The day started beautifully; and absolutely nothing foreshowed the disaster that followed. The wonderful world of wide web had informed me that there is a rainforest reserve right in the middle of the city, as well as a huge park – Lake Gardens, – some kind of a "KL Central Park". So I decided to spend my last alone day reading my book or writing my blog in the shade of park trees. I woke up leisurely at 8AM, took a long rain-shower in the bathroom that offers a great view on the busyness of KL rush-hour streets, had soup for breakfast (it's already becoming "my thing"!), equipped myself with a city map and a bottle of water, asked directions to the nearest subway station and set out on a Kuala Lumpur park tour of my own.
The subway part of my operation "City Parks" was a total success: a cool (both looks and temperature-wise) robot-operated (as I learnt afterwards) train took me to the Bukit Nanas (the rainforest's name) station in a matter of minutes.
…but this is where the goodness of the day ended. I spent the next 40 minutes trying to find the entrance to this magnificent forest, and after several people sent me in many conflicting directions, I finally took some policeman by the hand and asked him to just walk me to it already! I guess, I looked desperate enough, because not only did he not question this weird request, but also after coming into the forest with me he very politely (and with some sort of care you would address a mentally ill person) inquired if I wanted him to accompany me around the park all the time. Nice police service, I'll give KL that. The forest IS objectively beautiful. However, because by the time I finally got there I was already drenched in sweat (38 C outside here!) and couldn't wait to rest a bit on a bench in the coolness of the rainforest shades, and all I was offered was two options – one being a very steep staircase leading to the KL Tower, the other, a forest path of the same steepness – I got completely frustrated, took neither and just sat on the ground in a desperate attempt to cool off at least a little bit. Well, fact #1 – the rainforest trees do not provide any cool breeze, and fact #2 – there are A LOT of various insects (apparently, including some dangerous species) in the forest and it is highly unadvisable to sit on the ground. I got mosquito (hopefully) bites all over my legs because I wasn't fast enough to whip out my repellent. That just did it, and I quickly dashed back into the streets through the entrance / exit, completely bewildering the nice policeman who probably hadn't expected to see me back so soon. I signaled a taxi and with a sigh of relief fell on the back seat…
…not for long though. Turned out that the most famous park in the city, the "pride and joy" of its inhabitants, is not a popular destination among cab drivers. The first cabbie made a real effort to figure out where this mysterious Lake Gardens are (and I even gave him the Malay name too!), even used the "call a friend" helpline, but all in vain; so 2 minutes later I was out in the heated street again. The second cabbie didn't even pretend to care and threw me out in less than 1 minute.
At this point, a myriad of emotions descended upon me: I was frustrated beyond belief at all the cabbies in the world (although I have to admit that in NYC they at least know where Central Park is, even if for other destinations you have to whip out your own city map at times); I was sorry for myself for being exposed to this intolerable heat; but most of all I was losing hope of ever getting out of the Bermuda triangle of these incompetent taxi drivers.
At long last though I was in another cab, the driver of which claimed he knew the directions. His behavior made me uneasy: he constantly blurted out loud, "Lake Gardens, ha…. Lake Gardens? Hmmm" This self-talk seemed suspicious to me – does he really know where the hell he's going? On top of this, he had some front teeth missing (by the way, I've noticed this feature in a number of men in KL and they seem quite comfortable with the situation, at least it doesn't look like they are rushing to the dentist's) and constantly whistled unpleasantly through these gaps all the way. All of a sudden he stopped next to some garden fence and said proudly, "Here, Lake Gardens!" Although it really looked like a garden, he stopped nowhere near the entrance, and was genuinely surprised when I asked him to drive me to the actual entrance. Seriously??? Do I really look like I jump garden fences for a living? A couple of minutes later, he brought me to some entrance and quickly retired, leaving me to learn that it was a wrong entrance – the one to a birds' park. Birds were not on my agenda, so I took another cab that actually knew the way to the right entrance.
Finally, I was at the famous and "popular city oasis", the desired Lake Gardens! ... Really? That's it? A kids' zone with some dinosaur slides, a fountain closed for repairs, an herbs corner and a couple of garden paths. So anticlimactic! Don't get me wrong, it's an OK park, I could probably even enjoy it under different circumstances, but today – after I read so much about it online and was looking forward to a full day of quality reading / writing under the trees - it felt like a spit in my face. Oh, and I forgot to mention that by that time I was obviously starving, and to my utter surprise there is no restaurants or cafes in this pretty big "central" city park! What kind of park is this? Not even one miserly snack stand! Outrageous!
Frustrated out of my mind, drenched with sweat (even my ponytail was as wet as if I just took a shower), hungry like a wolf, I came back home, only 3 hours after I had happily set out on my "full-day" KL adventure.
I never imagined I would say that but here in Malaysia I definitely look forward to organized group traveling… Go figure.
P.S. I spent the rest of the day in the hotel, ate a most delicious roti canai and drank a most disgusting concoction of ginger, carrot and kiwi juices, and caught up on my South Africa blogging. That part was most enjoyable, but let's face it - it was kind of "outside" Kuala LumpurJ.
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