A Journey to a Dream City – Malaysia Part 3
Kuala Lumpur Bird Park [KL Bird Park] is a public aviary that extends to 60 hectares of land near the city and combines information with entertainment. It is the world’s largest free-flight walk-in bird park.
It has big trees, bushes, lakes and waterfalls, and birds fly freely in this park. The park is enclosed with netting to protect the birds. There are more than 3000 birds and more than 200 species of birds in here. It is a heaven for nature lovers.
The bird park takes us to a serene and natural world made interesting with the singing and chirping of birds in the background of waterfalls, colorful sights and natural gardens. Magical sights of hornbills, ostriches, different types of eagles, owls, Fleming birds, Waterhens, colorful peacocks, different types of ducks and beautiful birds of countries like Malaysia, Australia, Africa, China, Holland and Indonesia can be seen.
There is a board displaying the feeding times and places of feeding of birds. We can see and take photos of feeding if we reach the particular spots at the times displayed. Opposite to the bird park, there is a beautiful orchid garden having more than 800 types of orchids extending to an area of 1 acre.
Then, we visited Putrajaya which is 35 km away from Kuala Lumpur. Putrajaya is a beautifully planned city and is the administrative center of Malaysia. The place is made attractive by impressive roads and designs of office buildings. This city covers an area of 800 acres.
The prime minister’s office is situated in a huge building built in the Malay-Islamic style. The Palace of Justice is a building that is as admirable as the Taj Mahal of India. Like this, all important office buildings are inspiringly designed.
The Putrajaya Lake is alluring and boating facility is available here. Putrajaya is enriched with charming buildings like the American Mosque, Iron Mosque, Palace of Justice, Seri Bridge, Ministry of Finance Building, etc.
Genting Highland is a high-altitude area in Malaysia that is located around 1760 meters above sea level and 55 km away from Kuala Lumpur. The average temperature of this place is 14 – 23. The main attraction of this place is the casino that is open 24 hours.
Inside this, around 3000 gaming devices are operated throughout day and night. We can see heavy flow of money here. Photography is prohibited inside the casino. Different and new types of gambling are done here. Genting Highland is the legal gaming center of Malaysia. Crowds of people mad about gambling [especially foreigners] flock to Genting Highland which has facilities like 5-star hotels with thousands of rooms and casinos.
There are mainly 3 amusement parks in Genting Highland. The water park is vast and full of fun. There is a cable station 30 km away on the way to Genting Highland. From here, Genting Highland can be reached by cable car. The journey in the cable car takes 20 minutes. Dense forests, delightful scenery of valleys far away and the fog that covers all these sights, all provide us with a thrilling experience.
Batu Caves is a limestone hill that is 400 million years old and is situated 13 km away from Kuala Lumpur..
The shrine at the top of the limestone hill is dedicated to Murugan. Around 8 to 9 lakhs people take part in the Thai Pusam Festival celebrated in the 10th month as per Hindu calendar. There is a flight of 272 steps to reach inside the cave. The rock formations jutting from the cave’s ceilings that have taken more than 1000 years to form look more aesthetically pleasing to the senses and mind than any sculpture made by sculptors. The sight of sunrays flowing inside through the gaps on the upper surface of the cave is something that gives great pleasure to the viewer. There are 3 important caves and some small ones too. One of the caves is known as Ramayana Cave. The walls of this cave are fully adorned with statues illustrating the story of the Indian Epic, Ramayana. Rock climbing is an important form of entertainment here. Batu is world famous for Batik art and utensils of bell metal used for religious purposes.
Because of lack of time, we decided to conclude our journey. Malaysia is a storehouse of several world heritage sites identified by UNESCO. George Town, Mekala, Kinabalu Park, Langkawi, Global Geopark, etc. are a few of them. We bid farewell to Malaysia hoping to visit these places sometime in future.
