Kuala Lumpur

We have been in KL for a few days now and there is a marked difference between here and the other places we have been volunteering in Manila and Jakarta. First off the traffic, pollution, and public transportation is way better. In regards to our clinic, we are working in a nice air conditioned building used often for treating underprivileged patients. We see much fewer patients and have licensed nurses translating for us as well as a Malaysian doctor on hand.

The first day here we all spent the day painting the clinics waiting room. It was a tough job and took us a while to reach all the high places and put on two coats of paint but in the end it looked really nice.

The next day was a volunteer day and we saw about 30 patients with the doctor that often works here. The nurses were very helpful in translating and we were able to spend a lot of time with the patients. It was a nice change of pace. They have most of their own medicine and the exam rooms feel just like working in a clinic back in the States. At night most of our group went to Chinatown to check it out while a few of the girls went to have their feet munched on by fish (apparently this is some form of a pedicure but it sounds like fish torture to me). After wandering around for a bit we all returned home to our nice little condo for the night. We have 3 bedrooms as well as an entryway, living room, and three bathrooms. It is a very nice place.

The next morning we all got up at 6 am in order to make it to the Petronas Towers on time to get a ticket to go to the sky bridge. While in line an grumpy old German man got mad at us for having so many people but he was probably senile. We were able to get to the Skybridge at 9:15 am and there was a very beautiful view of downtown KL from there. We took a lot of photos. After that we all took a walk to the KL Tower but it was so expensive to go to the top of it that we passed on that. Then we took taxis to the Batu Caves which is a huge Hindu temple located up a lot of stairs and in large caves. It was very nice and there were monkeys everywhere. Some of them were mean but most sat around and tried stealing water bottles and things from you. It was a great leg workout to go up over 200 steps.

After that we stopped for lunch in some random restaurant and then went to a planetarium. It was a lot of walking and as we were leaving it started pouring rain. We took shelter under some little roof and hailed for a taxi. Half the group went home on the taxi while the mentally unstable ones (Joe, Mike, Dr. Gossman) decided to walk through the downpour.

Today we went to clinic again, saw some patients and now are on our lunch break!!! That is all. No bickering in the comments, lets keep it civil. :)