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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I have a children’s book called “Over the steamy swamp ” and as I was walking along today feeling the sweat trickling down my face and back I couldn’t help but feel I was in a steamy swamp! Its humid – very humid but I remembered what Lili said – just think of it as a free sauna mum. Right. OK.

The day started with our free buffet breakfast which to us was like a dinner. It had the usual eggs, and cereals together with Japanese congee, salads, indian curries, rota freshly cooked while you waited, fragrant chutneys, Indian semolina (savoury) hand toasted on a special grill, breads, pastries and more that I can’t remember – very, very nice indeed.

After that we tried sorting some internet problems, printed some vouchers in the business centre and got a teksi (taxi) to the bird gardens. The driver wanted to shift to NZ to be a halal butcher – interesting. The KL gardens cover 21 tropical acres in the heart of the city and include the largest covered walk in free flight avery in the world. The bird garden section is a series of avery’s (some walk through), sculptured gardens, and water features. A highlight was seeing an amazing bright orange red scarlet bird (photo attached) it really was that colour!

Whilst we were walking around it must have been a prayer time and over the loud speakers came singing, chanting, and a little talking for about 30 minutes or so. I found it quite melodic – not dissimilar to belly dance slower music. There are certainly a lot of fully covered burka dressed women here, and ones with just scarves which you don’t see at home in little old Whakatane.

Man we drunk a lot of water – and one drinking coconut – down the hatch. You buy them chilled for equivalent NZD4.50. I tried to keep my fluids up, but seriously you just end up being slick with sweat constantly with little streams appearing in places. Yucky.

Next door – 1.5km down road is a butterfly park. This was interesting but not as good as the ones we saw in the Academy of Science in San Francisco. They also had displays of fascinating insects, spiders and beetles, some of which were frighteningly large. The photo of leaves is actually butterflies that look like leaves and when they open their wings you see beautiful blues and other colours. Incredible camouflage!

Now those of delicate nature stop reading. One thing that is tricky here are toilets – the asian hole in the floor squat type. Now do you squat forward or backward? How do you get over that feeling of long drop and not wanting to fall in? I am finding them a challenge cause you have to take your knickers right off or you may have an oops? Thinking I may go commando tomorrow to save the hassle .. the one good side is that the coolest part of my anatomy today was my err nether regions as they have these little hoses with nozzles so you can wash afterwards like a bidet! Ahhhhh.

Thats me for today, sleep beckons.

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