(PORT KLANG, MALAYSIA, Friday, March 24, 2000) - This small country has the two tallest buildings in the world, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

   We arrived at port this morning, 216 nautical miles from Singapore. Betty and I took a tour of a rubber plantation, winding up in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the Malaysian Federation.

   While larger than Singapore, Malaysia is still a rather small country, slightly larger than New Mexico. The population (1998) was 22.2 million of which 47% are Malay and Chinese total 25%. The balance are indigenous, Indian and Non-Malaysian citizens.

   The visit to the rubber plantation was interesting. I was expecting larger trees, but the rubber producing trees are only 6-8 inches in diameter. The bark is scarred in a diagonal and the rubber sap runs into a small container. Each tree produces a few ounces in 3-4 hours after being scarred and is then given three days to rest before being scarred again.

   The scars get a little lower on the tree each time until the ground is reached and then the other side is started. This takes five years on a side and can be done twice on each side for a total of 20 years of production. After that the tree becomes lumber.
The foliage plants we refer to as rubber trees at home produce a form of rubber called India rubber. But the real production trees are descendants of trees stolen from Brazil and are not decorative house plants.

   A worker can take care of 500 trees a day and on a three-day rotation cares for 1500 trees. It is not especially desireable work and finding labor is becoming a problem.
Our guide said natural rubber has about a third of the market and the other two-thirds is synthetic rubber. Both have advantages for some uses.

   From the plantation we went to the Forest Research Institute and took an hour's walk on a trail in the rain forest. We were told rainfall here is three meters per year. There is only one season here, summer, and it rains throughout the year, a little less in our summer. This presents an interesting problem for foresters in estimating tree ages, because there are no growth rings. The rings occur in U.S. Trees because of uneven growth patterns concentrated in spring. Malaysian foresters have a method of estimating age from growth patterns.

   The tropical jungle is lush, and with highly diverse species. But the amount of vegetation per acre doesn't appear more than Curry forests. It is a matter of there are limits to how much vegetation can grow on an acre and Curry's rainfall isn't that much less than Malaysia's.

   We had lunch at the plush Shangri-la Hotel in Kuala Lumpur and then drove to the Petronas Towers. The towers are occupied by the state oil agency and there are no tours of them. The towers are 452 meters and 88 stories high. Along with a television tower they are landmarks that can be seen at considerable distance. Kuala Lumpur is a city of 2.2 million people and downtown contains numerous high rise buildings. This is not a third world country. The country is in two parts, peninsular Malaysia, where the capital is located, and the northern parts of Borneo, 400 miles away.

   Per capita income is $3272 (1998), schooling is compulsory for nine years, and 82% attend secondary education. Literacy is 93%.

   There was a haze in the air today and our guide said it is the result of the forest burning in Sumatra across the Malacca Strait. The strait is only 60 kilometers wide at it's narrowest point and is one of the world's busiest waterways.

   Malaysia is a major producer of tin and we were taken to a pewter factory to see how some of the tin is used. Pewter is 97% tin with antimony and copper added.
This country is an oil exporter and has major farm crops, but our guide said manufacturing is now the major segment of the economy.

   One unusual recreation in Kuala Lumpur is a golf course that is lighted for night play.
Tomorrow we will be in Penang, an island off the north Malaysian coast.