The joys of travel

Having waffled on earlier about some of the slightly less good aspects of work travel, I though I'd better redress the balance a little.

Today, I (mostly) had a day off. So, with time on my hands, I did what I like to do most in a city I don't know: I walked around it. This is my default anywhere new. Walk. So far as I can tell, there's no better way to get a feel for a city than to walk its pavements (in KL, that also seems to mean roadsides, roads, crumbled tarmac falling into the road, etc.).

Hot and humid it may be, but I still covered around 15 miles on foot. The botanical gardens were lovely; large, green and mostly deserted. Even so, it's hard to lose the impression of being in a large, sky-scraper dominated city.

Next up was a wander around, which saw me take in the Eco Forrest, rope bridges and all. From there, I swung down into a seemingly ethnically Indian section of the city. This was possibly my favourite section of the wander. Having not (yet) visited India, this to me was the part of the city that felt most 'other'. I loved it for that. The street food was great and the people all very friendly.

Re-fuelled, I walked on to the Petronas towers and all that comes with it. It's a corporate and shopping driven section of the city, with big name brands in the shops and very expensive cars on the roads. It's nice enough, but not my favourite part of town to wander through. The towers are quite striking, though.

A decent walk. I don't think KL is my favourite city in the world. This is my second visit and, though I quite like it, for me places like London, Sydney and Singapore are still a little way ahead in my personal ranking.

However, I did see this place on my travels--that nearly swung it....