Build Me Up Butterworth

The train journey down to Butterworth from Bangkok took a quick 22 hours, it certainly wasn’t in a hurry! It all passed without incident so that was good, although immigration took about two hours, it was almost as if a train load of international visitors arriving at a train station on a border check-point came as a complete surprise to them. Eventually got to Butterworth in the early afternoon and had the most brief look around before taking the ferry over to George Town, which I really liked. It’s just been added to the World Heritage list and I can see why, there’s a colonial era British fort and a handful of mosques all strategically placed around the little town – the official buildings (town hall, banks, etc) all look like familiar Victorian style buildings but with a slight Asian touch. There was even a clock tower to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee but it now leans slightly due to an explosion from a Second World War air attack. I only had a few hours in George Town before I had to head back to Butterworth to catch the sleeper train to KL but I did have time for a nice curry so that was yet another highlight of the island.

Nothing of interest happened on the train down to KL as I fell asleep very soon after boarding and the train arrived at about 7:30am (I think) so there was nothing much to say about that. It didn’t take too long in the taxi to get to the hostel, rush hour hadn’t quite started yet but the heat certainly had! After I dumped my stuff in the room, I had a bit of a wander round the area I was in, essentially the shopping district with an abundance of malls and galleries. I lost count of the amount of times I was offered a foot massage – I think reflexology outlets must be for KL what coffee shops are for Wellington.

I found Malaysian food to be so good and cheap too! The general theme in South East Asia seems to be meat with noodles and/or rice but it tastes fantastic when cooked in clay pots so I became very familiar with the food court at the train station. In KL itself, it’s again just like a huge city I suppose but it does have it’s own characteristics which I did my best to see despite the heat. The day I went to the large mosque it was closed to non-Muslim tourists so I could only take pictures from outside and accumulate several suspicious glances from the security guards but it was an impressive building all the same, quite modern. I suppose the old train station was more traditional in terms of Asian architecture so I took a few snaps of that. I could see the Petronas Twin Towers from just about everywhere in the city but I waited until it was slightly cooler at night before venturing up to get a closer look and they are pretty impressive! It took a little while for me to realise that it hurt my neck to stand at the bottom of them and look up so I walked across the road for a better view and they just dominate the local surroundings but they’re not out of place because there are still some fairly tall buildings around them just not in the same scale. I can’t remember anything else of interest that happened in KL, I just wandered relatively aimlessly and took in the sights.

I did take a trip down to Malacca though and I had a good day there – it’s another new addition to the World Heritage list and is a good blend of Malay/Portuguese/Dutch/British culture. The old town square is full of bright red buildings built by each of the previous occupants and they all somehow fit together, there’s even a Christ Church and I managed to instinctively yawn when I saw those two words together – I might call that the Canterbury Reflex. In St. Paul’s Church they had a load of 16th/17th Century grave stones for the original Portugese and Dutch settlers to the region and they’re all pretty much intact with elaborate coats of arms and other illustrations. Just outside the church is the very last remnant of an old fort that was again Portugese built but the British tried hard to remove it from existence and the small fragment was saved by a British officer who I think was the same guy who built Singapore but I’d have to check that. It’s a very historical town, so I thought it was great and there were more commemorations to Queen Victoria – it’s been a while since I’ve been in a country without one, would have been Latvia.

So a good day was spent taking in the history before I needed to head towards Singapore on another train but I’ll update about that later because I need food now. I did manage to get my Russian visa whilst in KL so that’s another thing out the way, I just hope China plays fair when I come to try my luck with them!