Kuala Lumpur, Day 3: Lake Gardens

(Day 3) 30th June 2015

Kuala Lumpur, for all of its many attractions and assets, is not easily navigable, especially on foot. It is bisected by multi-lane highways, overground train and metro lines, and several murky-looking rivers. Those same highways are snarled with traffic almost twenty-four hours a day, and queues for MRT and KTM tickets snake out of the stations. Apart from the necessary Uber cab ride into and out of the city from Jonathan’s apartment each morning and afternoon, I avoided as much as possible public transport and running in traffic.

I feel the above needs to be stated in explanation for my eclectic choice of attractions on my second day, when I focused on the area of KL known as the Lake Gardens. Originally the site of a sprawling botanical garden (Taman Tasik Perdana) and park during colonial rule, it has gradually included more and more non-botanical gardens. So while I did plan to visit the Taman Orkid (Orchid Park), I also wanted to visit the Islamic Arts Museum in the south of what was the gardens, and also the KL Bird Park, situated at its centre. It was an eclectic to-do list, but nevertheless an enjoyable day.

After a brilliant night’s sleep thanks to my generous Couchsurfing host, I arranged for an Uber to pick me up and drop me outside my first stop for the day: the Islamic Arts Museum.

For those among you who did not know, I do have a slight interest in Islamic Art, thanks to a paper I took in my final year of university which looked at Islamic Art (and Architecture, which in Islam is one and the same) which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was looking forward to seeing some familiar Arabic scripts, coins and art forms, and to expand my knowledge on the subject.

The museum, whilst relatively expensive, was exceedingly comprehensive and informative. There was a temporary photography and weaponry exhibitions on the first floor, and then upstairs holds the main exhibitions on ceramics, calligraphy, textiles, and architecture. 

The many collections of the Islamic Arts Musuem.

The ceramics were particularly beautiful, as much of the collection came from regions of the Islamic World famous for their pottery, often in shades of blue and turquoise contrasted with white, which are colour combinations I appreciate greatly. 

With much of the ceramic collection, I found myself wondering why it looked so similar to Victorian and Edwardian ceramics from Europe. Eventually, I felt guilty as what had been my Eurocentrism: Europe had copied the exotic styles of Middle Eastern and Asian Islamic pottery. 

Even as a history graduate, I make rookie errors in history at times.

Immaturely posing in the kid's discovery zone.

After several hours, I was growing tired of standing and starting to shiver from the fierce air conditioning, so I quickly skimmed through what I had not yet looked at, and after a quick peruse of the gift shop, I headed out of the museum and deeper into the Botanical Gardens. 

Are we still in a city here?

The Taman Orkid and KL Bird Park were situated opposite to each other across one of the many winding roads within the park. I had intended to do the KL Bird Park first, but I initially baulked at the RM50 entrance cost. After enjoying a few fried snacks in the cafe outside of the park, I resolved to do the (free) Taman Orkid first, and make a decision about the Bird Park whilst enjoying the gardens. 

Orchids are again a slightly unusual interest for a now 23 year old man, but I again have a very good reason for wanting to see them, namely that my grandma (Nana) was an orchid (and plant in general) enthusiast and as I spent much of my holidays when I was young visiting her, it was a hobby that I had picked up. 

The orchid garden was fairly small, but that made little difference to me as I had not paid anything for it. There were however many thousands of orchid plants tightly packed into the small garden. They were growing from the walls and hung down from the ceiling, and grew out of every available spot of dirt. The very abundance of orchids was unusual, coming from somewhere where orchids are (perhaps less so in the last few years) sold as a luxury present.

Of course I stopped to take photos of a few individual blooms that I liked. There was not the greatest variety of orchids in the garden, though that may have been because of the time of year, or because the garden only grew native Malaysian species.

When I had exhausted the adorable, small orchid garden, I walked back to the entrance, and crossed over to the Bird Park entrance, having decided that it was worth the RM50 (£9), which even in Malaysia could have gone a long way. 

What hides in those open-air enclosures??

It started well, as the entrance lead straight into a enclosure containing parakeets.

Cute, but no match for Monty's charms.

Argh....I've been caged!!!

In the next enclosure, there were larger water birds: herons, storks, and (for some unknown reason) hundreds of peacocks.

The bird had even colonised a cafe within their exclosure.


By colonised, I mean that they shit on enough of the tables that no one else wanted to go near them.

My kingdom...stay out!

By far the best aspect of the bird park was the parrot enclosure, where you could feed the birds sugary syrup out of small beakers. After some initial hesitancy, a somewhat orderly queue was soon formed:

This queue soon dissolved into squabbling and bickering for the best spots, but I nevertheless enjoyed spending time with some parakeets, albeit ones that are far bigger and more aggressive than my own parakeet at home. 

After I had spent a little more time with the parrots, and explored the final few enclosures, which contained yet more storks and peacocks, I headed towards the exit. In total, I spent less than two hours in the park, and found it in many ways to not be worth the money. The parrot enclosures were for me brilliant, but then that is more because of my love of small parrots than because of the park. It was overcrowded and poorly maintained, and as a result the health of some of the animals suffered. Several of the parrots had feather conditions which are easily treatable, which made me feel sorry for them. So while I did enjoy my trip, I am far from able to recommend the Bird Park, especially at the price it demands of its guests.


I had afterwards wanted to find a cafe nearby to get on with some blogging, but there was a distinct lack of food and drink options in the area, so instead I walked south towards the main road, and caught a free GO KL bus north to Little India where I enjoyed some a snack and some coffee before organising my Uber ride back to my host's apartment.


This evening, Jonathan decided we should do Bukit Bintang, the main entertainment district of the city. We got out of the taxi at the top of the road photographed below, and had an amazing meal at one of the many restaurants lining the road. The prawns cooked in honey and oats were especially delicious. 

Then we tried to make it to the foot of the Petronas towers for the 22:00pm sound-and-light show at the fountains beneath it, but unfortunately missed it, so I had to just settle for taking a few pictures of the Petronas towers by night instead, before heading back to sleep.

Pretty...

DSP



Useful Information:

• Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia costs RM14.85 (£2.50) to enter (they don't mention the tax online). Be sure to check out the temporary displays on the first floor, and the architectural models tucked away on the second floor.
• Taman Orkid is free on weekdays, and only RM1 on weekends and public holidays. It is fairly small, but the orchids were impressive (though nothing compared to Gardens by the Bay in Singapore).
• KL Bird Park was a pricey RM50, and not really worth it in my opinion, as within the park, EVERYTHING was extra. Furthermore, the health of some of the animals was far from brilliant, and they had too many birds in certain exclosures, which lead to poor health, and wading through bird shit in exposed footwear.