Getting High in KL

As I mentioned in my last post, I stood in line all morning trying to get a ticket to go to the sky bridge and observation deck of the Petronas Towers. I got the ticket, but I had about six hours to kill until I could go up, so I had to find other things to do in Kuala Lumpur.

One thing I figured I could do was to go to Times Square. No, not that Times Square, but this one is pretty impressive in its own right. I had to go there to find where I needed to pick up my ticket and catch the bus for Singapore in a few days. Also, I had read that it was one of the five largest buildings in the world, based on floor space, and so I thought it would be a good idea to find where I needed to go before the last minute because getting lost in the building was a possibility.

Turns out I was pretty wise because the building was not simple to navigate. It had at least six floors of mall as well as various entrances to the monorail. I walked around for a while, broke down and went to the information desk, and eventually found where I needed to go to pick up my bus ticket.

Afterwards, I walked around KL some more and also took the monorail to other parts of town. Let me tell you the primary observation that I made in my travels in KL. Nobody celebrates Christmas like the Muslims. Okay, it’s not quite that simple, but Kuala Lumpur is a city that is full of malls. I mean they are everywhere. On pretty much every corner is one of the largest buildings that I’ve ever seen and inside those buildings are six to eight floors of mall. And what do malls want you to do this time of year? Yup, buy Christmas presents. It doesn’t matter that Malaysia is a Muslim country; Malaysia’s malls want you to spend money on Christmas presents. I have never in my life seen a city so dedicated to Christmas decorations. (Though, to be fair, in a few days I learned that Singapore was pretty damn close.)

Finally, it was time to head to the Petronas Towers. I spent about an hour strolling through its . . . wait for it . . . mall. Then I went to the tourist section and we went up to the sky bridge. The sky bridge of the Petronas Towers connects the two towers at the 41^st floor. It’s a pretty cool perspective of the buildings and of the city, but to be perfectly honest, the views were a little underwhelming. They are limited in that they allow you only to look out in the directions that the sky bridge faces. Much of what you can see is obscured by the towers themselves. It was a worthwhile trip, but not tremendous.

Following the trip to the sky bridge, we went to the observation deck on the 86^th floor. The views from this height were much more impressive. Still, because of the metal railings and the way the windows were set up, there still were many obstructions keeping me from getting a great view of the city. Before I made the trip, several people told me that if I had a choice between visiting the Petronas Towers and the KL Tower, I should choose the KL Tower. It turns out that those people were correct, though it didn’t really matter because I didn’t need a choice. I had the opportunity to do both and I’ll talk about the KL Tower in the next entry.