My last post was called “Miles to Go Before I Sleep.” Well, I’ve gone miles — many thousands of them — but there hasn’t been much sleeping. The jet lag has been pretty intense. I’ve only been here in Kuala Lumpur for about 36 hours, but tomorrow I fly onto Cambodia. I’ll be back here next month for a longer amount of time. This first stopover was really meant just as a way to help me get acclimated. But I do want to show you my first images of this city.

To be honest, I haven’t really been able to get a good feel for it yet.  So far, it feels like a growing sprawl of a place, with relatively new enormous skyscrapers plopped down here and there without much plan. But some of the architecture is beautiful. The most famous landmark is The Petronas Twin Towers which dominates the skyline of the modern part of the city. Predominently an office building, it stands in a new development called KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Centre) which has the best hotels, enormous shopping malls, a park, an aquarium, a concert hall.

That’s where I met the writer and general champion of all things literary in Malaysia, Sharon Bakar. She hosted me to a lunch on a terrace in the giant mall called Suria KLCC and we discussed our work, our lives and the reading she’s organising for me here next month. She also gave me a copy of her book, Readings from Readings, an anthology of new Malaysian writing which she edited with Bernice Chauly. I can’t wait to dive into it. After lunch, she took me to the top floor of the shopping mall to see something which will make all of us book lovers very happy… Kinukiya, the biggest bookstore I have ever seen anywhere. And best of all, it was packed full of people. Ebooks haven’t yet hit Malaysia and so I wonder if that’s one reason why such a huge store still survives when so many back home are closing. But whatever the reason, it did my heart good to see it:

Getting to KLCC took me over what is my favourite architectural feature of the city so far: The City Walkway. This is a network of enclosed, elevated and air conditioned bridges which hover one or two stories above ground and connect one part of this section of town to another. Genius.

I also spent an hour this morning going to a nearby crafts museum and heritage centre. Although the people here seem genuinely warm and lovely, I haven’t yet been able to get a sense of who the Malaysians are, other than the bits I’ve read in my tour book. Hopefully, that will come on my return trip. But here are a few more photos to show some of what was exhibited:

Traditional Batik weaving

Hand-made kites

This time tomorrow, though, I’ll be in Siem Reap. It will be wonderful to see my friends at Anjali House, both young and old, to feel the heat (KL is hot, but Cambodia will be hotter), smell the fruit and hear the birds, ride in a tuk tuk and well, just be in Cambodia once again.