City limits

HIGH above Kuala Lumpur, simmering in the heat of the city 450 metres below, looms the world's tallest building. But the Petronas Twin Towers' crown is about to be toppled because architects are putting the finishing touches to the Chongqing Tower in China.

Despite this imminent overshadowing, their remarkably poignant reflection of this city's huge diversity will remain for many decades to come.

Standing above the Menara KL telecommunications tower and the dozens of skyscrapers of world-class hotels and office blocks, the towers, which house offices of Malaysia's major oil producer Petronas, are the jewel in KL's modern business empire.

But only metres from its entrance are lines of hawker stalls, cooking up food on naked flames to people happy to eat on the roadside as they have done for centuries.

Sharp-suited business workers, umbrellas reflecting the burning heat, walk past the mosques and Chinese temples. All of this is only a few miles from some of the world's oldest and wildest jungles.

Kuala Lumpur is known as one of the most western-friendly cities in South East Asia.

The scare stories of hassle, filth and crime which, however exaggerated, accompany so many tales from travellers to the region, are even more inaccurate of Kuala Lumpur than they are of Bangkok, Saigon or Jakarta.

It's far from bereft of Asian flavour. The never-ending heat makes walking at night as uncomfortable as it is in the day, and the monsoon rains give so little warning that you are soaked before you find shelter.

And the chaos of bureaucracy Asian style is demonstrated perfectly by the bemusing Pudu Raya bus station, the dark insides teeming with people covering every space while faces scream unrecognisable instructions from behind dozens of windows plastered with place names written in Malaysian.

In that inimitable style typical of Asian travel, only the tourists appear confused.

A few hundred metres from the station entrance is the start of China Town, bustling streets inhabited by the descendants of the city's first traders and immigrants who have arrived since.

Chinese coffee shops, temples, pharmacies and bookmakers line the streets. Vendors offer rich green tea, dried meats and other traditional foods, while paper lanterns hang above the road.

After sunset, the area is taken over by the Chinese night market, stalls moving into the streets selling everything imaginable and making it one of the liveliest parts of Kuala Lumpur. The best food I ate in the city was discovered at a street restaurant in this market, a place proud to put its quality before its image.

Sitting on the street in plastic chairs in front of plastic tables, watching hordes of market shoppers and sightseers, shouting salesmen, street artists and passing beggars, has to be the finest way to soak up the bustle of this lively city.

The best way to avoid it has to be to return to Pudu Raya.

A fight through the chaotic crowds, a struggle with confusing ticket vendors and you're sitting on a bus on its 150-kilometre wind to the Cameron Highlands - and a taste of England thousands of miles from home.

The Highlands were discovered by Government surveyor William Cameron in 1885 and have become home to tea plantations.

For travellers moving through South East Asia, it has become a magnet for offering escape from heat.

The area's height means, for the first time since arriving in Malaysia, you can move without being soaked in sweat - a good attraction for an area ideal for walking.

Swathed in the world's oldest rainforest, damp from mountain mists rather than steam, the temperature is more in keeping with British summertime.

Even the green scenery and plentiful lakes can make the British wanderer homesick.

It's a feature the tourist trade is keen to play on. Tudor-style woodwork covers hotels scattered among the hills, high tea and cream scones are served on verandas shared by tree frogs which remind visitors that the wildness of the tropics isn't as far removed as it may seem.

And the jungle tracks prove it. Cooler, lacking the variety of animals and home to a different type of plantlife, they are still as dense, huge and unforgiving as they are across the rest of Malaysia.

The manager of the Lakehouse Hotel tells a tale of German visitors who went walking - and were discovered days after by a search party, completely lost.

And, as I came close to disaster after slipping off a washed-away path and plunging down the steep slopes of mountain jungle, I can confirm the Cameron Highlands, despite their tourist charm, still offer some of Malaysia's wildest jungle.

Fact file:

- Adam Nichols stayed at:

JW Marriott Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Contact 00603 27168000.

- The Lakehouse Hotel in the Cameron Highlands. Contact 00605 4956152.

- Independent holidays and tours can be organised by Asian Overland Services on 00603 42529100, or at www.asianoverland.com.my

- For more information about Malaysia, contact the Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board on 020 79307932.