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Nov. 20, 2010 Moving from Nepal to Malaysia is like reincarnation, an upward move from rags to riches. It's not that I dislike Nepal. Quite the contrary, I feel much less threatened walking down crooked, unpretentious little streets than along glittering, upscale boulevards and avenues like the ones you see in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. Some of these streets rival the trendiest, most sophisticated streets of cities like Paris, New York and Los Angeles, and that is where I feel threatened. It's like being in Beverly Hills or on the Chanps Elysees with $1 in your pocket. And of course there are the tall buildings, including the Petronas Twin Towers, which, rising to a height of around 1500 feet, surpassed New York's former World Trade Center. I can see the towers, along with a throng of other tall buildings, right from my neighborhood. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Petronas_Panorama_II.jpg I am not truly conversant with the city, but the intersection near me is one of the main, if not the main, intersection in town. The two streets are called Jalan Sultan Ismail and Jalan Bukit Bintang, in the Golden Triangle. This general vicinity is full of malls, starting with the very chic, elegant Pavilion Mall to the more moderately priced, immense labyrinth called Sungei Wang. Sungei Wang must have literally thousands of stores on 5 or 6 levels, so vast and full of corridors that it's impossible to keep track of where you are. And there are a whole mass of other malls and stores. http://wikitravel.org/en/Image:Pavilion-KL2.jpg Kuala Lumpur has an elaborate metro, consisting in part of monorails. The trains are on top of, not suspended from, the monorails. There is a stop at the intersection that I mentioned. http://encyberimg.encyber.com/updata1/travelworld/200905/09/124179647313810.jpg There is a whole array of western chains, including McDonald's, KFC, Starbuck's, Pizza Hut, 7/11, Dunkin' Donuts, Subway, Carl's Jr., Wendy's and who knows what else. And there are tons of Chinese restaurants. The city has good streets and sidewalks, well maintained, along with street lights. After India and Nepal, these things are almost a luxury. The big question is how they created all this opulence in the 53 years since independence from England, when this sort of economic development has eluded so many other countries in the third world, if that epithet still applies to Malaysia. The population is mostly Malaysian and Chinese, though I see a good number of Arabs and a lot of Arabic writing on the streets. There are a few blacks and a few Caucasians. Still English is widely spoken, apparently because of erstwhile British rule. The official state religion is Islam, but freedom or religion is offered, if that has anything to do with anything. This is my second trip to Malaysia. I was here very briefly in 1989, but I did not come to Kuala Lumpur. I visited Melaka, an older, more historic town, not nearly as modern. So Kuala Lumpur comes as quite a surprise to me. I had no idea that it had attained to its present standard of excellence. I have till January 24, 2011 on my visa. I don't know whether I will seek an extension, or just go on to Thailand at that time. After Thailand, I hope to visit Laos, Cambodia and Viet Nam. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written five books: ELEMENTS OF GRAMMAR and A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction); A TALE OF UNG, THE ENNUNMENT and GVAGMA (fiction). I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Visit my website here. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com
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