This year when i decided to go on vacation to Malaysia, one place I had in my mind which i didn’t wanted to miss out was the Petronas Twin Towers. A friend mine told this would be just a passing by visit while on city tour and one should separately book tickets and visit Petronas at leisure and go on top of the towers to experience it. Is it really worth it ? So I went ahead and booked the tickets for 6:15 pm slot after my city tour to check it out in person.
I landed in Malaysia and checked in into our hotel where I would be crashing off for the night. From the window of my room I got the first view of the towers in a distance. Until now I just had a feeling that it’s another famous building the specialty of which is its very tall, but the very sight of it changed the whole perception. I am more of a nature person and for me visiting buildings and monuments is more of a ritual of visiting all tourist places in a new city, which I like but never very exciting for me.
It was 5pm in the evening I reached The Petronas Towers. The two identical twins standing tall next to each other shot right up to the sky. All other ‘High Rise’ buildings around it looked dwarfed in front of this twin giants. This is when I first felt the ‘Aura of this Beauty’. I was standing right below one of the tallest buildings in the world and the tallest I had ever seen.
To go by statistics, The Petronas Towers are 451.9 m (1483 ft ) high completed in 1996 and were the tallest buildings in the world for six years. The Petronas Towers still remain the tallest twin buildings in the world. The towers have 88 floors each with the roof at the height of 378.6 m (1242 ft).On the top of each tower is a pinnacle standing 73.5 metres (241 ft) tall.
Until 5:45pm I spent time around the towers clicking pictures and enjoying the view around. Then I went inside and collected the tickets. After a little wait was our batch of people’s turn to go up the towers. First we went to the sky bridge. The skybridge is a double decker bridge connecting the two towers on the 41st and 42nd floors, which is the highest 2-story bridge in the world. It is not attached to the main structure, but is instead designed to slide in and out of the towers to prevent it from breaking, as the towers sway several feet in towards and away from each other during high winds. It also provides some structural support to the towers in these occasions. The bridge is 170 m (558 ft) above the ground and 58 m (190 ft) long.
I spent some 10 mins here and then headed to go further high. I then moved to 83rd floor in one lift and then to 86th floor in another. The tower has a total of 88 floors but open to visitors till 86th floor.
The beauty of the towers from both inside and outside was magnificent and the view from the top was an other worldly experience. Everything looked like a toy from that height. Half an hour just flew in a flash admiring these towers and the view. It was time to go and somehwere in the corner of my mind I was already in love with The Petronas.
Back to the grounds again, I spent some time at the mall inside the towers. By the time I came out it was already dark. The lights around the lake in front of the towers were lit up and people were sitting around it relaxing and enjoying. I also thought of taking some rest and taking a quick bite on some snacks which I had picked up inside the mall, before heading back to the hotel when some colored fountains lit up the whole place started dancing on the lake. Initially it was a just few colorful fountains playing at random but it was later followed by a musical fountain show.
In between all this, I just turned around once and saw the towers again. And WOW…how majestic they looked all lit up in white lights. I was spellbound with the magnificent beauty of the Petronas and for a few minutes was staring at it without blinking my eyes and was mesmerised by the beauty of this structure. I fell in love with it all over again.
The feeling of being there, with the town shining bright, soft music playing, rainbow colored fountains dancing to the music, cool breeze and amidst of all these the amazing beauty standing tall, cannot be put into words but one has to be there to witness it. This surely has to be a pride for Malaysia.
I didn’t know how time went by and it was already 9pm when I realized it was time to go back to the hotel. I didn’t wanted to leave the place and had to really push myself back. In my hotel room also I sat next to the window admiring the beauty till I fell asleep.
Next morning when i checked out of the hotel and was driving past the twin towers, all that I could think of was ‘I’ll come back to see you again – Good Bye Petronas’.
I will leave you with some of the visuals of this beautiful place that i managed to capture while spending the evening with it.
-Nidhi Pawar
