"Where are the Petronas Towers???" was my first question. After disembarking my train from Singapore in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I hopped onto the city's ultra-modern monorail, and asked this question to the first person I saw. The Petronas Towers, opened in 1996 were for a time the largest buildings in the world. Now that an even taller building in Taiwan has been completed, they are the world's second highest, yet remain the tallest Twin Towers in the world. Fortunately, the majority of people in Kuala Lumpur speak english, so a woman pointed out the monorail's window in the direction of the tower; unfortunately it was raining, and I only got an obscured glance at the towers, shrouded in fog.

Luckily the weather cleared up by the next morning, and I headed out walking towards the towers from my hostel first thing in the morning with Daniel, my new Italian friend. Walking through the city, I was completely blown away. I'd barely ever heard of Kuala Lumpur before, but it was an absolutely impressive city. In addition to the monorail, there are futuristic skyscrapers dotted throughout the city. I don't think I've ever seen a skyline as futuristic looking as Kuala Lumpur's. I later learned that most of the buildings were built during the Asian boom years of the early 1990s-- since Asia developed later than the U.S., its buildings are alot newer and, consequently, more modern. It was almost reminiscent of a sci-fi movie, or the Jetsons.

I thought that the Petronas Towers would remind me of the only other Twin Towers I ever saw, but they were actually completely different. While the World Trade Centers were enormous black monoliths, the Petronas towers are based on Islamic designs-- from the Star shape incorporated into their base, to the Islamic shape of the ball in their antenae. The buildings are also fairly colorful, and have a unique shape, including the 41st story sky-bridge connecting the two towers. Unfortunately you can only go as high as the bridge--less than one third of the total height, but at least it was free to do (great for a poor backpacker like me!) The views of the city were quite impressive, and I spent quite a while afterwords just walking around the buildings looking up in awe.

Daniel and I spent the rest of the afternoon checking out the city's other sights, including the Lake Gardens and Chinatown, where we had dinner. In the evening, we found a nice middle eastern bar where we smoked Shisha and chatted with a guy that had survived the Tsunamai in Western Thailand in 2004.