Peculiar People in Petronas Plaza

Tuesday February 26th

It was even more overcast today, and nowhere near as warm or humid. Judging by the wetness on the ground it had even rained. Today I was going to go to Petronas Towers and go up them. But I had second thoughts due to the poor visibility so instead went down to Merkala (Independence) Sqaure. Had a look around, and while taking a photo of the flagpole, a local guy came over to tell me that it was the largest flagpole in the world. As we were chatting he asked where I was from, and I said Ireland. Immediately he was on about his sister who was training in a hospital over there. I definitely have noticed that there is much more awareness of Ireland here than there was in Thailand. Anyway I had a brief chat with the man before he wandered off.

At this point I decided that if the weather had gotten worse from yesterday, it could well be worse again tomorrow, and also that it got better yesterday afternoon, so maybe it would again. So maybe I would head up to Petronas after all. So onto the MRT (Metro) this time (which is the noisy skytrain, although the portion of the line I was on was actually underground).

To get to the towers from the train you have to go through the KLCC Shopping Centre which is at the base of the towers. Its another big shopping centre, but it did have one or two western names I hadn't seen before, including M&S and O'Briens. I was tempted to go for a Sandwich in O'Briens, for a taste of home, until I saw the prices, which were a real taste of home.

When you get to the Petronas Towers, you get a ticket which allocates you a time at which you will go up to the skybridge (which is a bridge connecting the two towers at the 41st floor) but you cannot get to the top. I got allocated a 4pm ticket. It was 11am. They do say get there early (and I had hesitated - he who hesitates is lost) but I also think its a scam to keep you hanging around the shops and restaurants. Well I went outside to take some photos and decide what to do next and this is where the really strange stuff started.

As I'm standing outside a local woman comes up to me and says 'You are staying in Chinatown'. I'm thinking I look like a backpacker (rather than a 4* hotel guest) so its a good guess, but then she says the weird thing 'I've seen you there'. I'm thinking is she following me (your danger sense kicks in at this point, but also you do want to see how it plays out), so she asks the standard where are you from question, and I say Ireland. Well surprise, surprise she has a sister who is going to Killarney next month. (At this point I'm thinking does everyone have a sister in Ireland, and where would she be going if I'd said France). After a bit more chat (how cold it is in Ireland now - the first bloke wanted to know that as well) she wants me to come meet her sister to give her information about Ireland.

Once you see which way the scam is going (11am is the earliest the girl scam has been tried) you get out, so I excused myself and headed off. To play it safe I headed back into the shops out the other side. And on this side a couple were taking photos of themselves with the fountains in the background. They asked me to take a shot of the two of them together so I figured that I'm safer with tourists (although they were Asian) and it all starts over. The bloke says he is from the Philipines, I say Ireland, he has a cousin working in Dublin, and suddenly the girl with him is his single cousin (she might have been before) who was thinking of going to Europe.

Extracting myself from that one I went into a coffee shop to recover (and watch the doors). Having had my Diet Coke I emerged, only to immediately be confronted by a man who also had some connection to Dublin (at this point I no longer listened). In fairness his scam was a bit easier to work out. He had tickets for earlier skybridge visits and would swap my 4 O'Clock one with his (for a fee I'd guess). At this point I discovered I'd lost my ticket (I think in the escape from the first woman), and I was so weary from all this attention that I decided to give up on the Petronas Towers.

So I headed off to the KL tower. Unlike the Petronas, which are office blocks, like say the Empire State, they KL tower is a communications tower, like the CN Tower in Toronto. It cost to go up it, which I guess is why queues are smaller (actually there was no queue at all). But the observation deck is at a higher elevation than the skybridge (and the tower is on a hill in the first place) and it has a 360 degree view, where I guess some of the view from the skybridge has to be blocked by the towers. In fact even before going up I was trying to figure why people cared about going up to the 41 floor of these buildings. Its not that impressive. In fact I really only wanted to the top (where it would have been higher than the World Trade Centre the highest building I've been in). And once I got up I thought there is no way the view from the skybridge could be better, so wasn't too upset about losing the ticket.

But one of the best parts of the KL Tower is getting to it. To get there from the train station requires a 800m walk through some rainforest. Well you can drive up to it from the other side, but where is the fun in that.

At that point it would have been just about time to get back to the Petronas, but instead I headed back to the hotel. I tried to book accomodation for Singapore, and discovered that my credit card was still getting rejected, so another round of phone calls to Ireland, where the bank insisted there was nothing wrong, and emails to the websites, ensued.

These delays meant that instead of going back to the shopping centre areas for a few drinks I stayed local. I also discovered that my hotel is a rip off when it comes to beer prices.