24/3 – KL

I sleep until about ten. Nice. When I get up I start to appreciate where I’ve decided to bunk up. Nikko is a splendid place to stay. The room is large and nicely decorated, more so than the standard four star hotel room. There is complimentary fruit of an unknown nature on the salon table, free internet access, a huge TV, an even bigger bed. The bathroom is an event in itself. Separate shower and bath, and vast amounts of shower gel and other soapy stuff. The best thing in there is the bog. It has two buttons. One of them has a figure of a bottom with a shower on it. It works the way you think it works. Do number two, push the button and voila, no more skidmarks. The other button has a slightly less familiar figure on it. I did not push this button, for reasons that should be obvious. One more thing. Do not push either button when you’re not sitting on the bog. Things will get messy in the bathroom.

Breakfast comes with freshly baked eggs or omelette. Not bad. Then it’s on to business. The Lonely Planet comes out and I decide to take to two of the guided walks in there, one through Colonial KL and Little India, and one through Chinatown. I take a cab to Merdeka Square, or Independence Square, site of the highest flagpole in the world and the location where Malaysian independence was inaugurated on August 31st 1957 (Malaysia turns 50 this year and there’s no escaping this news anywhere in the country).



My guided walk takes me to The Natural History Museum, which is really a museum of the history of Malaysia. Quite educational. There’s various colonial building lining the square. Instead of the British elite keeping the clubs for themselves, it’s now the KL elite partying at those places. Few things have changed in that regard.



I walk around for about five hours, but KL just doesn’t impress me as much as Bangkok or Hong Kong did. It’s a huge town, but few things here are different from what I’ve already seen. It’s obvious I’m suffering from overexposure.



I take the cab up to Theu Hou temple, one of the finest Chinese temples in Malaysia. The cab driver doesn’t know where he’s going, so I get off somewhere in the neighborhood. After 15 minutes of waling around it appears that it’s the wrong neighborhood, so I take another cab, and this time I get dropped of at the temple. It’s located on a hill, which gives a nice view of the city. The temple itself is very pretty, and colorful. At the altar there is a drum with lots of slots in it, filled with sticks with numbers on it and slots with the same numbers on them. A woman picks up the sticks and drops them twice, then picks one. The takes a piece of paper from the corresponding slot. I decide to see what the stars have in store for me. I know it won’t be something along the lines of ‘Gas will shoot out and burn down your house.’ Partly because Adnan Ali didn’t write the notes, but also because the stars never seem to have anything bad in store for you… mine says the following.

Bounteous Harvest

Hard work will be well rewarded, bringing joy to all at home. All the blues will disappear, replaced by blissful events, resulting from sweet and toil.

In business ventures, go about them in a down-to earth manner, never indulge in speculative venture.

Honour and merit will come next year, of not this Autumn, offers better opportunity for success.

Yup, it all sounds pretty much like me. It’s also rather HSE compliant, and it tells me to work hard, so Shell will concur.



After the temple, it’s on to the hotel. I take a swim and hang out in the room for an hour or so. I’ve agreed to meet Nyza for dinner, and we meet at the mall under the the Twin Towers. She needs some more retail therapy, as she calls it, so we go our separate ways until later in the evening; Nyza is joined by her sister, and the three of us have a nice meal. The ladies are off to do some more shopping, and I take a cab to a sightseeing corner about 300 meters past the hotel; Nyza has recommended it as a great spot to view the Twin Towers and she’s right. The view is spectacular.



Back at the hotel I decide to take decadence to another level; I order a Long Island Ice Tea and brownies with ice and strawberries, and I watch a movie. And I write these words.