Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The Petronas Towers/Twin Towers as seen in Entrapment with Catherine Zeta Jones.
Some colonial architecture.

I love all these keyhole arches on the side of this building.
More lanterns...

I took a taxi from Malacca up to Kuala Lumpur. I was dropped off near the bus terminal in Kuala Lumpur. The hotels were across the street but I didn't see a crosswalk and there were tons of cars and buses. I took about five minutes just standing there, watching the traffic patterns, overwhelmed by the amount of people and vehicles. It was a drastic change from the quiet little town I had just been in. I finally realized that I was just going to have to dodge the traffic with my big wheelie suitcase. I usually travel with a backpack over here, but I wanted to do some serious shopping and once I put everything in my pack, there is never any room for anything else. So here I am, white girl with big suitcase, in a crazy city that seems to be mostly men which was somewhat intimidating. Men of all shades of brown and yellow and black. And they weren't afraid to stare either.

I made it across the street and chose my accommodations based on the presence of an elevator. Rolling my suitcase along the sidewalk, filled with people and uneven surfaces and unidentifiable fluids was a rather sketchy venture. After I checked in and unloaded, I went back out to take a look at the city. I could not get over how many men there were. I hardly saw any women at all. It was literally an ocean of men. At one point, I was worried that I was in a place where women were not allowed because I only saw men. As much as I love men, and brown men especially, this was slightly frightening. I had a brief attack of panic, my thoughts were stuck in a pattern along the lines of "Omigod, I'm in a foreign country, nobody knows where I am, I'm surrounded by Muslim men, they are all staring at me, there are way too many back streets around here."

Once I made it to Chinatown, there were more women and more westerners so I felt a bit better about things. There was some great shopping to be had there as well as Little India. At night I went over to where the Twin Towers are and they are a sight to behold close up with all the lights on. Beautiful. I met and hung out with a guy from the Sudan who had been living in Kuala Lumpur for three years. I saw some beautiful Indian and Malay children, too. I also met someone from Bangladesh. I do love that I get the opportunity to meet people from all over the world in my travels.

I sure was ready to go home when Saturday rolled around.