Day 33 Malaysia

So with a small tear in my eye, I said good bye to Thailand (it didn't help that I was listening to "Don't Walk Away from Xandau"  this morning when my Air Asia (Jet Blue eastern style) flight lifted off the ground and headed straight south to Kuala Lumpur (KL to the locals) Malaysia.   So goodbye green, red and yellow curry and hello to Chinese, Malay and Indian food.   I am sure you noticed I am quite motivated about food.   Good thing I am not in Italy, most of the time there is spent planning for my next meal.   What a rough ride we had this morning, we had to go around a tropical storm, lots of jumping around on a small airbus.

A little about Malaysia, First it is really hot and HUMID as I am getting closer and closer to the equator.   It is comprised of three groups of people, The Malay majority who are Islamic in faith.   The Indians, who are Hindu and the Chinese are Buddhist, Shinto, Christian and a variety of other religions.  The country is officially Islamic and does practice Islamic law, but only with the Malays.  The flag (shown on this blog) will look quite familiar too all of you who have a zip code in your home address.  The flag was adopted at the time of their independence from the UK.   No tea in the harbor, midnight rides or fights at Bunker Hill...it was fairly civilized transfer of power. 

I landed at the super modern Kuala Lumpur international airport on the outskirts of the city and took the train right into the city center, transferred to the monorail and arrived at my hotel about 1.5 hours after I landed...Now get this the name of the hotel is the Concorde, and is located in the golden triangle section of KL.   I remember a couple of airlines who had planes called the Concorde.   On the ground level is ...no not Starbucks...but the Hard Rock Cafe.   So add that to the list of food options...western chain restaurants.    Oh yes, pork disappeared off the menu ..Islamic country and no beef in the Hindu community.  CHICKEN CHICKEN everywhere...Tim, I can now justify chicken at every meal. 

The hotel looks right at the Petronas towers the 2nd tallest building on the planet.   They are huge (notice only one noun supporting adjective here) and there is a bridge that goes between them on the 42nd floor.  I plan to go to the top of the towers over the next couple of days.  One of my friends from Chiang Mai University lives here so I hope to see him and his girl friend over the next couple of days.