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Published: October 13th 2022
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After the two-week Borneo trip with Mizzi, I wanted to make a stopover in Kuala Lumpur to see my former colleague Sharma and to see what had changed in the city since the time I had worked there, in 2014 and 2015. Our flight departed from Kota Kinabalu perfectly on time, and we landed in Kuala Lumpur 15 minutes early. Half an hour after landing we left the terminal and caught the fast and efficient Express Train to KL Sentral. Only 30 minutes later we were there.
I checked into my hotel, the Aloft very close to the train station. I had stayed there quite often when coming over from Singapore for work, and had really liked it. Mizzi and I took a walk of Brickfields, the old Indian quarter. The name is based on the history of the area: After a big flood that had destroyed the wooden buildings in KL in 1881, the British ordered that houses be built in brick and tile. The bricks were manufactured in Brickfields and this is also where all the Indian workers who worked there started settling. Nowadays there are of course many Indian shops and restaurants in the area. However, there
Petronas Towers II
View towards one of the towers from above, with KL Tower in the background. are also quite a few temples, for example a Buddhist temple, a Hindu temple, a Tamil Methodist church, and others. I was surprised how much had changed during the last five years. The district had looked quite run down and not pretty, although it had had a somehow charming atmosphere. Now there were a lot of new high-rise buildings, many of the existing buildings had been refurbished, and the whole atmosphere was different. However, it is still not the fanciest place in the city. We had a not so nice dinner, but did not have time to search for a nicer place because Mizzi needed to catch the Airport Express Train again to catch her flight back to Melbourne. There were tears and sadness when she left. It will be half a year until we see each other again. After saying goodbye to Mizzi, I spent a quiet evening on the roof top of the hotel by the pool.
The next morning, after a morning swim and meditation, Sharma came to pick me up and we had breakfast together: Nasi Lemak, rice cooked in coconut milk and served with sambal, gravy, eggs, and veggies. It usually comes with meat
Petronas Towers III
View of the city. This view shows nicely the many different faces of the city, including super-modern high rises and traditional houses. as well, but of course as a vegetarian I did not have meat. We then went to Sharma's office to talk about business, time flew and we went for lunch, South Indian this time. Sharma then dropped me off at Petronas Towers. Although having been to KL quite a few times, I had never made it up there. One needs to buy a ticket in advance, and there were quite a few safety measures in place because of coronavirus. Visitors had to fill in a form on their current health status, and body temperature was measured. Finally, after going through security check, a lift took us up to the level of the sky bridge that links the two towers at an altitude of 170 metres. Then we went all the way up to enjoy the view of the city. With 452 metres of height, the towers are the tallest twin towers in the world. One tower was built by the Koreans, the other one by the Japanese. The Koreans were faster, therefore they were the ones to build the sky bridge. The view of the entire city from up here was just amazing, particularly because it was a clear afternoon.
Kampong Bharu
The old Malay village in the middle of the city, with modern high rises in the background. When I arrived back on the ground floor, I took some time to walk the nice park at the bottom of the towers and to enjoy some ice-cream while watching the fountains in the park. I caught the metro back to my hotel.
Early the next morning, I caught a taxi to the Malaysian Tourism Centre to participate in a bike tour around the city. Sharma had recommended and booked it for me, and it was really a fantastic experience because we went to places where I would otherwise not have gotten. The owner of the company is Dutch and uses Dutch city bikes. We were just two participants, an Australian guy living in Singapore and I. We rode slowly, and Felix, our guide, made sure that we could ride safely by keeping other vehicles out of our way, often using a whistle.
Our first stop was Kampong Bharu, an old Malay village in the middle of the city with old houses on stilts. The name means “New Village". If there were no high rises in the background one would think one was in a village somewhere remote in Malaysia. The area had originally been meant to be
used for agriculture, but since it kept getting flooded it was ultimately used for building houses. Therefore, the houses are on stilts.
Our next stop was Chiw Kit Market where you can buy any food (fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, herbs, whatever you can think of), but also other household items such as decoration or even products for the office. The market is huge and colourful, and there are all kinds of scents around. What fascinated me was realising that the meat here did not smell as bad as back home in the supermarket. Back home, the scent almost makes me sick, and when I am in the supermarket at home, I try to bypass the butcher’s corner as quickly as possible. There the meat is stored according to all regulations of hygiene. Here at the market, however, the meat and fish were only cooled using some ice, the market itself was not air conditioned, and there were no covers or anything for the meat. Still, the scent was far not as bad as at home. I wonder what the reason for this might be, freshness probably?
Next, we stopped at Loke Mansion, KL's white house. It was built
in European style by Loke Yew, who was a Chinese businessman who became rich through tin mining. He had himself been uneducated and therefore established various educational institutions. Since two of his wives had died from malaria, he also supported hospitals. Nowadays his house is used by a law firm, but the rent will run out this year and the house might be taken down to be replaced by a high rise. There is no such thing as a heritage site here in KL.
After our stop at the mansion, we had brunch, Nasi Lemak once more, and then continued to Merdeka Square, Independence Square in English, where the Malaysian flag was raised in 1957 and where the first prime minister gave his speech. The square is a cricket ground with a club house on the one side (with a church right next to it, and people joke that this is where one goes after having overdone it with beers in the club house, which by the way, is men only). On the other side of the square, there is an administration building that had been erected by the British.
The next stop was the affluence of the
small and the large river Klang, where KL has its origin. When tin miners came upriver by boat searching for more tin deposits, they got stuck in the shallow muddy water and named the place “Kuala Lumpur”, “affluence of muddy rivers”. Another stop was a Chinese Taoist temple, Sze Ya Temple, in Chinatown. From there we rode past Central Market which now is a crafts market and along Petaling Street, the Chinese market in Chinatown (where most of the vendors do not seem to be Chinese, but apparently the owners behind the scenes are). Then we rode past KL Tower, the TV tower that sits in the middle of a stretch of rain forest, and down to KL CC (Kuala Lumpur City Centre) to see the Petronas Towers. Then we rode back to the Malaysian Tourist Centre, and after a short debriefing I quickly had to catch a taxi back to the hotel to check out. The afternoon I spent on the rooftop of my hotel getting some things done that were still pending and to have a quick dip in the pool before dinner. At around ten in the evening, I left for the airport to catch my night
flight back home. Nice surprise: Emirates gave me an upgrade into business class for the flight from KL to Dubai – thank you so much!
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RENanDREW
Ren & Andrew
KL
I have a soft spot for KL but haven't been there since 2014. I'll have to remember some of these places you visited for ideas for our next visit. But now I have a craving for a nasi lemak! :)