On our way back from Australia in January 2014, we stopped over in Kuala Lumpur for four days...and loved the vibrancy of the place.
On stepping out from the airport to find out taxi, the heat, humidity and pollution had my lungs objecting on the first breath. After that initial shocking assault, my body adjusted and I was fine.
Yikes man! Our taxi driver drove like the clappers, weaving in and out of the traffic - it was best not to look at what was going on, so I watched the countryside fly by instead. It took about an hour to get to our hotel in the city centre.
We explored the place from top to bottom, using the metro rail regularly to get wherever we wanted to be or walking. Malaysia is a mixture of many cultures from Indian to Chinese to Japanese.
The only thing that kind of put a pall on our enjoyment was the street in which our hotel was located was filled with foot massage parlours. Walking to and from the hotel, we were constantly hounded by touts from these places, trying to draw us in. Eventually we found some back roads that we could use thus skipping the irritation of trying to sidestep them.
We also found this in the vast shopping centres - all shopkeepers touting for business. I love to browse but constantly being badgered put me off, so we spent most of the time running from place to place trying to get away from the bombardment...which is primarily why we spent more time sightseeing than window shopping! Which wasn't too much of a problem as we weren't there to shop...but it still would have been nice to look around in peace.
We made sure that we had dinner from different countries - one night Japanese, one night Malaysian and another Indian - there is so much local cuisine to choose from.
Dinner at an Indian restaurant had Greg beaten. Coming from a Malaysian background, he thought he could cope with it. When the waiter kept asking him if he was sure he wanted that specific meal - it did cross my mind that maybe, just maybe, it might prove his undoing. Haha...did it ever?!
We both thoroughly enjoyed this vibrant, crowded, noisy, "never sleeps" jostling city which was getting ready to celebrate the Year of the Horse at the end of January.
For Greg it was an eye opener to see the place of his ancestral roots. He was in seventh heaven when he discovered the Malaysian samoosa reminiscent of his childhood. Whilst eating and enthusing about them, we got chatting to someone from London who was out there on business, who also came from a Malaysian background. We always meet such interesting people on our travels.
Greg loved it so much that he wants to go back again...and so do I.
Pictures from the gardens, view from the tower and generally around the city.
