Off to KL and back

Well, if you've read Jen's Ben and Ellie post, you've perhaps noticed that we just got back from a few days in KL. That's Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for those who aren't familiar with the lingo. It was our first real expedition from PP (Phnom Penh, expats here like initials for complicated city names), and went quite well. We had a bit of an inauspicious start, when I left our camera in the back seat of a taxi on our first full day. Luckily, I guess, we hadn't had a chance to shoot any pictures, so we didn't lose anything that can't be replaced.

KL is an incredibly modern city, developed and still cheap. The developed part was obvious from the beginning. A very nice airport, then driving into the city you see Petronas Towers, two of the largest skyscrapers in the world. The other striking thing is how clean the city is. PP has a problem common to much of the developing world - trash. Many people have no trash cans, and so just cart bags, or piles, of trash out to the street to wait for the garbage truck. This means that, among other things, there is almost always at least one pile of trash on every block, along with bits of trash that missed pickup, or blew away from the main pile. It isn't overwhelming, but it is always there. KL, at least in the parts we saw, was nothing like this. Amazingly clean. Lovely. In addition, many of the taxis there run on natural gas, which made the air so nice to breathe. The taxis took us all over, for basically $2.50 a trip. A darn good deal.

It has been said that Malaysians have two great loves - eating and shopping. We tried a bit of each, and we certainly had some very good food. We also enjoyed the shopping malls, although we bought almost nothing. The mall nearest us had a movie theater, which was showing Corpse Bride, the newest Tim Burton film. It was lovely being able to see a movie at all, and having it in English was even more of a treat. There was also a Border's bookstore, where we picked up a few new books for cheap (including Freakonomics, which Jen highly recommends).

Ellie liked the swimming pool at the hotel, but she loved the enormous playground with wading pool in the public park nearby. She went there three times in our four days, and would have liked to stay longer to play more. We also went to a fantastic aquarium, and an impressive bird park, which had the best set of birds I've ever seen. The bird park is enclosed by nets, meaning that there was even minimal fear of avian flu, since there is no contamination from the general avian population.

On a more adult tourist theme, Jen and I took advantage of the kids napping to see the National Mosque and the Islamic Art Museum. Malaysia is a predominantly Muslim country, but they are very moderate and tolerant of other religous groups. There are several Christian churches in KL, along with Hindu and Buddhist presences, thanks to the large Indian and Chinese communities.

Part of our goal in visiting was to scope it out as a potential place to serve later on. I think we are both extremely impressed, and if a good job popped up we would try for it. A great city, and a nice place to be able to go to get back to that northern Virginia feel of intense heat, tall buildings, and strip malls. It sounds odd, but after living in PP for a while, the sight of a strip mall is oddly comforting.