Our first stop in Malaysia was KL, where our friends Barb and Scott have a great place, not even a 10 minute walk from the Petronas Towers. We were both expecting KL to be a lot like Jakarta, but have found more similarities to Singapore. We spent a whole day wandering the city by foot, something you simply cannot do in Jakarta, the city is pretty clean and there are sidewalks. Already an improvement. While there is not that much to do/see per say and despite the intense humidity and daily rain, you can see the appeal of living here.
Day two we decided to check out the bird park, the largest walk in aviary in the world, and it is pretty incredible. (And this is coming from a girl who got pooped on by a lorikeet.) When you walk in immediately there is a dish of feed and some colorful birds flying around who land on your arms and eat from your hands. We discovered they are also fond of sweat as one latched on to Howie's back and and was nibbling at the back of his neck for quite some time. He had to be forcibly removed before we went into the next section of the park.
From there we encountered the second coolest thing in the park, which was a peacock who decided to show off his stuff and hopefully attract a female that was wandering by. He did not seem bothered by all the people watching, spread his gorgeous feathers and did a little dance, shaking his tail feathers and really putting on a show. Sadly, with all the people jumping in and taking photos, he did not seem to have much luck, but since there were many small children around, maybe that was for the best.
After that awesome display we walked through the rest of the park seeing emus, ostriches, eagles, hornbills, lorikeets, parrots, flamingos... you name it.
Saturday, since Barb and Scott were not working, we headed about 90K out of the city to the elephant sanctuary where, if you are one of the first 100 people you can go for an elephant ride and bathe with the elephants. Luckily, it is an afternoon thing, so being in the first 100 was not too difficult. It was an incredible day and despite how crazy it could have been with the number of people that were there, it was really well organized and we got a lot of time with the elephants.
After an interesting movie about the relocation of elephants in Malaysia - the palm plantations have encroached on the elephants natural habitat and they move them from what is left of their small forests to the national nature preserve - we went and fed the elephants some fruit and peanuts. Then there was a short, but fun, elephant ride and then into the water on an elephant's back. He dumped us intot he watre and we bathed and played with three younger elephants. The elephants were amazing and wonderful and it was a great experience.
Monday we will leave the comfort of Barb and Scott's for the Cameron Highlands for some trekking and exploring... and hopefully some more fun animals!
Our first stop in Malaysia was KL, where our friends Barb and Scott have a great place, not even a 10 minute walk from the Petronas Towers. We were both expecting KL to be a lot like Jakarta, but have found more similarities to Singapore. We spent a whole day wandering the city by foot, something you simply cannot do in Jakarta, the city is pretty clean and there are sidewalks. Already an improvement. While there is not that much to do/see per say and despite the intense humidity and daily rain, you can see the appeal of living here.
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