Bird Park

The Bird Park is a part of an area called the Lake Gardens. These serene and scenic Lake Gardens (60-hectare) were established in the year1888 and form the green belt of Kuala Lumpur. The lake is an artificial lake. Visitors can take a leisurely boat cruise to enjoy views of the gardens from the water. Visitors will enjoy strolling through the park along a maze of walkways, amidst greenery. Scenic rest stops for picnics are scattered throughout the park. There is a children's playground, jogging tracks, exercise stations, and rowing boats.
The gardens incorporate the National Monument, Butterfly House, Bird Park, Orchid and Hibiscus gardens, with the former Malaysia’s Parliament House situated at the northern end. Nowadays the Parliament is situated in Putrajaya.

The KL Bird Park was established in 1991 and was officially opened by Her Majesty the Queen of Malaysia, Tunku Bainun. The park is 10 minutes away from the city centre.

The park offers you a great opportunity to see a hornbill in the first days of your stay in Kuala Lumpur.
The Bird Park is "The World's Largest Covered Bird Park" or "The World's largest Free Flight Aviary".
Opposite the Bird Park the Taman Orchid (the Orchid Garden). This is also worth a visit. They have a lot of different orchids.
A taxi from the city centre to the Bird Park will cost you RM15.- On your way back you have to buy a ticket at a taxi counter.

The Bird Park houses more than 3,000 birds and 200 species from all over the world.
Birds and nature lovers can have a wonderful day watching colourful sights and melodic sound of birds perching and winging about freely while enjoying the natural and beautifully landscaped surroundings.
Sometimes you'll be surprised to come across miniature gardens, pools and water cascades, bridges, flowering plants ...and bird - feeding stations.

The park looks a bit old fashioned, but it's cosy and the people are very friendly. After you have bought ticket at the main entrance, you'll get a wristlet. When you go back to town they will take it off. Foreigners pay more for a ticket than Malaysians.
The park is divided in several zones (4) to prevent chasing at each other.
You'll find in the park, a Flamingo pond, Pelicans, Hornbill Park. World of Parrots, a Waterfall Aviary, Amphitheatre, Children's playground and Seminar Room.

To prevent that the birds can get together, you have to go through several lock-gates. You can enjoy the natural and the beautifully landscaped surroundings.
One of the KL Bird Park's extraordinary feature is all birds let free in the aviary which resemble the natural habit. With this type of free flight concept. birds are able to breed naturally in this unique concept bird park.
It's a lovely to see the hornbills flying so free  from tree till tree.

As some bird have sharp bills and claws, they can bite hard without warning. So please do not disturb or frighten the birds.
The hornbills are really photogenic. They are not so frightened and will (mostly) wait till you have taken a picture. This is the highlight of the park.
But remember: these bird are wild birds!
There's a refreshment kiosk, where you can buy an ice-cream, a drink or food for the goldfish in the pond.  Bird's diets are special. Wrong types of food may cause food poisoning. You may only feed the fish in the pond.
Near the Hornbills is the Hornbill Souvenirs Shop and the Hornbill Restaurant & Café.
It's located on the top of a hill and you have spectacular view. From the terrace you can see the hornbills flying.

There are photographer, who want to have your picture taken with parrots. in the World of Parrots (zone 4).

Some of the Birds:
Flamingos, Hornbills, Waterhens, Parrots, Cockatoos, Storks, Pheasants, Mynahs Pigeons, Macaws. Ducks.
Coming from:
Malaysia, Australia, Africa, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Indonesia, Tanzania, China, Holland,  South America and other countries in South East Asia.

The Activities

11.30	Hornbills Feeding (Hornbill Park)	Zone 3
12.00	Lorries Feeding (World of Parrots)	Zone 4
13.00	Ostrich Feeding (Flightless Birds)	Zone 4
14.30	Eagles Feeding (Brahminy Land)	Zone 1
15.30	Birds Show (Amphithetre)	Zone 4
16.00	Milky Stork Feeding (Milky Way)	Zone 4

All activities are subject to changes and weather conditions.
Opening hours of the park: 9.00 - 19.00 hours.

Transport:
By taxi or by bus 30 from Jalan Sultan Mohamed, or 22 or 38 from Lebuh Pasar Besar;

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Batu Caves

The Batu Caves are situated thirteen kilometers (seven miles) north of the capital city Kuala Lumpur. They are the sacred place for the Hindu's in Malaysia. They consist of three main caves and a number of smaller ones. The caves are made of limestone and 400 meters long and 100 meter high. They were discovered in 1892. From your hotel in the Golden Triangle you can reach the Batu Caves easily by taxi or public bus (11 and 11d). The public busses can be boarded at the Pudu Raya Bus Terminal in Kuala Lumpur. At your arrival you will be greeted by lots of monkeys.
They are going for your peanuts and banana's, which you can buy downstair in several shop, before you climb up to the caves. You have to climb 272 steps, which will lead you to the religious and magnificent Batu Caves.

The  Batu Caves are situated thirteen kilometers (seven miles) north of the capital city Kuala Lumpur. They are the sacred place for the Hindu's in Malaysia. They consist of three main caves and a number of smaller ones. The caves are made of limestone and 400 meters long and 100 meter high. They were discovered in 1892. From your hotel in the Golden Triangle you can reach the Batu Caves easily by taxi or public bus (11 and 11d). The public busses can be boarded at the Pudu Raya Bus Terminal in Kuala Lumpur.
At your arrival you will be greeted by lots of monkeys. They are going for your peanuts and banana's, which  you can buy in several shop, before you climb up to the caves. You have to climb 272 steps, which will lead you to the religious and magnificent Batu Caves.
Once a year they celebrate the Thaipusam festival in the Batu Caves. It's a celebration for the son of Shiva (Subramaniam) and the becoming "one" of  Pusan and the Brihaspati stars.  

 

  

The Thaipusam festival.
Every year, on Thaipusam, as many as 800,000 devotees and other visitors may throng the caves. As a form of penance or sacrifice, many of them carry kavadis (literally, "burden," such as a pitcher or jug). These are large, brightly decorated frameworks, usually combined with various metal hooks and skewers which are used to pierce the skin, cheeks and tongue. (have a look at the picture on the right!!)
By doing this penance they expect some favours from their Gods.
The festival is held in the tenth month of the Hindu calendar (mostly the end of January).
The procession starts on the evening before the Thaipusam festival at the Sri Mariamman Temple in the town centre of Kuala Lumpur.
By doing penance they want to extort some favours from the Gods.
The kavadis is placed on the shoulders of the devotee. The kavadis represents a miniature shrine.

Women carry a silver jug full of milk on their heads, some are pierced through their cheeks and tongues and others not.
Chains are dropped from the central body of the kavadis and hooked onto the flesh of the bearer. The length of the spears had to be limited to a metre in consideration for other devotees.  Others hook limes, oranges or coconuts onto their bodies.
They are always accompanied by an entourage of relatives and friends to make them enthusiastic with dance parades, songs, musicians playing the drums and the flutes.
As they arrive at the shrine at the Batu Caves, the Swami removes the hooks, spears etc. The vow is finally fulfilled. Thaipusam is celebrated at Peninsular of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur and on Penang
The procession on Penang starts on the eve before the Thaipusam festival at  the Chettiar Temple in Penang Street.
When you don't visit the Batu Caves at Thaipusum, they are still very beautiful.
Every day there is a little celebration of a group of Hindus in the Batu Caves. Every time it's an imposing event, although there's no self torture.
Temple Cave or Cathedral Cave is he best known and biggest of the caves.
It's visited by many devotees.
The ceiling is 100 m above the ground and this huge chamber is lighted by daylight from several holes in the ceiling.

 
At the end of the caves you can see the bright sky, when you look above you.

If you climb up the stairs, you can meet a lot of long tailed-macaque monkeys and if you have peanuts with you, they'll climb to you as I won't consider recommending. You might fall though.
You can take photos of them, carrying their babies for the peanuts. There are locals in the entrance,  who will approach you to buy peanuts!
Students from around the world, including the National Paralegal College, love to see the monkeys. Selfies with the monkeys are a favorite to send to friends and roommates over social media. Visiting Malaysia and the Batu Caves is a great escape for National Paralegal College students and can be a fulfilling and spiritual experience.

Long tailed-macaque monkeys:
they love peanuts, but they love crisps also !

At the base of the hill are two more cave temples, Art Gallery Cave and Museum Cave, both of which are full of Hindu statues and paintings. This complex was renovated and opened as the Cave Villa in 2008. Many of the shrines relate the story of Lord Murugan's victory over the demon Soorapadam.

The Ramayana Cave is situated to the extreme left as one faces the sheer wall of the hill. On the way to the Ramayana Cave, there is a 15 meter tall statue of Hanuman and a temple dedicated to Hanuman, the noble monkey devotee and aide of Lord Rama.

The limestone forming Batu Caves is said to be around 400 million years old. Some of the cave entrances were used as shelters by the indigenous Temuan people, a tribe of Orang Asli.

Batu Caves is easily reached by Komuter train using the Batu Cave
s-Port Klang Route, costing RM 2 for a one-way journey from KL Sentral. Batu Caves may also be reached by bus 11/11d from Bangkok Bank Terminus (Near to Puduraya Terminus) or bus U6 from Titiwangsa.

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Petronas Towers

The Petronas Towers
Height: 1,483 ft (452 meters)
Owners: Kuala Lumpur City Centre Holdings Sendirian Berhad
Architects: Cesar Pelli & Associates
Engineers: Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers
Contractors: Mayjus and SKJ Joint Ventures
Topping Out: 1998
Official Opening: August 28, 1999
On April 15, 1996, the Council on Tall Buildings named the Petronas Towers the tallest in the world, passing the torch to a new continent. Although the project's developers, a consortium of private investors in association with the Malaysian government and Petronas, the national oil company, had not originally set out to surpass Chicago's Sears Tower, they did aspire to construct a monument announcing Kuala Lumpur's prominence as a commercial and cultural capital. In the design of American architect Cesar Pelli they found a winning scheme--twin towers of elegant proportions with a slenderness ratio (height to width) of 9.4--that would capture not only the title but the public imagination.
Pelli's design answered the developer's call to express the 'culture and heritage of Malaysia' by evoking Islamic arabesques and employing repetitive geometries characteristic of Muslim architecture. In plan, an 8-point star formed by intersecting squares is an obvious reference to Islamic design; curved and pointed bays create a scalloped facade that suggests temple towers. The identical towers are linked by a bridge at the 41st floor, creating a dramatic gateway to the city.
The structure is high-strength concrete, a material familiar to Asian contractors and twice as effective as steel in sway reduction. Supported by 75-by-75-foot concrete cores and an outer ring of widely-spaced super columns, the towers showcase a sophisticated structural system that accommodates its slender profile and provides from 14,000 to 22,000 square feet of column-free office space per floo
Other features include a curtain wall of glass and stainless steel sun shades to diffuse the intense equatorial light; a double-decker elevator system with a sky lobby transfer point on the 41st floor to accommodate the thousands of people who use the complex daily; and a mixed-use base featuring a concert hall and shopping center enveloped by nearly seventy acres of public parks and plazas.

 In both engineering and design, the Petronas Towers succeed at acknowledging Malaysia's past and future, embracing the country's heritage while proclaiming its modernization. The end result, says Pelli, is a monument that is not specifically Malaysian, but will forever be identified with Kuala Lumpur.

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Notre Dame Cathedral

Built between 1877 and 1883, Notre Dame Cathedral enlivens the heart of Ho Chi Minh City's government quarter, facing Ð Dong Khoi. A brick, neo-Romanesque church with 40m-high square towers tipped with iron spires, the Catholic cathedral is named after the Virgin Mary. Interior walls are inlaid with devotional tablets and some stained glass survives. English-speaking staff dispense tourist information from 9am to 11am Monday to Saturday. If the front gates are locked, try the door on the side facing the Reunification Palace.

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Central Post Office

Right across the way from Notre Dame Cathedral, Ho Chi Minh City's striking French post office is a period classic, designed by Gustave Eiffel and built between 1886 and 1891. Painted on the walls of its grand concourse are fascinating historic maps of South Vietnam, Saigon and Cholon, while a mosaic of Ho Chi Minh takes pride of place at the end of its barrel-vaulted hall. Note the magnificent tiled floor of the interior and the copious green-painted wrought iron.

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National Museum of Vietnamese History

Built between 1925 and 1932, this architecturally impressive museum was formerly home to the École Française d’Extrême Orient. Its architect, Ernest Hebrard, was among the first in Vietnam to incorporate a blend of Chinese and French design elements. Exhibit highlights include bronzes from the Dong Son culture (3rd century BC to 3rd century AD), Hindu statuary from the Khmer and Champa kingdoms, jewellery from imperial Vietnam, and displays relating to the French occupation and the Communist Party.

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Truc Bach Lake

Separated from Hay To only by Ð Thanh Nien, this lake is lined with flame trees. During the 18th century the Trinh lords built a palace on the lakeside; it was later transformed into a reformatory for wayward royal concubines, who were condemned to spend their days weaving pure white silk.

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