05 Apr Highlights of Kuala Lumpur

As my plane began its decent into Kuala Lumpur International Airport a pleasant female voice with a light British accent announced over the intercom:

“Welcome to Malaysia. Please be informed that drugs and violence are prohibited and will result in severe punishment.”

And a couple of minutes later…:

“Law requires that the cabin be sprayed before landing for health reasons. Please cover your face and mouth, especially if you are sensitive. We regret any difficulty this may cause you.”

I may be slightly off on the wording there, but it’s pretty close. Needless to say, I covered my nose and mouth with my t-shirt as some unknown substance was sprayed into the cabin and began to feel very wary of this Malaysia. My friend later said he got his hands on some of the stuff they spray in the cabins and you could see the insects crawling out from their hiding places and dying. Great.

The Kuala Lumpur airport is huge, relatively easy to navigate, and full of shops and restaurants. It’s almost worth exploring on its own, and a sign states: “Welcome to the shopping mall with an airport”. I later discovered that shopping malls are the basis of the Kuala Lumpur economy, and there is an endless chain of them throughout the city.

City Transport

I headed to the lowest floor and went to the Skybus ticket counter, where I grabbed a ticket to KL Sentral train terminal for 12 Ringit (R). The train is much faster, but is a whopping 55R, so I opted for the longer transfer. The bus took about an hour, but allowed a good bit of sightseeing on the way into the city.

The landscape is fully covered in palm tree plantations – straight lines of palms over hill, over vale, as far as the eye can see. Malaysia is actually facing a big problem at the moment. Malaysia is the world’s second biggest palm oil producer behind Indonesia, and its export is making the country a lot of money, so they started cutting down bio-diversity-rich old growth forest in order to extend palm tree plantations. Funny, but it seems forests are important for the ecosystem, and replacing forest with plantations drastically increases pollution as well. Some countries have raised objections to palm oil production practices because of its impact on forest destruction, but the oil is still in high demand and no one knows what the long term effects of the industry will be.

Anyways, I got to KL Sentral, which is the most central (duh…) train and bus station in the city (Also attached to a large mall). I wandered around, lost and confused… My end goal was to get to a train station called Taman Bahagia where I could walk to the house I would be Couchsurfing at. But there are, like, a million f***ing train lines with a million stops! I found my way to the pink train entrance called the Kelana Jaya Line- This is one of the RapidKL/LRT lines. Once the lady told me where to go I walked to one of the automatic ticket terminals and tapped the pink Kelana Jaya icon, chose the Taman Bahagia stop, and for less than 4R ($1) I received a one way token. To enter the station, just scan the token at a turnstile with a green arrow on it and go up the stairs in the direction of your stop. The trains are frequent, fast, and clean – and super cheap. Definitely a new and awesome form of transportation here. To exit, head down the stairs and insert your token in the coin slot at the turnstile.

Whew.

Fully overwhelmed and exhausted from traveling, I started walking to my host’s home. I noticed a difference in the city environment here. Not only is Kuala Lumpur (or KL) extremely modern looking, but compared with the rest of Southeast Asia it was…quiet. I mean, no city is really quiet, but it’s almost like there is a semblance of traffic law there. People still drive just as insanely, but there is less of that hodge-podge bee-hive feel to it. And a lot less honking.

Couchsurfing

I walked through the gate of the address provided and tentatively knocked. An American wearing a hat and a large bushy beard answered the door.

‘Hey, you must be Mallory! I’m about to go meet some friends for drinks, want to come?’

We hugged and made introductions. He forced me to get my bags settled and take a shower before heading out. He was right…I felt a million times better after that. We hopped on his motorbike and headed to the bar where I met his friends, who were in town for a wedding. We had drinks and discussed life in Malaysia – including politics, religion, the social economy of a Muslim country…it was super fun and incredibly enlightening, especially talking about women and their experience here as Muslims or non-Muslims. I love that I had the chance to hear these things from locals rather than in a guidebook, and so early into my trip.

I am also SO GLAD that Couchsurfing in Malaysia worked out. There is a huge CS community here, and staying with Andrew was amazing. He was often busy, but I hit it off with his roommate, Shammah, and we became fast friends. We both share a deep love for all things FOOD, and I pretty much spent the entire week eating.

No, seriously. The entire week. More on what to eat in KL here.

I managed to fit in a few other things. Shammah teaches Jiu Jitsu, so I sat in on some classes, and even joined in one of the kids’ classes. He gave me a beginner’s boxing lesson, and I had one training session with a boxer visiting from Thailand (and got to practice my Thai!). I loved it so much, I wish I could keep up with it while traveling!! I did a lot of walking around as well, marveled at Andrew and Shammah’s aquariums, went to a local climbing gym for a day, bought some craft supplies to try my hand at jewelry-making, finally sent some post cards, etc. I spent one day hiking through Hutan Pendidikan Bukit Gasing, which is one of several parks in the city. It was awesome! Like entering the jungle, even though it’s in the middle of KL. There was a rope bridge, monkeys, dense forest, and good trails. Definitely a good recommendation from Shammah. I was even asked to be in a commercial for a new instant coffee! It was being filmed by the guy’s daughter on her iphone, so it was super legit.

Vietnam Visa

I purchased my Vietnam Visa as well. I heard several horror stories about being turned away at the airport and blah, blah, blah, so I figured why not get it done now. I took the train to the Ampang Park stop and walked to the embassy. Luckily, I arrived just as the lunch break was ending and got the second waiting ticket. I still waited almost an hour for my turn, and many people showed up after me. I filled out the application, attached my photos to the form, and paid the 260R fee for a three month single entry visa (outrageous), and came back in three days to get my passport back. It was very easy, I didn’t have to show any Vietnam exit ticket (which I didn’t have…), it was just slightly expensive. One word of advice – CHECK THE DATES on the visa. I have heard that sometimes they are written incorrectly and people still have problems entering the country.

Downtown KL

After a week of belly bliss, my friend Aaron flew in from Colorado. There wasn’t room for both of us in the house and we wanted to do some touristy things, so we headed to the Pasar Seni train station and checked in at the Chinatown Hotel the first night, and the ritzy KL Journal Hotel (with a rooftop bar! Aaron’s treat, I’m way too stingy to get a nice place like this for myself) the second night. We checked out the Chinatown market, which was very interesting, and the Central Market, which was less interesting. We went to the National Museum (5R), which was cool, but felt a bit propagandized. We also checked out the Islamic Arts Museum, recommended by Andrew, and that one was AWESOME. We dropped our bags at the front desk and marveled at the architecture, historical dress, and hundreds of different decorated copies of the Q’aran. We were going to go to the top of KL tower to see the view of the city, but when we got there we decided it was way too expensive just for a view, and we moved on to the Petronas Towers.

There is, of course, a shopping mall at the base of the towers, so we grabbed some food and waited until nightfall. After sundown and the evening muslim prayer over loudspeaker, the fountains behind the Petronas Towers are lit up in rainbow colors and coordinated to dance in time with music. I went once on my own and saw an incredible performance, but when Aaron and I went the prayers continued past 9pm and the show was a bit lower key, since they can’t play the music over the prayers. It is definitely worth seeing, though!

Batu Cavezzzz

After that very full day, we decided to go check out the Batu Caves, which is one of the few tourist attractions listed for KL. We attempted multiple times to take the train. It is listed on the map as a train stop, so we thought it would be simple to buy our token and head up there. Apparently not. There must be maintenance going on, because you have to go from a particular station to another station, then take a shuttle bus to the caves, but we couldn’t figure out the right station. After walking back and forth a few times we bought a token and waited for the train, but it never came! Frustrated, we decided to just see how much a Grab car would be and went with that.

We saw the car across the street and waved and he pulled around. We hopped in and started chatting with our driver, as it’s kind of a long drive out there. Turns out he is super cool. He actually admitted he almost didn’t pick us up because of the long route, as he can get more from multiple short rides, but when we recognized his license plate and waved he couldn’t just bail and we all laughed about it. The whole way out there he was saying that Batu Caves was actually Batu Cavez, and that there are no caves, because Batu means ‘big rock’. Well, turns out they really are caves and he decided to come explore with us. We grabbed some lunch together, hiked up the long stretch of stairs, dodged the thieving monkeys, and marveled at the huge cave and small temples with our new friend. You never know what kinds of people you meet if you leave yourself open to it.

Moving On…

We stayed at the Central Hostel on our final night before flying to Tawau for our scuba diving trip because it is close to KL Sentral station. We walked into this run down and…honestly, kind of sketchy looking building. The hostel is up three flights of stairs and there is a locked gate. We were buzzed in, and suddenly we were in a much cleaner and nicer looking area. Far from posh, but the hostel was well cared for, the owner is hilarious, and it’s cheap. The owner asked what we had been doing and Aaron mentioned that I had been staying in the area called Petaling Jaya, and he loudly exclaimed, ‘What is a tourist doing in Petaling Jaya?’ I replied, ‘Eating’, and he laughed and said that I knew what was what, so I guess I’ve been doing something right.

We had decided to leave our large bags at Andrew’s place, which was a smart idea. Carrying around a small bag was much easier than lugging around all my camping gear, so the next morning we loaded onto the bus back to KL airport for our flight to Tawau. We would be spending the next week at Scuba Junkie resort on Mabul Island! More beach time, YEAHHHH!!!

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