Besides visiting the Petronas Towers, we went to a place that claims to be the largest enclosed aviary in the world.

It sits inside a park along the lines of Chapultepec or Central Park. A gorgeous spot, where we got to see extraordinarily rare birds and Asian owls.

You'll see some of them in the photos, since many of the birds roam freely and you can almost reach out and touch them. At the restaurant where we had lunch, one of these giant birds with a beak like a rhinoceros's horn wandered onto the balcony and slowly worked up the nerve to approach the diners, until it finally snatched half a hamburger right out of some man's hand. We made the most of it and got incredible close-ups of the bird.

For reasons that remain a mystery to us, some birds are kept in cages. Maybe they can't be together without fighting, or something like that.

We only visited one mosque, which honestly was nothing to write home about. Once you've seen the wonders down in southern Spain (where part of Islam's golden age actually unfolded), only Arab countries can offer anything comparable, and I haven't been to any of them. What I do love is the way that, at dusk in these Muslim cities, the chanting and the calls to prayer begin pouring out of loudspeakers. There's something deeply nostalgic and melancholy about them. Songs that, more often than not, feel like they carry a kind of sadness.

I had to dress up as a black ghost just to get inside the mosque, since I wasn't wearing anything remotely decent by their standards.

It's absolutely hilarious to see, on every rooftop of every hotel in Malaysia, a little painted arrow telling you which direction Mecca is in, so that if you want to pray, you know where to face.

Another funny thing: the television, which is sweet in its innocence and utterly clueless about it. Watching it feels like stumbling onto programming from 40 years ago in a country like Mexico.

They are mad for Latin American telenovelas, and especially the worst and silliest ones.

Sanuk