The Petronas Towers of KL

The Petronas Towers is the world's tallest twin towers. It is located at the heart of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Petronas Towers is the corporate headquarters of the government-owned Petronas oil company. It is Malaysia's grand national landmark. And indeed it is very grand, especially at night when it is illuminated brightly with beautiful white lights. There is an extraordinary glow that makes it tantalizing. If you remember the movie, Entrapment, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sean Connery, then you'll remember that the Petronas Towers was featured in the climax of this movie.

Connecting the two towers is the Skybridge, located at the 41st and 42nd floor. The 41st floor is used for visitors while the 42nd is used by the tenants of the towers. Access to the Skybridge is free, but you just have to line up and get tickets for a certain alloted time. There is a limit of visitors per day so usually by mid day, all tickets for the day have been given out. And the earlier you go there, the earlier time slot you get. Like for us, we got our tickets at around 10am and we were already on the 5:30pm slot.

There's a nice exihibit there though, that you could see while you wait. It features facts about the Petronas Towers, a documentary of how the Towers were built, its history. Then there are also telescopes/cameras that's like The Eye of Auckland's Skytower. However, the image resolution was not that good and zooming is not as zoomed in as that of the Auckland Skytower, so the view didn't really seem like real time. But the Petronas have this cool device that's simply entertaining, a device that measures your height and calculates how many times the Towers are compared to your height. You can also select other skyscrapers like the Empire State building and Sears tower to be compared to your height. Then there's also a miniature model there that is used to demonstrate what would happen in case a lightning hits the towers. A simulation is shown with electric currents hitting the miniature towers.

Upon the free tour of the Skybridge, there is first a short 3D film showing about the background and history of the Petronas towers. Then the group will be led by a guide to the 41st floor and will be given a few minutes (around 10 minutes) to look around there and take some pictures. I am impressed that this tour is free, and inspite of that, everything is well-maintained and are of quality, including the good the service of the personnel.

Another great thing about the Petronas Towers is that it has Suria KLCC at its foot. Suria KLCC is one of the biggest malls in Kuala Lumpur. Something I don't recommend though is to go to the Twin Towers on special ocassions where there would be many crowds of people. We did that for New Year's eve of 2006 and we just got mobbed by crowd and after getting out of the crowd, my friends lost their wallet and cellphone. So just be cautious. It's only in Singapore that you can wave your phone and wallet in the streets without worrying that someone would snatch them right from your hands.

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Photocredits to me :)