Happy New Sultan!

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur just two days after Boxing Day - and two weeks into the reign of Malaysia's new Sultan: Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah, ruler of the Malaysian State of Kedah since 1958. At 84, he's the oldest constitutional monarch they've ever had, but then this is his second term, his first having been in 1970-75. Under a unique system introduced upon Malaysia's independence from Britain in 1957, one of 9 hereditary rulers takes his turn as the country's King for five years at a time, and his turn has turned up again. We've heard that the office of the constitutional monarch - largely ceremonial, he being the supreme upholder of Malay tradition and symbolic head of Islam - is highly regarded over here, particularly amongt the ethnic Malay Muslim majority. However, we're not sure how this conclusion about 'popular opinion' has been arrived at, given that public criticism of the King, and of the State Sultans, is more or less illegal under the Malaysian sedition laws! (Hope no-one but you is looking at this!!)


Actually, if it's shopping you want (not my favourite pastime, although Andy - or Ed, as he's bizarrely started to call himself on these blogs! - is, as usual, much more interested) then KL is definitely your place! There must be dozens and dozens of absolutely VAST shopping malls here, all similar to anywhere else in the world really, with their Debenhams, Laura Ashley, Gap, Nike, Starbucks, and FOS (Factory Outlet Store - the Malay TK-Maxx equivalent) - but also with several really interesting stores that we've never heard of before.

Our funky little hotel, in what was obviously once a proper street, looks straight into the back-end of the glass-and-steel shopping mall known as Berjaya Times Square Mall, whose absolutely massive air-con outlet buzzes deafeningly, 24/7, towards our otherwise delightful little bamboo-shaded outdoor restaurant area (where, incidentally, the fully-included Malay breakfast, with its plates of fresh fruit, roti and parathas with curry or banana pancakes is just wonderful!). Oh, and I meant what I said earlier about theme park-rides: in Berjaya Times Square Mall there's an absolutely huge, elaborate and really scary-looking roller-coaster which screams up and down all around one of the stair-well/atrium areas, actually turning upside down over the huge six-floor drop of the stairwell/atrium area over which it it is built! We watched this in fascination yesterday evening, together with our new-found local friends, Adrian and Michelle. They also pointed out that there's a multi-screen cinema on the 6th floor, and yet another cinema entered via the 10th floor, but with a screen which apparently covers 3 whole floors of the complex!

Adrian and Michelle are a young Chinese-Malay couple from Sarawak and Sabah in Borneo who are currently running the hotel where we're staying. Delightfully for us, yesterday evening they invited us to dine 'out' with them at Uncle Duck's (yes really!) restaurant on the 4th floor of the Mall. (Have to say, despite our apprehension over the restaurant's name and location, it served amongst the best Chinese food - particularly but not only the duck - we've had anywhere. The humour was also of a high standard - particularly when we dicovered Adrian's family name to be 'Queck'! - Ed.) After our meal, Adrian and Michelle took us on a guided tour of this massive mall, showing us some of the highlights and quirky bits - like the roller-coaster and theme park - which we might otherwise not have found, and we shopped together in some of the 'novelty' shops, many getting ready to celebrate the Chinese New Year at the end of this month. A really fun evening!

Despite the aforementioned culture shock, then, we've been thoroughly enjoying ourselves here in KL. Rather like London, KL also has quite a lot of green space and parks, and their Independence (Merdaka) Square, boasting the world's highest free-standing flag-pole, is still as green as it was when it was an even more hallowed ground in British colonial times - a cricket pitch! We spent one hot and humid day in the butterfly gardens, and the huge bird park, both near to the Lake Gardens to the west of the city - both absolutely fascinating. The array of brightly colourful butterflies fluttering by - some much larger than the bats which share our loft in The Quad - was fantastic.

It was equally wonderful to wander around the world's largest free-flight bird park, with dozens and dozens of storks soaring gracefully over our heads, just before landing ungainfully and clumsily on their stick-thin legs a few feet away from us; with several strutting peacocks squawking loudly and bossily, and occasionally deigning to flash their magnificent plumage to the delight of all; the lumbering great double-hornbills looking - rather like a 747 or Airbus - impossibly large and heavy to ever get off the ground; the emus and ostriches strutting around their large open pens, and the range of imperious-looking eagles all staring menacingly out from their cages.


We've also been up KL Menara (telecoms tower, currently the fourth tallest in the world), whose viewing gallery is over 300 feet higher than the iconic, and better-known, Petronas Twin-Towers; wandered around the historic Central Market; visited Mosques, Hindu and Tsaoist Temples, and the spectacular Islamic Arts Centre; walked around China-Town and Little India, and sat sipping a cocktail in the 32nd-floor 'Sky Bar' overlooking KLCC Park and the beautiful, floodlit Petronas Towers. On New Year's Eve, Adrian and Michelle, and the staff of our lovely little hotel laid on a wonderful - and free - hot buffet meal for all the guests, and then a crowd of us, guests and staff together, walked over to a well-known vantage point on one of the huge, closed-to-traffic, boulevards, to count down the New Year together and watch a wonderful firework display. The atmosphere on the streets was amazing - everyone greeting each other with a range of differently-accented 'Happy New Years', and the drivers and passengers in their stationary cars all shouting greetings as we walked by. Just great!

We've also enjoyed finding our way about town using the city's railway-based urban network of monorail and LRT transit routes. This system of differently liveried overhead rail routes is great, but nothing like as integrated as the London underground, for example. Each of the routes was built separately by different companies, using different gauges and rolling-stock , tickets need to be bought for each separate part of the journey if you need to move between lines, and, even where there's an interchange between lines, it's rarely conveniently located: you often need to come out of one station, walk down the stairs to the pavement, walk round the corner, take the escalator up to the next line, queue again to buy a new ticket - but you do, thereby, at least manage to avoid the traffic chaos, with its almost complete lack of pedestrian walkways, below! And the tickets are really cheap.

Tomorrow we're off by bus to spend a few days in the Cameron Highlands. For now, though, let us use this opportunity to wish you all a very, very Happy New Year!  We'll leave you with a couple of pieces of useful advice for 2012 .....