made me dizzy and I could not look out the front window, let alone try to take a picture.
On the map it looked like the ride to the next station, where I would have to get off, would take me 1/3 of the way back. I’d already walked 1/3rd of the way, and more with the back tracking. But everything worked out OK, the last part of the walk was shorter than I had thought. The distances on the map are deceiving.
I wake up at 7:30 and have a lazy morning until 9:30 when I go down for breakfast, which is included in the price. There is a restaurant on the 6th floor of the condos, where the pool, exercise room and spa are located. The terrace area covers both residence / condo towers.
The infinity pool on the 6th floor
They have a huge breakfast buffet with lots to choose from. I opt for a table out on the terrace rather than in-doors.
I’ve decided to go out and walk around based on the “photocopied walking map” that the hotel has handed out. The funny thing is that the concierge tells me that it is much too far to walk to the Menara KL Tower and that I should take a taxi. I don’t want a taxi this morning; I need to walk so I head down Jalan Pudu (Jalan means street) heading west. I can see the Menara Tower in the distance and it doesn’t look like it’s that far. I took what looked to me like a short cut on the map and ended up at the bottom of a hill. You guessed it, the tower was at the top of the hill, and the road was NOT going in that direction. I decided to keep following the road anyway and within a short distance found the entrance to a park managed by the Forestry Department of Malaysia, “KL Forest Eco Park”. Turns out the park has a pathway up the hill to the Menara KL Tower.
The path through the “KL Forest Eco Park”.
JE SUIS MERDEUSE
! Sorry people, the French just doesn’t
translate well for this expression; just take my word for it. It's similar to the luck
of the Irish…. But not quite. Same-same, but different. So
once again my guardian angels must have taken care of me. I made my way through the park and although
it was a steep climb, it was definitely a short cut !
The tower is quite impressive and I did not have to wait
to go up after purchasing my ticket. According
to the brochure, “It is the 5th
tallest telecommunications tower in the world and the tallest in Southeast Asia
at 421 meters”. 
Look up.... look WAY up.
There is a reproduction of a traditional Malaysian village at the bottom of the tower. Muslim school kids were visiting; check out the girls' school uniform.
I made it up the tower via the elevator. The views of the city were great.
Kuala Lumpur, fromt he top of the Menara Tower
Hey ! I found the Swiss Garden Residence towers (zoom: grey, topped with a red flour on the roof)
I can distinguish mountains in the distance, but the haze is too thick. There are lots of green spaces as well
The Petronas Twin Towers straight ahead.
Zoom on the top of the towers
There also appears to be a lake in the distance. I definitely need to find a good map of the city so I can identify what I'm seeing in my photos.
When I did my research about Kuala Lumpur, I had found a
notice about a Hop-on / Hop–off bus and one of the stops the bus made was at
Menara KL Tower. Although I had not
planned on doing this bus tour today, I figured that I had done enough walking
for now and could do with a "sit-down" overview tour of the city. I located the bus stop and
waited along with the rest of the crowd for the next double-decker bus to
arrive. I purchased a ticket once I got
on at 12:30 and got a map with their 22 scheduled circuit stops. The buses run every half hour from 9 am to 6
pm. Great. I got on at stop # 3 and decided to stay on
for the entire route to get my bearings.
The traffic in Kuala Lumpur is bad, not just during rush hour, it’s bad all the time. This was Saturday and there were still traffic jams all the way through the ride through the city streets. They even cut out a few stops, by-passed them completely, due to traffic. Hopefully there weren’t any people waiting at those stops because the bus would never come back to pick them up !
There were many stops where I would not be interested in exploring further, but there were definitely some that peaked my interest. Since my trip today started at 12:30, my ticket is good until tomorrow at 12:30 pm. I plan on getting back on the route early tomorrow morning to return to
The National Museum,
We then continue on to the stop for Parliament Building, National Monument, Lake Garden, Butterfly Park and Bird Park. If I visit all of these tomorrow, I'm not sure I can get back on the bus before the 12:30 deadline, If not I can take a taxi.
Jalan Petaling market area
Need to find out what this interesting building is. Although there is supposed to be an audio-guide on the tour bus, it seems to be a "hit and miss" type of recording.
Sultan Abdul Samal Building in Merdeka Square; these were the government buildings at the turn of the century.
What was
supposed to take 3 hours ended up taking 4.
Stop # 23 was the famous Petronas Twin Towers, which I definitely wanted
to see, but I stayed on the bus until stop # 1, which was the Malaysian Tourist
Centre. I needed to get a good map and I
wanted to pick up brochures of other attractions in KL and Malaysia. Got all I needed and decided to walk back to the
Petronas Towers which were only a few blocks away.
The architecture of the surrounding buildings is also interesting
At the base of the Petronas Towers is a humongous mall
At 4:30 I had finally located the ticket office to go up to the observation decks. I had a bit more than half an hour to wait so I rushed back into the mall area on the 6 shopping floors within the towers to find a place that I could grab a quick bite. Again, my guardian angels were there because I probably found the only restaurant on that entire main floor. A coke and a plate of beef nachos fit the bill and I was back in the waiting line just in time to go up with my group. Entry up to the observation decks is limited: 20 people every 15 minutes, and you only have a limited amount of time while you are there.
From the top observation deck, looking across to the other tower.
Wow, they have terraces out there and that has to be 80 floors up
From the Petronas Twin Towers looking at the Menara Tower. Kind of nice to have been up both towers on the same day.
and the views of the city are spectacular from the 86th floor observation area.
The Petronas Twin Towers are 452
metres in height. {The Shanghai World Financial
Centre is higher at 492 meters}
It worked out for me.
I took the pictures I wanted.
Amazing views from the top, 
as well as from the skybridge joining the two towers. (170 meters from the street level)
View from the skybridge, looking down at the park entrance from which I took the first picutre of the towers from below.
The bottom portions of the Petronas Towers are actually a series of buildings, supporting the huge towers.
There is a water park at the back and it also accesses the Aquarium
By the time I got back out to the street it was just past 6 pm and I realized that I had missed the last bus and would not be able to get back to the stop nearest to my hotel (stop # 7 at Tengkat Tong Shin). I took out my new city map, which also shows the monorail and light rail routes and stations. I thought that there would be one close to the Petronas Towers, but it looked like I would have a considerable walk to get there. I figured that I would start walking but would keep an eye out for taxis as well.
I walked, and walked, and walked. Finally I had to backtrack a bit to get to the Raja Chulan Monorail station.
This was the monorail station at Raya Chulan
The ride on the mono-rail was quite scary since I was on the very first car and could see that the train is literally "hanging" over the edge of the central pillar. It actually made me dizzy and I could not look out the front window, let alone try to take a picture.
On the map it looked like the ride to the next station, where I would have to get off, would take me 1/3 of the way back. I’d already walked 1/3rd of the way, and more with the back tracking. But everything worked out OK, the last part of the walk was shorter than I had thought. The distances on the map are deceiving.
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