Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

11th May – 13th May 2018

By the time everyone was on the plane and seated, we must have missed our slot on the runway, as we then had to sit and wait for about twenty minutes. Me and Joe were sat across the aisle from each other and before we had even hit the runway, he was fast asleep, as usual. It was only a short flight (three hours) which I thought would be perfect for a nap, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not get to sleep.

When we landed in Kuala Lumpur, we were surprisingly on time, despite leaving later. We had booked a transfer which said that the driver only waited an hour. The walk from the plane to passport control and baggage claim was huge! It was 10.30 before we arrived at the immigration desks, and we still had to get our bags. I was hoping that this wouldn’t be a long process, so that our driver was still there.

Luckily, our bags didn’t take long to come through, and we were out in the arrivals hall at 10.45. We looked for the name card with my name on, but we couldn’t find it anywhere. We knew it shouldn’t have left as it hadn’t been an hour yet, so we waited. On the confirmation email, there was a number to ring, but neither of our phones work if they’re not on wifi, so I asked at information. Apparently, the number was international, so I was sent on a wild goose chase to try and find a desk with an international phone. I somehow ended up back at Joe with no success. As Joe had managed to connect to wifi, we could whatsapp call the number and we found that the woman who should have held our name card, was right next to us, but she didn’t have my name on her papers.

Eventually, we were given a driver, and we were on our way into the city. The drive was about forty minutes. We had to be dropped off at a bus stop which was a couple of minutes away from our hostel, as we were staying in a pedestrianised area, which was coincidentally filled with a market!

Once we had battled through the market, in the extreme humidity, we arrived at our hostel. We had to climb to the first floor and we had to take our shoes off before entering the hostel area. As it was too early to check in, we dropped our bags and did a little research. Joe had already done most of it, so we just had to get our bearings and check where things were in relation to us.

As we only had an hour to wait until check in, we thought it would be best if we didn’t venture too far, so that we could put our bags in the room and not have them sat in the hallway all day. While we waited, we went to explore the market. We wandered up and down the street, but it was a much smaller market than anticipated. After this, we wandered around the corner to Merdeka Square.

Around Merdeka square, there were lots of beautiful buildings. I had also done some research that there were free walking tours from the City Art Gallery on Saturday mornings, so we thought we had timed it perfectly for the next day. However, when we enquired in the information centre, we were told that they stopped on May 1^st – how unlucky! It would have been a perfect opportunity to get some background information on the city and its buildings, but instead we had to discover it ourselves.

From the square, we walked back towards the market, as it was almost time to check in. As we were walking along, looking at the stalls, I noticed an indoor bit. We walked in, and it opened up into a huge market hall – it was definitely more like it! We had a little wander around and debated what to do for lunch, as we were both getting really hungry. I priced up some patches, but didn’t buy any at first, as I wanted to get the best price.

Just after 1, we went back up to the hotel to check in. It was very handy how close it was to the market – we just had to cross the path. We dropped our bags in the room and put some sun cream on, before heading back out.

We had decided to try some street food for lunch, as there were a few market stalls that had some tasty looking food. We got a selection of spring rolls, samosas and pastries to share and it cost us 7MYR (less than £1.50). We ate our lunch walking along the stalls, and through the market.

Once we were finished in the market, we nipped back to the room, to pick up the map that we had drawn on so that we could plan our afternoon better. We spent a good portion of the time debating which tower to climb: the KL Sky Tower or the Petronas Twin Towers. The KL Tower appears taller because it is on a hill, but the Petronas Towers are more well known, and they both have 360-degree views.

Eventually, we decided that we would climb the Petronas, as it worked out cheaper than going to the very top of the KL Tower, and we wanted the experience! Even though we weren’t going up the KL Tower, we still decided to walk up and see it anyway. We took some photos from the base, but that’s as far as we went.

From the KL Tower, we made our way to the Petronas Towers. We didn’t want to climb them until the second day, but it is advised to book tickets in advance. When we got there, we walked through the shopping centre first. It was huge! There were five floors of very expensive looking shops, and the thought of wandering around that made my legs ache! In the bottom of the shopping centre was the ticket office to climb the towers, so we went there. We decided to go for an early morning slot, to make the most of our day afterwards.

Once the tickets were bought, we went outside and sat at the back of the shopping centre, in between the two towers for a little bit, watching the fountains. The towers looked so tall from directly underneath them. After sitting for a while, we wandered around the towers to the front, where we took some more photos.

From the towers, we made our way to the Heli Lounge. We had researched some roof top bars for sunset and this one seemed to have views of the city, including the twin towers and the KL Tower and wasn’t too over priced, like the others. We had both looked it up, and reading that it didn’t open until 6, so we took our time getting over there, arriving at about twenty to.

Even though we were a little early, we went inside anyway, and it turns out that the indoor bar is open earlier, so we were allowed to sit in there and get a drink while we waited for the roof top one to open. It was lucky we got there early anyway, as a man in the lift told us that after 6, they don’t allow people in wearing shorts, and we both fit into that category. We ordered a drink and tried to drink it slowly, while we waited.

When the doors opened to upstairs, the rush was crazy. Everyone made a beeline for the stairs, including us. When we got up there, there were lots of nice tables and chairs and stools to sit on. We made our way to the front, but those tables were reserved, so we had to sit back a little from the edge – we still had a pretty good view of the city, though. The bar is a Heli pad, hence the name, and it is still used during the day if needed, which we thought was pretty cool, meaning that we were quite high.

Up on the roof top, we took photos and enjoyed the beautiful views, waiting for the sun to set. It set next to the KL Tower, which was beautiful.

Once the sun had gone down, both the Petronas Towers and the KL Tower lit up in beautiful lights, so we took some more photos. Just as it went dark, we started to hear thunder and lightning. There was no rain and I don’t think it was close but we wanted to get off the rooftop in case it came close, plus we were hungry and hadn’t eaten dinner yet!

From the Heli Lounge, we walked toward the Golden Triangle. This was a pretty cool place at night; it was all lit up with lanterns and billboards and street lights – it was very Times Square like, we thought. We walked through, looking for Lot 10, which is a food court Joe had researched. Apparently, all of the vendors in Lot 10 were approached and selected to sell their product in the food court, so it was all supposed to be pretty good food. It was all Asian type foods and we were massively in the minority being outnumbered by local people.

This didn’t put us off though, it was nice to not be in a touristy area, but to eat where locals do. We wandered around and looked for food that we fancied. In the end, we ate from different places: I had honey roasted duck with rice and Joe got pork balls with noodles – they were both good, but mine was better.

After we had eaten, we started to walk back to the hostel. It was a bit of a distance and we got a little lost, but we found it in the end. We got back at around 9.30. When we got back, I was exhausted, as we had been up since 4am and I hadn’t been able to nap, so it was straight into bed for us, ready for another adventure filled day!

The next morning, the alarm went off at 7.30, so that we could get up and ready for our trip up the Petronas Towers. It was a tough challenge to get out of bed at first, but we needed to be leaving the hostel at 8.15ish, so we didn’t have much time to waste. We got up and ready and went upstairs for breakfast on the balcony.

Just after 8.15, we set off on our walk up to the towers. As energy levels were quite low, we didn’t walk at great speeds, and arrived just before 9. Our tour wasn’t until 9.15, but we went down to the concourse anyway. When we got down there, it turns out that the timings didn’t exactly matter and we were allowed in with the second group. We checked in and got our passes before going through security and making our way to the lift.

The first stop up the tours was to the sky bridge, which is at level 41, and goes between the two towers. It is 170m above the street below, and we were on the lower level of a two-storey bridge. We were allowed to walk across it, getting photos of the towers, and the views around.

After ten minutes on the bridge, we had to make our way back to tower two, to get back in the lift and make our way up to the top. We got out at level 83, before being sent to another lift to then go up to level 86. Level 86 is the highest possible point to go in the towers, as the top two levels are only used for maintenance purposes.

When we got out of the lift, we were met with the beautiful views of tower one! It was so amazing to see up close, and as we walked around the viewing deck, we could see the KL Tower in the distance, behind tower one. We spent some time looking for the Heli pad bar where we had been the night before. When we found it, I couldn’t believe how high we had been – we were so lucky to have had the chance to be up there to see the sunset and the city at night.

After some time at the top, we were taken back down to level 83, where there was a gift shop and a chance to see some photos that they had taken of us. We had a look around, but didn’t buy anything, before we were taken back to the lift and back down to the ground level.

Back on the ground, we sat and had a think of what to do next. We decided to head back in the direction of the hostel, stopping at a few places along the way. Our first stop was Masjid Jamek mosque, where we went in and had a look around. We were allowed to go in for free but had to sign in and fully cover our bodies. I was given a red cloak with a hood, which covered my whole body and head, and Joe was given a long skirt to cover his legs. It was a little uncomfortable as it was so humid, and the material was thick, but we had to be respectful. I think these also turned us in to celebrities as we had a couple of girls come up to us and ask us for a picture.

We first of all had a look around the outside, where the architecture was beautiful, before we went in. We had to take our shoes off to go in, which again was out of respect. Inside, we were met by some volunteers, who gave us a bit of information about the mosque itself. It was built by a British architect who lived in India at the time and was asked to come over to build the mosque and other buildings in Kuala Lumpur. The building work started in March 1908 and was complete in December 1909.

Originally, the mosque was across the road (where there is now a Burger King) but the people decided that they wanted a bigger mosque. The area of land where it is now, was the biggest space available (kind of). There was a cemetery on the land, so half of it was moved to another cemetery in the city, to start the building, and then the other half was moved, to complete the building.

Inside, we were shown the different areas where men and women pray, as they aren’t allowed to pray together. They always pray in the direction of Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, which is indicated by a particular area in the mosque (which I can’t remember the name of). The holy mosque in Mecca can hold up to 4-5 million people at one time. We had a look at the Quran too, which is the book that Muslims follow. They believe all books given to prophets but follow the Quran which was given to Mohammed as it is the most recent.

Once we had finished looking around the beautiful mosque, we made our way down the rivers and crossed over, getting one last view. We went to Merdeka Square again, to the City Gallery, where we had some photos with the ‘I love KL’ sign – apparently it’s a must.

From the gallery, we decided to make our way to the National Museum. It was a bit of a distance away, and as energy levels were low, we contemplated getting a taxi. I booked a Grab (Asia’s Uber equivalent) and we waited for it to come. When we saw the car drive past, I tried to track it on the app, but as my phone screen isn’t working, I couldn’t get onto the right page and ended up cancelling it by mistake. Once it was cancelled, we took that as a sign and decided to try and walk it instead.

The walk wasn’t as long or as bad as I thought it would be, it was just very humid, so that made it a little more difficult. On the way, we stopped at the National Mosque, but it didn’t look like we could go in it, so we just took some photos on the outside, before carrying on.

When we got to the museum, we had different options of tickets, but we decided to just got for the basic one to see inside the main museum.

Inside, there were four exhibitions explaining Malaysia’s history. The first room talked about the geography of the land and how the moving tectonic plates created the continents and the country of Malaysia, and how people ended up living there. The second room was about the rulers of Malaysia over the years, with different artefacts and items that the rulers used or had.

Upstairs, there were two more rooms, which talked about the colonisation of the country, and then modern day Malaysia. It was a little weird walking around reading about how the British took over the country and they had to fight to get it back, which they eventually did – it made me want to just get out of there.

Once we were finished in the museum, we looked for a café to try and grab a drink, as the humidity had dried my mouth out. As we weren’t successful, we made our way back to the hostel. It took us about twenty to thirty minutes, but we seemed to get back just before the thunderstorm hit, so that was good timing.

Back at the hostel, we had some chill out time and tried to recharge our batteries. Joe nipped out to the market, which was luckily undercover, and got us some lunch from the same lady we ate from the day before.

After a while of chilling, we both ventured out to the market, as I still needed a patch, and I fancied something sweet. We walked around the market, listening to the thunderstorm outside, being very grateful we were close enough to the market to not get wet. Once we had bought the patch, we looked for some ice cream, eventually getting some.

Once we had enjoyed our ice cream, we went back into the hostel and had to sit out the rain. We wanted to go to Jalan Alor, which is a street food street, with lots of hawkers and vendors, but we didn’t want to get too wet.

Luckily, the rain stopped just before 6, giving us the chance to go back out. It was a little bit of a walk away, but after a rest, that was okay. We found the street quite easily and wandered up and down it looking for the best stalls. It was a really busy street with lots of vendors and people, but again, it looked like we were in the minority being tourists, which again, we didn’t mind.

Eventually, we settled on one stall which had a wide range of fish and meats and vegetables on satay sticks. We could choose the sticks we wanted and give them to the men, to cook fresh for us. It was a good way to know that the food was fresh and it was really tasty. I went for simple options of chicken, pork and beef, but Joe tried stingray which was interesting. It didn’t have a massive taste but it was really light.

After we had eaten, we decided to head back to the hostel, as we were up very early for our next flight. We got back to the hostel just after 8, but by the time we had showered and packed our bags, and done a little bit of blog work, it was gone 10 o’clock. We set the alarm for 2.30am and tried to get some sleep.

Four minutes before the alarm, I woke up to a thunderstorm, followed by alarms going off. It made me not want to get up, but we had no choice. We got ready and wrapped up in waterproofs before heading to the bus stop to meet our taxi driver. Luckily he was waiting for us, so we didn’t get too wet.

After about forty minutes, we arrived at the airport, and checked our bags in. It was all done electronically which was weird, as we didn’t see anyone, we just scanned it all through which I wasn’t too sure about. Once we were checked in, we made our way to the gate, feeling like zombies, and waited for our flight.

Kuala Lumpur felt like a very quick visit, which I guess it was. It was strange to be back in a city again, after a few weeks in Indonesia. Although the humidity sapped the energy out of us, we made the most of our time and loved exploring the culture of the city. We’re off to another new country now, as we board our short flight to pass over into Singapore.

To travel is to live, Katie x