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Communication Tower Menara (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
by MollyWH
I visited Kuala Lumpur with my boyfriend and while we were there, we decided to visit the various attractions. One of these attractions was the Menara Tower.
About The Menara Tower
The construction period for the Menara Tower was between the years of 1992 and 1995 with the Tower first being opened to the public on the ... 23rd July 1996.
The Menara Tower is used for communication purposes and has an antenna that reaches 421 metres (1,381 feet). This makes the Menara Tower the fifth tallest tower in the world and the largest building in the while of Malaysia.
The Menara Tower is adorned with designs that reflect the Malaysian Islamic culture and you will learn more about this during your tour round the attraction.
The main attraction within the Menara Tower is the observation deck where you can get unspoilt views across the City of Kuala Lumpur. The rest of the tower below has a stairwell and an lift which enables you to reach the upper area. The upper area contains a revolving restaurant where visitors can get beautiful views across the City while they dine.
Admission Fees
Adults are charged 20 ringetts and children are charged 10 ringetts which equates to about £3.50 for an adult and £2 for a child which I thought was a very reasonable entrance fee, especially as this price also included the audio tour.
Opening Hours
The Menara Tower is open from 9am until 10 pm, 365 days a year.
Facilities
There is an ATM machine on the upper ground floor. There is also a Café and Digital Photo Service. Obviously, there is also the revolving restaurant but remember to book ahead or you will have no chance of eating here. There are also several toilets which are spread across all floors of the Tower.
Visiting The Tower
As you first enter the Menara Tower you will see several ticket desks where you are able to obtain your entrance tickets.
Once inside you have two choices of what you wish to do, either the revolving restaurant or the Observation Desk. If you wish to have a meal in the revolving restaurant which is located at the top of the tower, then you will need to book. Sadly, we didn't know this and there were not any tables available for us to dine when we arrived so we missed out.
We did however, manage to visit the Observation Deck. The entrance fee was 15 ringetts which Entrance to the Observation Desk cost us about 20 Ringetts which is about £3.50. This price also included the audio portable tape which acts as a guide during your visit. One thing I especially liked about visiting the Menara Tower was that there is no time limit on the Tower so you can walk around the attraction at your own leisure and take the time to enjoy the views across this beautiful City.
Once you have paid for your tickets and are ready to visit the Observation Desk, you are guided into a small cinema type room where you can watch a video about the construction of the Menara Tower. This video probably only lasted about 10 minutes and I actually found it very interesting because it explains why certain parts of the building are certain shapes and also provides you with details of the various problems they had during the construction of the Tower. Once you have finished watching the video, you are collected by a guide who escorts you to the lift. Once you are inside the lift, the guide operates the control panel inside and you literally fly to the Observation Deck (well it certainly feels that way as you can even feel your ears pop on the way up and down!)
Once you reach the Observation Deck, you can set up your audio tour and walk around the Observation Deck, stopping at various points as instructed by the audio tour. Once you are at the relevant viewing area for the audio tour, you can hear about the various buildings which surround you and the audio tour gives you a little bit of history about each of them. As I already mentioned, you can walk around at your own leisure so there are plenty of opportunities to take lots of photographs. One downside to this attraction is that it is very reliant on the weather in the sense that if you want to get the unspoilt views across the City then you really need to visit this attraction on a clear day. Sadly, on the day we visited, it was quite cloudy and the views were a little bit misty so the views were not as spectacular as they should have been but I still thoroughly enjoyed myself. I would also like to point out that as we went to pay for our tickets, the member of staff behind the desk did point out to us that the views would not be great due to the misty weather and advised us to come back on another day to get better views. Sadly, it was our last day in Kuala Lumpur so we couldn't take that option but I was still really impressed that they let you know the views would not be great!
Summary
In summary I would certainly recommend a trip to the Menara Tower if you visit Kuala Lumpur. I think this attraction offers excellent value for money, especially when you consider it is one of the City's most popular tourist attractions so they would really bump up the prices like a lot of places do. I also like the fact that this attraction provides visitors with a fantastic platform from which to take photographs. Personally, I love taking photos and the Menara Tower offers you a really unique viewpoint from which to take your photos. I also liked the fact that you can learn about the Tower during your tour and I found the video informative and interesting. On the whole, I would thoroughly recommend this attraction, although there is not enough here to keep you amused for an entire day out, I would certainly set aside 2-3 hours to enjoy this attraction.
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Khao San Road (Bangkok, Thailand)
by ladyrachael
Having spent a while travelling in Thailand I decided I just had to visit the infamous Khao San Road in Bangkok. I had heard of it's repuatation as THE party place to be and that was full of interesting people that you'd bond with over Chang beer and become life long friends. I'd say, generally speaking this is true of Thailand as a ... country, but NOT HERE.
Khao San Road is dirty, full of underage Thai teenagers out boozing, and the only interesting person I met was the bloke selling me fried insects from a cart in the street (surprisingly tasty in case you wondered). The restraunt we ate at was over priced (for Bangkok), and the toilet had about 5cm of water covering the floor. Considering I'd just come from a jungle hut with an outdoor shower I was prepared for anything but you'd be better finding a hole in the street!
Aside from restraunts there are lots of bars, shops, street food and market stalls selling your average rubbish like wallets, ashtrays, belts, bongs etc. Don't waste your money - go to Chatuchak at the weekend instead. The bars all play music and most serve cocktails that are average prices and taste good. We hung out at a place that seemed to be called 'We No Check ID Card,' which despite the obvious underagers had good service and friendly backpackers. We ended up hanging out with some American gap year students, which was tolerable only becuase I decided to just get wasted. After that we went to another bar where there was some live music, which was great fun. The partying seemed to stop at around 2am, early for other places we'd been to in Bangkok, but I was acutally qutie glad to be heading back to my nice clean(ish) hostel on the other side of town.
I'd say all in all I had an ok time there but was glad I wasn't staying there. Go and see Khao San Road for a party, for drinks and laughs. What it lacks in Thai culture and cleanliness it makes up for in stong drinks. I'd advise against staying there - it's dusty and loud and not very safe.
Overall I was disappointed as I'd had such an amazing time exploring the rest of Bangkok and Thailand as a country. Worth a look, just don't expect too much.
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Petronas Twin Towers (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
by dkm1981
The Petronas Towers are without doubt the most famous of Kuala Lumpur's attractions and buildings and any trip to the city should include a visit to them. Designed by South American architects and completed, after seven years' construction, in 1998, they were the tallest skyscrapers in the world until 2004 (when they were overtaken by ... Taipei 101). They still hold the title of being the tallest twin towers in the world and standing on the 86th floor of 88 in total, it is clear to see why.
Aside from this accolade, the Petronas Towers may be familiar to you from TV and film. They were the subject of a recent documentary about French urban climber Alain 'Spiderman' Robert, who successfully climbed to the top of one of the towers without safety harnesses and using only his hands and feet on his third attempt (his first two attempts resulted in arrests before he reached the top). Looking at the towers from both the top and the bottom, you've got to wonder about the sanity of Robert - I sure as mustard wouldn't be that desperate for thrills and fame! The sky bridge also features in the ending of the Sean Connery film Entrapment. They are also home to the oil giant Petronas, which becomes apparent very quickly once you are inside the building.
During your visit to the towers, you can choose to visit just the sky bridge - a glass encased walkway that connects the two towers at the 41nd floor - or you can pay extra to go up to the 86th floor, where the views across Kuala are absolutely phenomenal. Both levels are pretty high though and neither is for the feint hearted.
===Pe Prepared===
There are only a set number of people allowed to ascend the towers each day and the only way to get tickets is to queue up in the morning of the day you want to visit. It is as you would expect a very popular attraction and so tickets go quickly. The ticket desk is located in the basement of the left tower, below the massive shopping centre, and opens at 8am each day. We began queuing at around 7.45am and were nowhere near the front of the queue. When we finally did reach the front around an hour and half later, we were given tickets for next available visit at 4.15pm. Considering that the sky bridge closes at 7pm and you need a good hour in the building, we were only just able to get tickets at all. It is a bit frustrating having to get up extra early to get in line and spending the best part of your morning in a queue, but that is the way it is unfortunately and it is worth it. After we got over the initial surprise that our entry time was going to be so late, we were actually pleased because it meant we had the most part of the day to go off and explore the city before coming back. I think it would have been much more annoying to get an entry time in the middle of the day because there wouldn't have been time to do anything else. Having said that, you get issued tickets for the next available slot and it is just luck of the draw as to when that might be - you can't choose.
There is a cafe and (strangely enough) a gym down in the basement where you queue, so you can get a drink or something to eat whilst you are waiting in line, but only if there are two of you - there are plenty of security guards keeping an eye on the waiting folk and their expressions suggest that queue jumping would be more than frowned upon. I thought the security guards were particularly bossy, especially considering how nice we had so far found the people of Malaysia so far - it would seem that they take their job extremely seriously.
The times are allocated every 20 minutes, but you do get much longer in the towers, the times are given to ensure that there aren't too many people in there at any one time. It's actually great because there is plenty of room and you don't feel rushed or that there are too many people around for you to be able to really enjoy the experience.
Your ticket advises you to return to the towers at least 15 minutes before your allocate time. Once you get there, there is an exhibition area that will keep you entertained until your time arrives. I'd actually recommend getting there a good amount of time before because there are some interesting exhibits that you'll probably want to look at. There's a model of the towers that demonstrates the effect that lightning has on them. It's quite impressive and is a working model that shows the towers being hit and what happens. There's also a funky little thing where you stand under an archway and it calculates your height then tells you how many of you stood on top of each other it would take to reach the top. There are also lots of nice displays that tell the story of the creation of the towers.
===And So Begins The Journey To The Sky===
Once your allotted time arrives, you are given a visitors pass and are directed through a security check a bit like the ones you get at airports. If you have a bag, it will be taken off you and put in the cloakroom, so it might be worth considering not taking one if you don't want to be parted from it. You go into a little theatre where there is a presentation. I thought this was going to be about the towers, but it's actually about Petronas and how wonderful the company is and how much good stuff they do for the city and the world! To be honest, by the time it had finished I felt like I had been brainwashed and that is probably the intention. It's not very subtle to say the least. It doesn't last very long though, so not too bad.
Next you go into the lifts up to the sky bridge. There is a definite sense of anticipation about the journey because it's taken so long to get to this point. To demonstrate how far you are going the side of the lift is covered in little LED lights noting each floor and it's quite exciting watching them whizz by as you ascend the building at what can only be described as dizzying speeds.
The sky bridge is actually a lot bigger than it looks from the ground (probably because it is so far away from the ground!) and it offers fabulous views of the surrounding areas. You can walk the whole way across and there are a couple of glass 'modules' that jot out so you almost feel like you are floating. I have an issue with being able to see underneath me, so I didn't particularly enjoy the fact that you could almost do that from the sky bridge. It's hard to imagine that you will be going up to almost twice this height next, when you consider just how high you are from this viewpoint.
===Onwards and Upwards===
Once you've had a good 15 minutes to have a look around (you are called by the colour of your pass) you move on to the next bit which is not one, but two lifts to the 86th floor. The building tapers in towards the top, so the first lift can't take you all the way up. It's unnerving to feel your ears popping halfway up this lift as well. When you get to the final destination, the room is not overly huge and you can immediately see all the way around you to pure nothingness. The windows around the room are floor to ceiling so there is no escaping the fact that you are up amongst the clouds. It was a weird feeling being up there because I was flabbergasted by the height of the sky bridge and this just took my breath away. There are some seriously tall buildings in Kuala Lumpur but even the tallest of them is way down below you. I swear I could feel the building swaying as well. Something else that I loved was the fact that you could see the top of the other tower and you could work out exactly where you were and how far from the top you were by looking at that one. It actually looked quite menacing as well - a bit like one of the Daleks from Dr Who!
Up in this room, they've seen fit to but some more exhibits. I thought this was a bit of an odd decision as the attraction should surely be the windows - but hey ho, who am I to decide. There was a model of the towers which was a bit pointless. There was also a display of the tallest towers of the world, which I thought would have been better placed down stairs in the first exhibition. The two things that I did quite like were the telescopes around the edge of the room - they were free to use and good for spotting random things in the distance - and the model of the city, which showed where the other points of interest were so you could look for them out of the window. You get about twenty minutes up here, which I thought was enough time to admire the views and have a look around.
===What's The Cost?===
There are various package prices for visiting the towers, depending on what you want to do. To visit the sky bridge alone is 10RM (Malaysian Ringitts) which is an extremely reasonable £2.50, working on the exchange rate we got of 4RM to the pound. To go to the 86th floor as well is 40RM (£10). I would strongly recommend paying the extra and going all the way, because it is so worth it. They also do packages where you get a deluxe three course meal and these start at around 200RM per person for lunch and 350RM for dinner. There's also a gift shop in the basement that sells the usual paraphernalia should you wish to get a souvenir of your trip and it's not particularly expensive.
So, it is safe to say that I would highly recommend visiting the Petronas Twin Towers if you are in Kuala Lumpur, despite the attempts at brainwashing visitors, although you definitely have to plan your visit well in advance to make sure that you get the most out of it and that you don't miss your chance to look down on the world from above!
You can get more information at www.petronastwintowers.com/my
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