Kuala Lumpur 21.10.13 and.home 22.10.13

Today is the last day before we travel home.  We set off about 9.30am to walk to the KLCC gardens and on the way found the "City Walk" not far from the hotel. Followed it and found the Bukit walkway. A shortcut through laneways lined by little restaurants and shops.  Shady. Ended up at the Aquaria and Gardens.  Gardens are a delight, green, large well signed pathways and well tended.  Walked along and found a very nice shopping centre, and an upmarket Dept store, Parksons.  Lo and behold they had a sale on so we did some shopping.  Nice shorts for Bill, T. shirts for Adam and Laura and Matthew.  The Petronas Tower Skybridge is closed on Mondays, wouldn't you know it, so missed out on that.  We found a nice restaurant for lunch.  Delicious mushroom soup and a soft drink.  Retraced our steps to the hotel for a rest then went back out and found the overhead walkways to the Pavilion Shopping Centre.  Most impressive.  Got a shonky taxi back about 4.15pm.  A last dinner at Healy Mac's Irish Pub.  The motorbike riders here are crazy!  They push to the front at traffic lights, in squadrons,  sometimes using the footpath to do so, which can be a bit disconcerting, and take off at huge speed with much revving and roaring of motors when the lights change.  Many just ignore the lights and tear through.  KL is really rather a nice city and the huge park area near the KLCC is a real asset.
Home today.
An early start, up at 5.30am and a good breakfast before being picked up at 7am. to go to the airport.  The plane left on time and was very comfortable with excellent service, wonderful food, even Lobster Thermidor. The benefits of business class.  Read, watched a video and the time passed fairly easily.  Bill had excellent views when we passed over inland Australia.  Next time, I am having the window seat!  Home about 10.30pm.  All well. 
This was a trip that was full of historical and current interest and will be thought about for a very long time as we slowly digest all we have learnt.

Views around KL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The K2 Tower

Kuala Lumpur Bird Park 20.10.13

Today we went to the Bird Park using a taxi. 17 RMB.  Arriving at 9.30am.  The Bird Park covers a huge area and is completely covered by very high netting  so many birds are free to wander etc.  Unfortunately many others are in cages.  Some I could understand but I would have liked to see the parrots, at least, flying free.  Still, we saw many birds we had never seen before although I felt that there plenty of scope to broaden there varieties.  Another taxi back to the hotel about midday for a rest out of the heat and humidity.  After lunch took a taxi to SOGO which was recommended to us but turned out to be a very middle/lower Department store.  Another taxi to another shopping centre but it was full of little shops selling mostly watches, phones and accessories etc.  Noisy and crowded.  Walked to the Fat Computer Centre where the crowds were unbelievable and the noise level intense. This kind of shopping is not for us but interesting, nevertheless.  Yet another taxi back to the hotel.   Dinner once again at the Irish Pub.  It was convenient with good food. 
Taxis are cheap here and readily available.
A selection of the birds we saw at the Bird Park.

 

Kuala Lumpur 19.1013

A good night's rest made all the difference and tummy seems OK today.  Fingers crossed.  Went down to breakfast and to the biggest array of breakfast items we have ever seen.  It looked as if it would be a rather damp day at times.  Out we went and caught the "Hop On, Hop Off" Bus for 45 RMB each and did the 21/2 hour loop.  So worth  doing as it gave us a good look at the city.  Lunch at the Coffee Bean/Tea Café.  A nice fresh tasty roll with egg, ham and cheese and hot.  Bill enjoyed his pancakes.  T hen a thunderstorm struck and because we hadn't thought to take umbrellas were stuck for about an hour.  A little rest back at the hotel then walked to the Twin Towers and caught the Hop On/Hop Off bus again at stop 23 to go to the K2 Tower.  Spent some time on the Observation deck, 276 metres high and on top of a hill so great 360 deg. views over KL.  Hot and humid so back to the hotel for a break then returned to the Irish Pub for dinner.  Once again the food was good and the staff friendly as the waiters remembered us.  I had roasted pork loin (delicious) and Bill had the meat pie (also good).
 

View over KL from K2 Tower showing the Twin Towers

Kuala Lumpur 18.10.13

An hour's ride to the hotel (Shangi La) where I spent most of the day resting and recuperating.   The hotel couldn't find our booking and his credit card was rejected but after using mine they gave us a nice room.  Quick call to the NAB and the credit card was sorted out.  Because of our rug purchase in Bukhara they thought our card had been compromised.  Bill went off out to explore the city while I rested.  Managed some minestrone soup for lunch and we went out for dinner and found an "Irish Pub" nearby.  Bill had Irish Stew and I had a very nice Chicken Caesar salad.  Grey skies laden with rain.  Before we went out had to wait for torrential rain to stop and waited again at the Pub for another rain deluge to stop before walking back.   KL is a very busy place with packs of motorbike riders revving at traffic lights and taking off at great speed.  The hotel is good with very well trained staff and fairly central and an excellent restaurant.  Initial impressions of KL are good.  Early to bed.

Samarkand to Tashkent and on to Kuala Lumpur 17.10.13

  We spent the morning visiting "the Observatory" where Mirzoi Ulugbeck an amazing astronomer from the 15th century had his observatory.  The observatory was built 1428 for observations of the moon and the sun and other luminaries of the sky.  After Ulugbeck's death the observatory was destroyed and for centuries its location was unknown.  Discovered in 1908 sadly, only the underground basis of the building and sextant were intact.  By using found documents scientists were able to make a model of the observatory.  The telescope had not yet been invented but Ulugbeck using his amazing sextant was able to catalogue with amazing exactness 1018 stars.  He was a teacher as well as a scholar and an amazing man.  We also visited the Museum of Uzbekistan at this site.  An early (once more of dubious hygiene)
lunch before we set off on the drive back to Tashkent and the plane.  Such a crappy bus and another noisy bumpy road but we passed a lot of cotton fields which were being harvested by hand.  Men and women bent over picking cotton into large white bags.  Outside of the cities the population is still very rural, donkey carts, simple dwellings etc.  There was plenty of traffic on the road and we passed through many check points!  Why?  Bebe said
it was because we were close to Afghanistan and people might be smuggling guns.  About 7 pm we arrived at the
airport.   

 Mirzoi Ulugbeck

 Six of us  were catching a plane this evening but before we could say goodbye to everyone we were whisked away to the Business Class waiting area and the other four to the economy area.  Had our passports etc checked 7!!! times before we got on the plane.  Such overkill!  The Business Class waiting area had no food except some sad slices of cheese and old bread stick and a couple of bottles of soft drink.  However the plane left on time and was comfortable.  Then disaster struck me.  About 2.30am tummy pains then terrible diarrhea until we landed at 8am.  No breakfast served on the plane.  Not that I would have eaten it any way.  Took 7 of Judy's gastro stop tablets. 

  

The underground part of his amazing sextant

Rural scene

Picking cotton

Samarkand 16.10.13

I suffered 5 bouts of diahorrea from 3.30 am to 7am.  Took two of Judy's gastro stop tablets and no further trouble during the day.  An 8.30am start.  First a visit to the mausoleum of the great Tamerlane.  Stunning architecture, tiles, and colours, minarets etc.  Then onto the Registan.  What an amazing place!!!  Four huge Madrassas around a square.  All magnificent.  Built around the 1400s.  This is one of the wonders of the ancient world.  Then lunch at the same place we had dinner last night.  Undoubtedly the source of my tummy problem.  Salads sitting out on tables when we arrived and dubious hygiene.  Then another Mosque.  Bibi Khanum, being one of the most brilliant examples of medieval architecture in Samarkand.  Construction began in 1399, the largest Mosque in Central Asia.  It accommodated 10,000 pilgrims and takes ones breath away with it's size and beauty.  Later we went to a market and I bought things I really didn't need to. 2 silk scarves in cream sort of crochet and another large shawl in pinks and blues.  Then onto the Mausoleum Complex.  40 Mausoleums, all different, all wonderful.  Then back to the hotel about 4.30pm before the final dinner.  We went in the bus to a restaurant which was obviously for tourists.  We had "wedding plov".  Plov is a rice based dish with a few vegetables and a couple of lumps of meat in a big heap on a plate in the centre of the table that we helped ourselves to.  Glad we only had that dish once! On the way back to the hotel we passed the Mausoleum of Tamerlane all lit up.  The dome
looked as if it was floating.  Very pretty.  The Registan was also lit up to a small extent.

Bibi Khonum Mosque

The Registan

Final dinner

The Mosque of Tamerlane lit up

 

 

Registan courtyard

 

 

 

Carved doors

More exterior of the Registan

Bukhara to Samarkand 15.10.13

An 8.30am start today.  Before leaving Bukhara to drive to Samarkand we visited the Summer Palace of the last emir.  What a magnificent structure. Spectacular rooms and decorations and large gardens.   Over the centuries the road to Samarkand has been traveled by Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane on their incredible journeys.  On the way we had an early lunch at a ceramics factory.  Nothing there that we felt like buying.  Fairly ordinary stuff and the lunch was also somewhat ordinary.  Cold rice!, rice and vegetable soup, boiled meat and a piece of cake (the best bit!).  Some nuts to nibble on. Suspect this lunch was the cause of a later in the day "tummy episode" Once again our snack bags were a god send.  Bill is still unwell and it was a dreadful journey to Samarkand.  The main (so called) highway was shockingly broken up and rough.  Together with our basic Chinese bus it was a rather trying trip.  There were two stops for "open air" toileting when we relieved ourselves behind trees on the  roadside.  The rural landscape is mostly cotton farming in small holdings, with donkey carts being the main form of carrying goods and doing work.  Subsistence farming. 

Views of the Summer Palace of the last emir.  This is the sort of thing we had been seeing in Uzbekistan.  Magnificent, stunning buildings.

Ceiling work

Entrance courtyard

Tombs

An unbelievably intricate magnificent ceiling

So huge that only tiny pieces can be shown

All so beautiful and ornate