Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Twin Towers

For the last three weeks we’ve looked at some of the nature in Malaysia, and so I wanted to end my series on the country with a city scene, featuring Kuala Lumpur’s classic skyline.  The most prominent feature, or features rather, of the skyline are the Petronas Twin Towers, a sight that is now seemingly synonymous with the country itself.  The towers, known simply as “the twins” to locals, were completed in 1996, and were the tallest buildings in the world until 2004, when they were surpassed by the Taipei 101 building in Taipei, Taiwan (though they still hold the title of tallest twin towers in the world).  Having visited the country now, the towers seem just as oddly out of place to me now as they did before I visited, but, there they are!  I’ve been asked by many people if I went up in the towers, and I did not.  I did not know this at the time, but in order to go to the observation deck, you have to line up early in the morning to get tickets, and so I didn’t make it up.  After speaking to a few locals though, it sounds as though the view is better from the ground looking up at the towers, because the city doesn’t have a busy skyline, as illustrated below with the view of the downtown area as seen from the outskirts of town.

From a photographic standpoint, the towers, like the Kanching Falls from a few weeks ago, are sort of hard to photograph, because in order to get a clear shot of them, you basically have to be right below them.  There is a pretty park that sits behind the towers though that offer some nice view points, but I ended up having to do a rather large panorama shot to get the entirety of the scene into one image, and be able to see the shops and whatnot below.  It was a fun process however, and the park was full of energy as tourists and locals admired the water show happening in the fountains around the park, and of course, the towers themselves.  If you visit Kuala Lumpur, you have to include a visit to the park into your plans!

–Dan Thompson