Malaysia 2013: Skyscrapers, Stingray, and Someone Else’s Glasses

After Cambodia, my first impression of Kuala Lumpur was very simple: wow, civilization! The Petronas Towers, a modern city, evening lights. The city seemed very clean, and after the previous part of the trip, I felt the contrast straight away.

We walked around the central districts. Evening was already setting in, the city was lit up, and it was just nice to walk and look around. A huge green square near government buildings, an illuminated tower, skyscrapers.

The Petronas Towers are hard to miss, of course. The two towers stand side by side and look great above the shopping mall’s facade. After Cambodian roads and beach bungalows, this change of scenery is pretty convincing. Not long ago, we had the sea in front of us, and now here was this enormous, brightly lit structure.

But you don’t have to spend the whole evening looking up. Kuala Lumpur has plenty of interesting things at table level, too.

Jalan Alor: My First Stingray

On Jalan Alor, people sit right outside, eating and talking. Tables, plates, fish, and other food I don’t quite know the names of yet. There are people everywhere, and this whole street-food scene is still pretty unfamiliar to me.

Even the things you’re not going to order are interesting to look at here. All sorts of fish and seafood, some familiar, some a complete mystery. But the main event for me this time is stingray. I’m trying it for the first time in my life.

Now that was exotic! I could spend ages describing the street market, the crowds, and the atmosphere, but for me, the stingray clearly took first place this time. It’s not every day you sit down to eat and try a fish like that for the very first time.

And there I am in the middle of it all, with my plate. Just an ordinary photo at a table, but with a very specific memory attached: my first stingray :)

Out on the Water to See the Eagles

On our trip to Kuala Selangor, the city towers gave way to water, boats, and green riverbanks. A different kind of excursion was waiting for us here: feeding eagles.

Chicken was cut into pieces for the birds. Then we spent quite a while on the boat and eventually headed into some dense vegetation by the water. Mangroves, I think, but I couldn’t say for sure.

There were lots of eagles flying over the water. You toss up a piece of meat, and a bird catches it right in midair. I had a go, too. Such a cool experience: one moment the piece is still flying, and the next it’s already been snatched. These guys have their aim sorted.

They also let me steer the boat. So I got to be both a passenger and the person at the helm. I really enjoyed having a chance to take the controls for a bit myself.

Batu: 272 Steps and One Theft

There are 272 steps up to the Batu Caves. That sounds like the start of a story about a tough climb, but it was all pretty uneventful for us. We just walked up. My legs didn’t make much of a drama out of it.

The monkeys here, though, are perfectly capable of creating drama all by themselves. One grabbed someone’s glasses right on the steps and ran off with them. Not mine, but I remember that story well. The person was left without glasses, and the monkey had a pair.

Batu is a complex of limestone caves and Hindu shrines near Kuala Lumpur. The large main cave became a place of temple worship in the late nineteenth century. The complex is particularly associated with the god Murugan and the festival of Thaipusam.

I really liked that combination of nature and a sacred place. Nature built these enormous caves all by itself, and people gave them sacred meaning as well. That gives the place a special charm. You stand among the tall stone walls, look up, and there’s no joking about it now: monumental.

After the city’s skyscrapers, it’s interesting to see something on this scale that people didn’t need a construction crane to create. The temples, statues, and steps here are human-made, but the space itself is much older. And it’s impressive even without knowing all the religious details.

Petrosains: What’s Behind the Towers’ Shine

In Kuala Lumpur, we also visited Petrosains, the science centre in Suria KLCC. I remembered it mainly as a museum about oil and drilling. In fact, its scope is wider: it’s an interactive science and technology centre created by PETRONAS, with the oil industry forming an important part of the exhibits. It has been open since 1999.

Here you can have your photo taken with a three-dimensional image in the palm of your hand, play with planes, and put your hand on a dinosaur. We do all of that. The dinosaur makes it into our photo album, too.

Oil is one of the sources of Malaysia’s prosperity, and the scale of PETRONAS helps put the numbers in perspective. In 2012, the PETRONAS group had around 291 billion ringgit in revenue and paid 80 billion to the federal and state governments in taxes, dividends, and other payments. That’s revenue, not profit. Those sums go some way towards explaining why the company’s name is so prominent around the city.

But our museum visit is much more fun than reading annual reports. In my blue-and-black striped T-shirt, I’m by the pipes and valves one moment, at an interactive installation the next, and then beside a Formula One car. You can look at the machinery and try things out yourself. From a galaxy in your hand to a racing car: not a bad range for one museum.

Mindvalley: Dream, Learn, and Do

There was another meeting in Kuala Lumpur, this time closer to my work interests. I was starting to get interested in online business: sales, mailing lists, and how it all worked. And we visited the office of Mindvalley, Vishen Lakhiani’s company. We met the team and talked about possible ways to work together.

On the office wall was The Code of Awesomeness. Dream boldly, grow through learning, stay positive and passionate about what you do, and help others. Back up your words with actions. Those ideas really resonated with me.

I especially liked another inscription: “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” Life is about creating yourself, not just searching. A short phrase, but it really struck a chord with me.

There was also an enormous trainer on a shelf. I had my photo taken next to it in a black T-shirt. I think it belonged to Tony Robbins, but I won’t swear to that. The size, though, I can vouch for: you can see it clearly in the photo :)

The route continued on to Bali. And from Kuala Lumpur, I took away my first taste of stingray, a turn at the helm of a boat, and the story of a monkey that sorted out its need for glasses very quickly. Luckily, someone else’s.