Day 743 - Into Islam

With only 2 days in KL we want to see as much as possible, so we set off early this morning for another day of sightseeing, though our feet were still cursing us after yesterday! Our first port of call was the Old Kuala Lumpur train station (built in 1911), where we basically had the entire station to ourselves - not too many trains run from this beautiful, Moorish- and Mogul - style station anymore. The glistening dome of the National Mosque soon drew us towards it, and even though we couldn't enter we could appreciate its modern, geometrical designs from the outside. If it had been any other day we would have been able to enter for a look, but today is Friday - the most sacred day for Muslims.

At the mosque we could see the turquoise dome of the Islamic Arts Museum, and skipped across the road to leave the heat of the day in our wake. After 2 hours in this glorious museum we were forced to leave or else freeze to death - on the way out we glanced at the thermostat. It was a chilly 25 degrees!!! We're not sure how we're going to handle the NZ winter if we find we're freezing at 25!

It was really cool checking out all the exhibits at the Museum. The main exhibition on at the moment is a photographic display from a British photographer who captures Muslim life throughout the world, allowing the rest of us a glimpse we might not have otherwise.

The architecture exhibit really caught our eye as it had photos and models of famous Islamic buildings from all round the world - and we'd been to 4 of them: from China, Kazakhstan, India and Malaysia.

As we wandered the streets we were constantly reminded that we are in a predominantly Muslim country, with women in all walks of life wearing the headscarf with pride. As the drizzle arrived we relaxed in our room, and then set off to explore the many tea shops around China Town - picking up our favourite Jasmine Pearl tea from home!

We stuffed our faces with roti canai once again, in fact we'd still eat roti if we weren't even hungry! This provided the much needed energy to battle the claustrophobia markets on the other side of the road that we missed out last night!! And we emerged with bags in hands and made a beeline for our hotel to give our tired feet a rest!
When darkness came we were drawn like moths to the light of the sparkling Petronas Towers. Looking up from the ground, we found them much more dazzling by night, than the views they gave us from the skybridge during the day. Adlibing the twinkling towers.