Horse Deals in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

By Julie Wilson

Horse Deals regular reporter, Anna Sharpley and I have taken time out from reporting on horse flu to accept an invitation to visit the KL Grand Prix and go onto Hong Kong courtesy of Tourism Hong Kong. This is our fourth trip to KL and as always it is wonderful, with great hospitality, wonderful jumping and KL is a vibrant and interesting city. We arrived late Wednesday night and headed straight for our hotel, the Crowne Plaza Mutiara. One of the huge benefits of a visit to Malaysia is that you can stay in a five star hotel for the price you would pay for a budget hotel in Australia.

Thursday morning we started the day with the amazing breakfast provided by the hotel. The breakfast room is like a meeting of the United Nationals and every culinary request is met from corn flakes, dim sims, curries and rice, wonderful platters of fresh fruits and eggs cooked to any request. It is fascinating watching what people from different countries eat for breakfast. After breakfast we were picked up and taken to the Putra Stadium, home of the 1998 Commonwealth Games gymnastic competitions and now part of the National Sporting Complex of Malaysia. The first day was taken up with two competitions consisting mainly of young and junior riders. The daily temperature in Malaysia at this time of the year ranges from a low in the twenties to a high in the low 30’s, with a high humidity. However, in the press room the average temperature is about 14 degrees and any amount of readjusting the air conditioning does not seem to fix the problem.

We spent Thursday evening at the Petalang Street markets, offering an amazing array of designer copies from hand bags, pens, watches and clothes, sold by some charming streetwise salesmen. The markets also include a wonderful collection of food stalls, however, we chose to eat at Sao Nam, one of the best restaurants you would find anywhere and always a highlight of our visit to KL.

Friday started with our United Nations meeting in the breakfast room, followed by a walk around the city. Kl is a fascinating city with the old parts of the city intermingled with the new high rise buildings. Both the old and the new architecture is enchanting. However, on each of our visits there is less of the old and more of the new. It will be a shame if the street vendors and the old buildings disappear forever. Many of the locals feel ashamed of the old parts of their city nevertheless, it is what makes a visit to KL so charming and different from many other cities.

Just after lunch we were picked up and taken to the show for an entertaining jumping program, (as seen on the Horse Deals Gallery)

http://www.klgrandprix.com/