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Ian Thorp Reports From Sunny Malaysia

I love Malaysia; it’s a great place.

For one it reminds me of home - England, not Australia, despite the fact that it’s in the tropics and the temperature hardly ever drops below 30 degrees - Why? It’s the subtle little things;

The power point are the same as in the UK -there’s something reassuring about the big plug with a fuse in it; they have double yellow lines here and Marks and Spencer, this seems odd bearing in mind that:

I have no plugs that actually fit into those sockets
Double yellow lines usually equal bad thing
M&S in KL doesn’t sell prawn and mayo sarnies and seems to be the most expensive shop in the city - Armani’s cheaper than M&S!

For another its clean, modern, people are really friendly and stuff just works.

K.L.’s a really strange mix of old colonial buildings, and super modern high tech stuff like the Petronas Tower that was one of the worlds tallest building until the Taiwanese chucked up this little number: http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/ci/bu/mf/?id=101320 which is 509M.

The Petronas certainly one of the worlds best looking buildings which was omni-present when ever I looked out of my hotel window as they nicely upgraded me to have a champion view from the 25th floor, however if I felt like I was in Lost in Translation in Singapore the feeling was doubly so in KL as I was there all alone.

Public transport makes London transport look positively third world, well I guess that’s because it is, there’s a mono-rail system, light rail and high speed train that get you the 80KM from the airport at the speed of light, it was 2004 when I got on the train the train it was 2516 and the world was run by apes, so I took the train back to the airport, got a taxi and all was back to normal when I got back to the city.

I didn’t get much time to have a look around as I was working, I got taken on a bit a off sight-seeing by one of the guys I work with, who took me too the Islamic museum, which was pretty interesting, especially all the big swords and stuff, I didn’t see one tourist in there which was pretty cool and visited the new political district - Putra Jaya - which looked like Milton Keynes only with a huge mosque in the middle of a roundabout and the most ornate lampposts you have ever seen - which I failed to take any photos of, so you will just have to take my word for it.

I was, believe it or not stuck in a massive hail storm the first day I was there, gale force winds and hail stones the size of golf balls (which I thought was a little excessive for hail until I discovered that storms that rip up trees and telegraph poles are rare occurrences and my colleague had never even seen - ever), the eyes of the locals turned to me- seemingly I give new meaning to the term weatherman! - Was it a coincidence that every day after that, evening prayer time just happened to be just before someone gave me a lift to the station?

Got a taxi to an Irish bar to meet a colleague who lives there and obviously done an excellent job of assimilating into the community - not! Finally get to the bar and it cost me a (relative) fortune in the taxi - and I can’t believe that he hadn’t picked a closer bar, “why its only 10 minutes drive away!”
-We’ll yes maybe however my driver was obviously proud of his town and wanted to show me around - he did this by completing a full lap of the ring road surrounding the city!! Taxi drivers - all the same!!

Unfortunately no real tales of pubs this trip, however will be going back so hopefully more info for the boozy traveller then!

One last thing, I was given a copy of the Quoran, and if you want to create a stir on international flight and at immigration I suggest carrying it in your hand luggage and reading it on the plane.

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