The coach back to KL took barely 4 hours, the winding mountain road back down to the motorway gave us incredible views across the valleys and vast tea plantations.
Being back in KL felt good, though only briefly. We had chosen a rather rundown area by Chinatown to stay in and the number of homeless people and their poor condition took us by surprise.
The area is famous for its market that sells all manner of fake goods, bags, clothes, DVDs, electricals etc. The streets were clogged with people browsing the stalls for a bargain, some of the stall owners were a crafty bunch stating a price to draw a customer in then innocently claiming they were talking in US dollars not Ringgit (we got suckered in by this too).
The local 'tourist attractions' were a little disappointing, a couple of temples and mosques, an indoor market but generally, it just felt too touristy, the locals were disengaged and it was just business, business, business, a far cry from our experiences with the Malaysians.
The iconic Petronas towers stand side by side in the centre of town, they are 88 storeys (452 metres) tall and are simply stunning. The mixture of straight lines and curves, glass, metal and stone had us captivated, of all the incredible buildings we've seen on the trip, ancient or modern, these towers rank among the most impressive. At one side of the buildings there is a green area, full of trees hanging with creeper vines, huge tropical ferns and water features, these alone would be worth a visit. We took a stroll round the park, we were joined by office workers taking a break for lunch, what a stunning place to take respite from the daily grind.
KL is a shopping Mecca, the malls are vast, immaculate and best of all, ice cold. We wandered through a good few of them to get relief from the oppressive heat and so what if we had an iced coffee or two while we were at it.
The clean streets of KL were all well and good but our next destination was going to be somewhat different, Sarawak, Borneo.