Kuala Lumpur – Tower Envy

Our stay at the JW Marriott in KL was a brief one night. After our driving tour from Kuala Selangor it was a pleasant way to end the day by being escorted to our spacious club level 17^th floor room. Benefiting from Jay’s Marriott’s point and Gold status we found ourselves treated to royal Asian service.

When we opened the curtains in our sitting room, we were treated by the glowing images of the twin Petronas Towers. The Petronas Towers opened in 1998 and is occupied primarily by the government-run energy Petronas company. Built of glass, steel and concrete, the tapering towers reflect the Islamic influence on Malaysian architecture in the polygonal plan. Despite its conservative Islamic nature, the towers became Hollywood “stars” in the 1999 action thriller "Entrapment" providing stars Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones a breathtaking, gravity-defying backdrop.

Only the double decked sky bridge on the 41^st and 42^nd floors is open to the public. You must arrive well before the 8:00am ticket window opening to a get one of the 800 free daily tickets.

Topping out at 1483 ft, the Petronas Towers laid claimed title to the “world’s tallest building” until 2003. With the opening of 1671 ft. Taipei 101 (Financial Tower), the Petronas Towers slipped to 2^nd place. The boasting rights to the world’s tallest building will change again in 2008, when the Burj Dubai tower opens. That tower will reach an incredible 2313 ft. into the heavens.

To put things in perceptive, The Eiffel tower is 986 ft tall and the Empire State Building stretches 1250 ft. above the ground. The World Trade Towers in New York City (left) reached a height of 1614 feet before their terrible destruction in 2001. The proposed Freedom Tower (right) that will stand on the old footings of the World Trade Towers is engineered to reach a more American iconic height of 1776 feet.

Back to KL. The next morning we had breakfast in the club lounge, took a few more snaps of the Petronas Towers and prepared to drive to Melaka.