Horses bringing delight to children.

By Julie Wilson

After a late Friday night at the show, we started Saturday with an early walk to the KLCC Petronas Towers. Kuala Lumper is a night time town and things start slowly in the mornings. Shops start to open about 10am and the shopping centers stay open until 9 or 10pm, seven days a week. However, many of the smaller shops open later and stay open until well into the night. This morning the streets were virtually deserted except for the construction workers heading to the building sites for an 8am start. The Twin Towers are an amazing building and are a world famous landmark, however they are not the only building of significant architectural value in KL. Many of the modern buildings have an Islamic influence and it is astonishing how they make concrete look so soft and lace like.

Just a five minutes walk from the Towers is an Indian street stall selling extra hot curries for breakfast. Many of the construction workers stop for breakfast or pick up take away in a plastic bag. Some unsuspecting tourists stopped to try some of the local food, but from their reaction I do not think they were expecting it to be so hot.

It was an early start at the show and that is where we spent the day. Unlike any other International Grand Prix in the World, the majority of spectators in KL are children. Their enthusiastic cheering brings an added excitement to all the classes, and their gusto seems endless. Many children in Malaysia have never been able to touch a horse before visiting the Putra stadium. Outside the venue the children are able to pat ponies and have a pony ride. It is wonderful so see the delight the ponies bring to the children and how their trust slowly grows as they pat and feed the greedy equines.

After four very exciting classes at the show we returned to our hotel about 8.30pm. We had eaten plenty during the day, so we thought for dinner we would walk out and get some naan bread. Malaysia’s population is made up mainly of Malays, Chinese and Indians. If you are a fan of good Indian food then you will find plenty in KL. In any of the older parts of KL there are little Indian restaurants with men out the front constantly cooking the naan bread. They work the small amount of dough into a large tissue thin disc then they add your individual additives, we had egg and cheese as was suggested and then they fold it and fold it and put it on the hot skillet. Naan bread is normally eaten with the curries but for us it was fantastic by itself, a culinary treat for $1Aud. each.

The streets were very lively with buskers, shoppers, locals and tourists, so we just wondered home slowly taking in the local atmosphere.