Lake Gardens Kuala Lumpur

I went to Lake Gardens in KL the other day. Lake Gardens is KL's version of Central Park. The tour books said you could walk the park which would be a hot, sweaty walk or you could take the shuttle bus. I'm sure that there must be a tourist center somewhere that yells you where the shuttle bus stops are, but I had no idea. I feel as though there is this manual that they give to tourists when they get off the plane in KL that tells them everything they need to know. I was too busy stealing momentos off of the plane and missed my briefing.

I had attempted to go to Lake Gardens the week before, but it started to downpour while I was on the train. It finally stopped raining, and I went searching for Lake Gardens. I did surprisingly well and managed to accidently stumble my way into the right direction. Unfortunately, KL drivers are crazy, and I came to a particularly difficult section of road to cross. There I was rambling into my camcorder, waiting on the side of the road for an opportunity to dart between scooters and taxis after a torrential downpour. I didn't really pay too much attention to the road in front of me which unfortunately had a puddle about the size of the Magothy. Needless to say, it only took one truck flying along the street to drench me in nasty, polluted, KL water. At this point, I was thankful I had opted to wear my black skirt instead of my white one. To escape the puddle of death, I decided to just cross the street and hope the maniacs behind the wheels would stop. I'm happy to say they did. I passed the National Mosque and the Islamic Arts Museum and kept walking along the very slippery, algae covered, tiled sidewalk towards the Butterfly Park. I realized I was running out of time to get back to Shah Alam in time fro my scheduled taxi pick-up. I turned around and walked back, slipping, falling on my ass. Again, I was thankful I had worn black instead of white. Travelling back with a filthy white skirt would have been so embarassing. Oh wait. Falling on my ass in front of laughing Malaysians was pretty damn embarassing also. I was most annoyed because I had just turned off my camcorder. It would have been priceless to hear me screaming and then see my legs fly out from under me. Oh well. I would be a rich woman from America's Funniest Home Videos if I had a video camera following me around all the time, capturing every clutzy, clumsly, & clueless move. Well, without further ado, I proudly scraped myself off of the sidewalk and proceeded back to the train station at a turtles pace where I got on the wrong train. It only took me three or four stops to realize this and switch trains. I ended up being late for my taxi which had never shown up anyway. I chose to pretend that trip never happened.

So back to the successful trip to Lake Gardens. I was really looking forward to exploring the park. It's 92 hectare (whatever that means). It has the largest covered bird park in the world, a butterfly park with over 6000 butterflies, and orchid garden, a hibiscus garden, a deer and mouse deer park, the national monument, and the national planetarium.

My excursions over the last couple of weeks have taught me a few things. One, the sun is very hot and draining. Two, I am quite intimidated by the idea of going into a local restaurant alone because, three, I am very aware that I am a minority and do not like being stared at. For these reasons, I no longer set out with the goal of an 8 hour adventure. After about four hours, I am usually sunburnt, hot, hungry, and tired. Therefore, I knew I would not be able to explore the entire Lake Gardens so I had to pick and choose.

Much to the anticipated chagrin of my Aunt Debbie and my gramma, I chose to skip the bird park. I'm just not that into birds. I first walked to the Butterfly Park which was about a 1-2 km walk from the park entrance. I looked for a sign for the shuttle bus but not seeing one, I decided to walk. I was the only person walking. It was actually a pleasant walk along the outskirts of the park. Even though it was still early and most of the walk was in the shade, I was saturated in sweat by the time I reached the Butterfly Park.

The Butterfly Park was neat. It didn't seem like there were 6,000 butterflies though. I thought I would be walking through a curtain of butterflies. I had visions of me as the Snow White of butterflies. I would twirl slowly with my arms extended, singing some enchanting tune which could never actually come out of my vocal chords. The butterflies would all come and land on my arms and flit all around me. Yeah, that didn't happen. It was, however, a beautiful, tranquil maze of a garden. There were beautiful flowers and butterflies. They also had ponds with big koi fish and some freaky, slimy looking blackfish which gave me the creeps. They reminded me of Ursella's evil henchmen eels in the Little Mermaid. There were also frogs, snakes(in cages), and white rabbits. The gift shop was the best gift shop I've been to here. There was a Chinese man named Jackie who would write your name in Chinese Rainbow characters combined with different kinds of Chinese Feng Sui symbols. He would do it while you waited. He said it would only take hime 3 minutes. I told him my name was hard, and he had me write it down. He started writing and then laughingly said my name would take 5 minutes. It turned out very cool. I love it.

While I was in the Butterfly Park, I saw about twenty other people at the most. This was the most I saw all day! The park was empty. I guess because it was a weekday. I wasn't complaining though. I practically had the park to myself.




From the Butterfly Park, I walked to the Hibiscus Garden and walked through thousands of beautiful hibiscus. From here, I went into the orchid garden which was lovely. They had an orchid bazaar where you could purchase umpteen different orchids. Here's the part that is going to make my mother ill: they weree 3 ringgits a pot which is less than $1 US.

From the orchid garden, I had a taxi take me to the other side of Lake Gardens to what is called the lake garden. As the name suggests, this is the location of the lake and its surrounding gardens. There was a very large playground which I knew my niece and nephew would love so I took a few pictures. As I was crossing the lake (which at that point was really just a stream), a man on the pridge pointed at something swimming and said something I didn't quite understand. It sounded like "comodo" or something, but I don't think it was a Komodo Dragon. I actually thought maybe it was a Frankenfish. I crossed the bridge and walked along the side of the stream trying to get a good shot of him. I couldn't find him. I was just muttering to myself that he was a fast little sucker when I spied something moving on land about 10 feet away. It was him! He sort of looked like a small alligator but smoother. While I was contemplating my flight or fight instinct while simultaneously grabbing my camera, he saw me and quickly darted back into the water. The amazing thing is that there are 3 or 4 foot walls surrounding the stream/lake so I can't believe he could get out so easily. At this thought, I contemplated the fact that it may not be the same one, and there could be others. My flight instinct took hold, and I bolted for the safety of the walking path.

The garden and park was very nice and peaceful. I saw about 6 other people there. It looked like they were waiting for a shuttle even though I didn't see a sign. I had been sitting cluelessly with them for a few minutes, when I saw the entrance for the Deer and Mousedeer Park. From where I was sitting, I could see a couple of big hotels not too far away so I decided that I would just walk towards them after I walked through the deer park, figuring the shuttle bus would come while I was in there. I loved the deer park. I love deer. I think they are such gently, peaceful creatures. At least, they appear to be. The mouse deer were in a completely caged environment. They were about the size of a small to medium dog like a beagle but the shape of a deer. They were very cute. There were so many regular deer there. They were all just laying around, chilling out with some chickens. After the deer park, I was definitely ready to go. When I came out of the park, the six other people were still sitting in the same place so I decided to just try to find my way out of the park on my own. As planned, I started walking towards the big buildings. I eventually came to the road, took a taxi to the train station and headed home. Hungry, hot, sunburnt, and sweaty. I loved every minute of it.