Kuala Lumpur
I didn’t have a chance to travel during Chinese New Year 2018.
Let me back up.
My first job in China was at a training center. Training center jobs don’t give too much time off for big holidays and the time you do get off is at the same time as everyone else, so travel is both more difficult (good luck getting through a train station in China during the Chinese New Year holiday) and more expensive (companies capitalize on everyone traveling by increasing prices). But while it was tougher to travel during those holidays I got paid leave I could take whenever, so I could spread my trips out. At my current job I get much longer vacations during the summer and over Chinese New Year, but no leave so I have to do most of my traveling then. I think the trade off was worth it. Unfortunately between those two jobs I had to spend some time at home not making any money so I didn’t have enough to travel over Chinese New Year when I got back. I made up for it by taking two trips when summer vacation rolled around. Our first trip was to Malaysia and the first stop was Kuala Lumpur.
The Trip
In order to travel that much I had to take the low cost late night flights, which means arriving when nobody in their right mind would be awake and trying to find the hotel. And the airport never seems to be close to the city. In the case of Kuala Lumpur the airport is a good ways south of the city proper, where we wanted to be. Luckily Max had gotten a car to pick us up on Taobao, which I suppose is the Chinese equivalent of Amazon. When they say you can get everything on Taobao they aren’t lying.
The man who picked us up was great. He was friendly, talked to us a bit, and stopped on the way so we could get some late night food which was much needed. Those low cost airlines charge an arm and a leg for everything and I was starving. When we got to the hotel a familiar feeling settled over me. I had failed miserably at finding a hotel again. We had decided to stay near Petaling Street, which is Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown, because we had read there was lots of good food there and it was sort of central. In the middle of the night though it’s kind of creepy and deserted. We managed to find the hotel which was a little grimy and sketchy and when we got to our room we found it was no better. And the walls were paper thin. You could hear people turning on air conditioners in other rooms. You know the beep it makes? Ya. You could hear that. We went straight to bed and slept until at least noon the next day. Another problem with those low cost airlines is they often fly at night. If you can’t sleep on the plane and don’t sleep until you arrive you lose a chunk of the first day.
Petaling Street was completely different during the day. When we went to bed the area, as I mentioned, was creepy and deserted. When we left the hotel the next day it was absolutely bustling. Stores and restaurants on both sides of the street and stores set up in the middle were surrounded by locals picking up produce and grabbing lunch and tourists taking in the sights. I couldn’t believe how much it had changed.
The street got crazier as the day progressed
There was some great food on Petaling Street
After poking around we started to check out the city. The country is largely Muslim but the city was dotted with places of worship for numerous religions, not just Islam. We spent our time there regularly stopping to check them out. As is the case with places of worship you need to make sure to act accordingly. At the Mahamarianman Temple for example you need to take your shoes off before entering and leave them at the entrance. I almost got in trouble because I thought I just had to take them off and I put them in my bag. They’re actually not even allowed over the threshold though and you need to leave them outside. The Masjid Negara, or National Mosque, has limited visitation times for non-Muslims, although the outside is still accessible.
With only a couple of days we missed a ton, but what we did see was pretty cool. The Petronas Twin Towers and KL Tower both jut into the sky. The Twin Towers in particular were a great sight, with the walkway connecting the towers maybe halfway up. We didn’t get too close but if you can go in there could be a great view of the city from them.
The KL Sentral train station was also pretty neat, even if it was essentially just a terminal for trains and buses that was connected to a mall. If you take the metro through the middle of the city at all you’ll probably pass through it. It’s worth a quick stop to poke around. South of KL Sentral though is the old train station, which seemed to be undergoing construction inside when we were there but still looked cool from the outside. Across the street is the KTM building which also looked pretty cool, and also has something to do with the trains. If you’re in the area check them out but I’m not sure I’d make a trip across the city just to see them.
In the west of the city (at least according to our map, the actual city is probably much bigger) we found the Botanical Gardens. At the east side of the park is the National Mosque. The park seemed to be a big hill and at the top was the National Monument, built to honor Malaysia’s soldiers during and after World War II. The statue commemorating them is set in the middle of a plaza that you find after working your way up the road in the gardens. The Botanical Gardens also house a butterfly park and a bird park. East of the Botanical Gardens is the Sultan Abdul Samad Building, which I think is some sort of government building. You can check it out on your way to or from the area to see the gardens, which is what we did.
Food
Kuala Lumpur had an interesting mix of food on hand and we tried a little bit of a lot of different stuff. There was definitely a big Chinese influence however from all of the Chinese who live there. We had curry laksa, bowls of noodles I can’t remember the names of, fresh fruit, soup, seafood, and Indian, which also seemed pretty popular. One night we went to Jalan Alor Street to eat. The street was entirely food, with people from each restaurant standing by the side of the road trying to show you menus. I imagine you can get cheaper food elsewhere but there was a lot of different stuff in a small area so you have lots of choices and can do some people watching.
Getting Around
Kuala Lumpur does have a subway system and we used it a little bit. It wasn’t quite as straightforward as Shenzhen but it was still much nicer than Boston or New York. We didn’t go really far though and some places we wanted to go, like the Botanical Gardens, didn’t have close metros, so we ended up walking a lot. When we met up with some friends who live in the city they told us that the metro never seems to go where you want it to. If you’re looking to get somewhere without easy metro access try using Grab, which is the Malaysian equivalent of Uber and didn’t cost too much. That’s also how we got to the Batu Caves, which I’ll talk about in the next post.
Even though I ate more Chinese food than I expected too (I was on vacation from China after all), our couple days in Kuala Lumpur were both eventful and a little tiring from all the walking. It was worth it though to pack in as much as we could.
Thanks for reading and I'll see you on my next trip. Don't forget to click the links below and follow to stay up to date on what I'm doing and where I am and to see all the pictures and videos from my trips.