7/27 – Time to leave the island of Penang, the same way we arrived.

We took an early morning ferry from Georgetown back to Butterworth Station on the Malay peninsula mainland.

There, we waited for our Very Nice bus, which would take us for the six hour ride to the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, or, as the locals call it, KL.

The bus really lived up to its name, with BarcaLounger seats, and a driver who called out every hour to see if anyone needed a rest stop. Very Nice!

As we approached the tall buildings of this modern city, I turned on my phone to check the GPS. There are several bus terminals in KL, and we were not sure which one this bus would take us to. I was heartened to see that we were progressing nicely toward the bus terminal that was nearest to our hotel. Closer, closer…. Oh no! The bus kept rolling along, even though we could see our hotel out the window! Now we were getting farther away, and, wouldn’t you know, it was starting to rain. By the time the bus stopped, we were 10 miles away, with no idea how to get back to KL Sentral.

Two university students saw us hunched over my phone looking for a metro or bus to get us back across town, and they asked how they could help. Nice People of Malaysia! They walked us over to the metro station, helped us buy tickets from the machine, and showed us on the metro map how many stations and where to change trains. Although we thanked them profusely, I neglected to get a photo. They were beautiful people. In a half hour, we were back at KL Sentral, walking the two blocks to our hotel. We have a rooftop pool!

7/28 – Last year when we were in Istanbul, we shared breakfast with two brothers on holiday from KL. The younger brother Rool, who had the better English, invited us to look him up when we got to KL. Today, we did just that!

Rool picked us up and drove us to an authentic Malay buffet for lunch. Here we are with Rool and his six year old daughter Alicia.

So many delicious choices! We really love Malay food. I even had some fermented durian (the orange stuff on the right).

After lunch, Rool took us on a tour of KL. Here are the famous Petronus Twin Towers, which were the tallest buildings in the world for several years (not anymore). There is a walkway that connects the towers at the 42nd floor, which telescopes to compensate for the swaying of the buildings in the wind.

There were shiny malls and designer shops, and government buildings.

A wonderful day – thanks Rool, we had a great time! Another Nice Person of Malaysia!