Day 16.
Kuala Lumpur is not hot -at the moment. It has been raining and the cloud cover has kept the temperature in the 20s. This has meant even a short walk into the local 'village' of Bangsar was much more of a pleasant affair than doing the same distance in Hong Kong.
I have already mentioned Malaysian oil of the edible variety: everyone knows, of course, that the country has grown rich on the blacker and more viscous variety. The centrally-located twin Petronas towers, tallest buildings in the world from 1998-2004, testify to the importance of this national resource. Because of smog and wispy cloud, these buildings were invisible today from our enormous 8km distance.
The smog of KL, like the smog of LA, Cairo or Hong Kong, is largely down to vehicle emissions and the odd power station belching unfiltered fumes. It's not quite as severe as that of Beijing or Delhi or a thousand cities of the world. That is until the Indonesians begin burning their forests. At times in the year the winds from Sumatra blow the tiny sooty particles, from the environmental devastation they call progress, over the sea to this fair land in order to block out the light and turn the midday sun a pleasant orange.
The rest of the time the KL-ers are resigned to the upside-down sea-in-the-sky that occurs during rainstorm time. Many of you will have seen tropical rain in places like Hong Kong. Enormous storm drains have been dug to carry this wonderful pure water into the sea as soon as possible and allow the traffic to continue to flow. Sometimes even the best efforts of mankind are not enough and nature takes over. Unless you've seen this happen it's hard to explain the power of this basic element. Hollywood cannot portray this power, even with its love of apocalyptic spectaculars.
So there you have it. Haven't really done much today except visit a shopping mall, buy lots of nice clothes and have a Thai massage (meself) and pedicure/manicure (Memsahib). So we didn't much notice the smog or tropical rain outside.
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