Thursday, August 28, 2008

Kuala Lumpur - Day 1 - Arrival

I reached Kuala Lumpur at 3:30 pm after a sleepless night in Karachi. I had been at the airport at 4am after last minute passport retrieval from the Cargo service. Before then, I had been hanging out with Foaad, Zahra and Shehzad at a rock concert at the Art Council followed by dinner at Karachi Bar BQ and a chill out at Shehzads place.

Immigration was exceptionally smooth but not so was the baggage retrieval which took well over 15 minutes. Once i was out of the airport and saw some of the Malaysian landscape it really was an exceptionally enthralling experience. It was so starkly evident how Malaysia has progressed into a relatively well developed nation. There are well organized structured systems in place, people are happy doing their tasks, business seems to be doing well. There is plenty of multiculturalism, several ethnicities living together. There may be one of the 55% of the 24 million population muslims sitting next to you or an orthodox Christian, Hindu or Buddhist and it just will not matter. There is no apparent segregation or rift between them at all.

Food Street - Bintang

Enjoying some local delicacies with Chen and Rebecca (not in picture)


The weather is a bit warm as I find my way to the YMCA which has highly affordable yet very decent rooms. There is a Laundromat, hair saloon, an internet café, electronics store and a grocery store within a minute walk of the place. In the evening headed over to Bukit Bintang to chill out with Chen Chow and Rebecca we walked around the place. Some the Star Hill shopping mall, which is ultra cool and expensive! We ate some roadside Malaysian food in a place like the food street with various vendors selling different types of food. It was an awesome start to the trip.

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