Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Coming down from Krabie to KL, I changed buses numerous times, but the first stop in Malaysia was in the back streets of 'rat city'- Butterworth where I waited 4 hours 'til midnight for the next bus. During my wait I did manage to find a food stall open nearby selling roti and dal mmmmm my favourite for 50p too! And a welcome relief after all that shite thai food. And in the background the mosque (Malaysia being a dominantly muslim country)was blasting out the Beach Boys 'Ram Ram Ramadam, bacon and ham' over the city. Well if the trip to KL had been without all the stops and changes it would probably only have taken 8 hours, but as it is with Asian timing....'NO HURRY NO WORRY NO CHICKEN NO CURRY.....it took nearly 24 hours!

So eventually made it to the beautiful though modern city of KL. For me this was one of the most interesting cities i have visited, it has such a diversty of cultures and my favourite style of architecture - Islamic architecture. The mosques were wonderful places, I would just go in and meditate for hours in the ladies prayer room...(not usually being the kind of person who can stay still in one place for very long...I managed quite nicely here)and i'm not converting or anything but I really like the atmosphere and the energy in these places and there are no distractions in the prayer room so it is easy to meditate there. Its especially nice when the Immam starts chanting prayers they are so tuneful and lulling.

The south Indian temples being very ornate are really beautiful too, especially the Ganesh temple.

But I really like the fact that in KL there are so many Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists all living together so peacfully and they respect and understand and celebrate each others religions and festivals.

Talking of festivals, there are so many of them and I arrived just in time for the Hindu Navratri....which the north Indians and south Indians celebrate differently ( saw some beautiful south Indian classical dance shows and joined in some north indian folk dancing)and in time for Ramadan...and Diwali and Hari Raya. Hopefully i will still be here in Jan/Feb when they have the Chinese New Year and the South Indian Thai Pussam where Hindus go to the huge cave temple outside KL, go into a trance and then pierce themselves with hooks upon which they hang all the material burdens and ties of their lives to remind them to be free of materialism. Amazingly, because they are in a trance they don't feel a thing.

All this spirituality is doing me a world of good and I've been getting some amazingly accurate messages and images for strangers that i've done healing on during my travels.

Sightseeing - KL has 2 Indian areas - one south Indian Hindu and one Muslim Indian, it has a China town ....so lots of delicious food around masala dosas etc....

So KL fever hit, I turned from Thailands hippy chick into Malaysias Miss traditional India overnight. I made some very good friends here, the locals keep coming up to me and waffling away in Malay...which makes me feel quite embarrassed that I can't speak the language, it probably confuses them as i dress in a Punjabi dress and have had my nose pierced so look like a local, anyway when they find out that I'm foreign they always offer to show me around the city and take me places to visit. Now they call me a FIT bird! (Foreign Independent Traveller). So generous and genuine! Lovely people.

So continuing with the sight seeing....Petronas Towers the tallest buildings in the world since 9/11, but you could only go up as far as the bridge connecting the 2 buildings. I preferred the KL tower where visiters could go higher and see more of the city. A 5 year old Malay girl reckoned she could see the Great wall of China from there!!! Wow

The Islamic Arts Musium was really nice too...had many models of famous mosques all around the world and a lot to learn about the Muslim religion. Its a very powerful and peaceful religion.

The butterfly park...funnily my mums name, Rama, means butterfly in Malay.

It was really good to see how Islamic architecture influenced so many of KL's skyscrapers. They are really beautiful.

And soooo many shopping centres everywhere you turn, you can buy just about anything you could ever need or want here...drives you mad!

So off to Borneo for some back to nature jungle adventures.