An Urban Jungle

Escape from Nature! Whining has once again won the day, and we are off early to Kuala Lumpur. So long, leeches.

A moment's silence, please for the accoutrements of Our Camping Lives, Phase One. Farewell to the blue tent, farewell to the tent pegs, to the hammer bag, to the tent spacers that are exactly the same colour as the dirt I inevitably drop them in no matter where said dirt is, to the fly that never did leak on us although I spent a plentiful amount of time very worried it would, to rolling up a tent in the rain and trying to stay clean. The roll mats and sleeping bags are packed away on the truck, to accompany Calypso on her voyage back to the UK. Roll on Our Camping Lives, Phase Two (The Australia Weeks).

In the meantime, we're in KL, the modern and lovely capital city of Malaysia. The city is full of spectacular skyscrapers, including the iconic twin Petronas Towers, which were for a short while the tallest buildings in the world.  They are also home to an extremely posh shopping mall which includes the very first Gap I've been in since April. I know! It was very exciting. David left me alone in there for some reflection time, and also because he was still bored even though he hasn't had any Gap time in six months.

Rode the monorail and subway (there is a station called Titiwangsa!), saw the Veddy English main square, which consists of quasi-Tudor half-timbered buildings around a cricket pitch built by confused Surrey men, clearly; past vaguely Arabic museums, observed the prettiest street lights I've ever seen--see left. Saw Bollywood girls filming something or other. Chinese temples with amazing ceramic people living on the roof. Lovely city.

Wandered Chinatown for lunch, are now owners of very dodgy sunglasses certainly not made by Miu Miu and Oakley. Noodles and chicken for lunch...I will not be sorry to not have noodles for a good long while. But Indian beckons for dinner, which does make me happy. We are shamelessly abusing the free wifi in a place called Steven's Tea Garden, which makes stretched tea--cold tea made with sweetened condensed milk and poured dramatically from one cup to another. We could have abused the the wifi in Gloria Jeans, KFC, Starbucks, or any of about 90 other generic western chains as well. I think we've definitely left the great anonymous wastes behind us and civilization is well at hand.

Another two nights here in KL, then we're down to Malaka for three nights, and finally to Singapore itself for two nights. From Singapore we're flying to Darwin on 9 October, and the Odyssey is over. But the Wicked begins...