Kuala Lumpur and Malacca

By my reckoning, after a day which has taken him through the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Mark has stopped for the night at Malacca, some 150 kms from Singapore. For reasons best known to Google, there are no place names in Malaysia on the version of Google Maps in which the GPS tracker is fixed. After the difficulties of the Thai alphabet, I am still still having to cross reference with an atlas so I hope I am right!

Mark reached Kuala Lumpur , the capital and largest city in Malaysia, long before any of us the UK would have been awake. The link to Wikipedia produces a huge amount of detail on the history and current economic boom of the city. The landmark building of KL which is rapidly becoming an iconic image for the city is the Petronas Twin Towers which were, until 2004, the tallest building in the world. here is how they are portrayed on Google earth with the 3D building layer active.... Although Mark did not cycle through the city centre, it is hard to imagine that he would have missed the towers seen here in one of the embedded photos.. And here, the view from the sky bridge, over the ultra modern business quarter of the city.....

Sometimes when I'm browsing the Google images along Mark's route, I come across little details which fascinate.... like this six lane highway and toll plaza. You can look at a view like this and be almost anywhere in the world. Ask yourself, if you didn't know it was KL, where might you think it was? From KL, it took Mark another 6 hours to reach Malacca which is described by Wikitravel as 'a sleepy city that belies its wealth of history'. It seems that Dutch, Portuguese asnd British involvement have all left their mark on the city, not least in the architecture....