We've set the alarm for eight but a comfy bed in a room at the right temperature induces a certain lethargy which repeat pressing of the snooze button couldn't shift. We had breakfast at 9:30 or so then Helen insisted on a rest before we went out again. That was good as we hadn't got anywhere planned to go. Two hours later Helen has read enough of her book to be properly rested and I had worked out a colonial route for us.
We headed down the road towards the 1911 train station, we'd seen it yesterday and thought it was a mosque partially abandoned. In getting there, though, the Lonely Planet map wasn't quite accurate enough to show the pedestrian access ran out at the flyover over the river. We followed a few worshippers walking along the kerb of the sliproad which became a proper path when it joined the flyover. Our mosque became three buildings: 
the whiter (newer looking) train station, the greyer Malayan Railway Administration building (the sootiness making it look derelict from a distance beside the train station) and a real mosque, the Masjid Negara or National Mosque a modernist very large jobbie. We passed by and negotiated with the traffic as [in these parts] the holy man parks up his moped on the pavement.
Only a couple of hundred metres up the road is the elegant old city hall merging neatly with the Sultan Abdul Samad building, a sort of British Town Hall in the Moorish style. These and another few old buildings including the Barretts Homes mock Tudor style Royal Selangor Club (the happening place if you were a tin magnate in the 1890s) surround Merdeka square. Notable for its large flagpole and equally large flag, it [the flag] must be a couple of stories high.
Round the back of the old city hall is the muddy confluence of two rivers from which KL derives its name, [Kuala Lumpur] lit. muddy confluence. We'd now looped round to the north end of Chinatown in which we utterly failed to see a Chinese restaurant. Plenty of street hawkers, uninviting street hawker style cafes and street hawker food courts but we couldn't see a single Chinese restaurant. We found a coffee shop and had lunch there rereading the LP guide again. After we made a pointed effort to seek out its mentioned eateries but SE Asia on a Shoestring lives up to its name and directs you at some of the street hawker cafes. Only one looked like a restaurant. We head back to the hotel to cool down. Mad dogs etc. but after a quick snooze our plan to nip oout to the bus station to check times for a bus to the Cameron Highlands is thwarted by a showy thunderstorm. Shucks, we'll have to rest a bit longer.
Come 6-ish the storm had passed and it was time to venture to the bus station. It felt a lot cooler after the rain though stepping into the throbbing bus station it was as though nothing had happened outside. The air was back to its warm muggy self. The place was packed. Downstairs the buses line up in a pretty orderly fashion, upstairs is anarchic. A tiny fraction of the place is selling tickets the rest is selling anything else including jeans modifications, something I'm always on the lookout for when catching a bus, and any remaining space in this cavern is filled with people bustling or resting.
We can only take so much and pop over the road looking for the Cameron Highland buses. There's a dark smelly alley to an office or a bright shiny stall saying "VIP 25 seater." The latter redirects us to the former. The man in the office is on the phone so we pause outside for a few minutes before going in and sitting down. All the time he never looks up. Another guy comes in and he too patiently waits. A woman comes in, interrupts the guy on the phone and buys a ticket. Then the other guy does his thing leaving us, bemused and last. We get front row seats (curiously unpopular) for RM13 for the five hour trip. It's not clear but I think we're going to where we want to. I guess we'll turn up tomorrow and see.
It's half seven by now so we head off to the restaurant we saw earlier for a pleasant "Straits Chinese" meal. I risk all on the Malacca speciality "Devil Curry" which turns out to be just right and quite a plateful (perhaps I should redirect that Bali Lesehan here?). Helen was feeling tired so we headed back buying a few cans of Tiger en route. We sucessfully sneak them past security (I don't suppose they cared) before having a lazy evening. Tomorrow is our first major public transport trip [in a foreign land]. Heaven knows what will happen.
Hotel Malaya, Kuala Lumpur N3.14440 E101.69653 Elev. 41m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.