Blown Away by Kuala Lumpur

---

The air distance from Yangon, Myanmar to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is 1,023 kilometres. We were able to buy airline tickets for $23 per person. After all additional baggage fees, surcharges, and taxes were added in, the grand total still came to only $65 each. Go figure.

In past years we have passed through Kuala Lumpur several times. I spent one day years ago passing through by train when travelling with Tanner, and was not left with any particularly good impressions then, and Stan and I have since landed at the KL airport terminal on at least four occasions to wait for connecting flights. We decided this time to make a point of visiting this city.

What an excellent decision that was. We spent five days exploring, and have both come to the conclusion that of all the cities we have visited, it takes the prize on a number of levels.

One of those categories would be the city's transit system, our first introduction to which was when we arrived from Myanmar at 1 a.m. In the morning and easily found an Air Asia bus shuttle service available to us for a minimal fee, which transported us for an hour to the KL Central terminal just five minutes away from our hotel. Over the course of the next few days, we discovered and frequently used the "Hop On / Hop Off " bus service to get around downtown, which was easy to access and was completely free . This was the first city of the twenty nine we have visited in Southeast Asia that offered free bus service. In addition to the shuttle and free bus services, there were several other city bus and sky train options to make it easy for its citizens to get around.

In terms of cleanliness, it appeared as clean as Singapore - which is reputed to be the world's cleanest city - but unlike Singapore, we did not notice signage everywhere stating fines of varying severity for littering, which might suggest that there is a respect for the environment? Whatever it is, we noticed it in all parts of the city and surrounding countryside and it was impressive.

On the level of city planning, once again stellar. We walked through spacious, meticulously clean, air conditioned walkways that went for kilometres and connected three different shopping malls, the Twin Towers and Parks, and again, nowhere did we notice any signage about littering. The walkways were open from early morning until 11 p.m. daily.

As for the malls that we saw, wow. We had previously reported being overwhelmed by the high end shopping mall we visited in Bangkok. In KL, we visited at least two such high end malls where the only stores on six levels were designer shops - although admittedly we did not notice a store front for Bentley's or Porsches as we had on the sixth floor of a shopping mall in Bangkok. We also visited the largest electronics mall in Malaysia, six levels of any kind of electronic device imaginable, and two other mid-range / normal malls that held seemingly thousands of shops that went on forever down a variety of endless corridors. As for the mall street layout, the sheer magnitude of the advertisements had me feeling a bit like I was in New York Times Square - although I have yet to go there. ( Incidentally, there is an Times Square in KL )

Then there are the Twin Towers. Astonishing. Everything about the high tech design was impressive, but it was particularly cool to have your introductory talk delivered by a woman via hologram. It totally felt like a scene from Star Trek! We were able to go up to the eighty third floor only, but on the way up we stopped at the fifty third floor to spend some time on the bridge that joins the two towers. Interestingly, the bridge is not permanently connected to the two towers, as it is designed to be able to move as needed for environmental adjustments. Once on top, we each experienced some slight dizziness, as we were told we might, because the top levels were designed to sway as well to adjust for earthquakes and wind, being designed to withstand winds of up to 160 km per hour. Going down, we descended all eighty three floors in less than thirty seconds, which was just crazy. No lies, I counted. Amazing. But so much of the architecture in this city is. Skyscrapers are designed so creatively, often combining Asian, Islamic, and Western influences.

The Chinatown District, where we stayed, was by far the cleanest, prettiest Chinatown we have ever seen.

And of course, as always, the people. Given that English is the second language in KL, it was always easy to find someone who could understand some English. But in terms of attitude, which is always the most important, people everywhere would try and help us, whether or not English was their language.

We have many times said how much we love Bangkok, and we still do. But KL, in our opinion, surpasses even Bangkok as the most accomplished, impressive world class city we have visited - even though it falls sadly short in the live music scene.

---

Photos

The Tallest Twin Tower in the World
The Twin Towers held the title as the world's tallest building for a number of years, but that title now belongs to a building in Dubai. However, it still retains the world title as the world's tallest twin tower.

View from the Top
The "small" tower visible in the background is the KLC Tower ( Kuala Lumpur Telecommunications Tower), which is about thirty stories, I believe.

Star Trek Moment
This was our introductory guide for The Towers tour.

The Bridge Connecting the Towers
We have just arrived on the fifty third floor. Note that this guide is a real living, breathing person.

The KL Towers Park
This is the back entrance to the towers, where we discovered another huge high end shopping mall, as well as the massive KL park. The city has lots of green space throughout.

KL Towers Shopping Mall
Nothing but designer stores. No, we did not bother shopping.

Air Conditioned Walkway
These went on for great distances, and went off in more directions than we did. We spent forty five minutes walking through these one day and could have continued a lot longer.

KL Tower Entrance
This is the cityscape from the front entrance.

City Centre
Shopping, etc.

New York City Feel
As I said, I haven't even been to New York, but this definitely seems to resemble the images we have seen watching the ball drop on New Year's Eve.

More downtown KL.
Whether it is New York or not, it is still big, clean, spacious, and impressive.

Entering Pavillion Shopping Centre
This was our first mall downtown, decked out in full celebration of Chinese New Year, the Year of the Horse.

All Dressed Up
Chinese New Year was on Feb 1. Unlike back home, here the celebration carries on for a month.

Merry Go Rounds, Horses, and Chinese Lanterns
There were hundreds of little horses in the mall foyer, but the Chinese lanterns were everywhere.

Chinese Lanterns
This was the street our hotel was on.

Shopping In Chinatown
This street also backed on to our hotel. Always busy, protected from rain, and very clean.

Our Sweet Hotel Decor
So we stayed at a hotel called The Swiss Inn, in the middle of Chinatown. Go figure. But the decor was definitely Asian, as you can see. And how delightful to find a hotel decorated In the same colors as our home? Guess we aptly selected our Asian color palette.

City Nightscape from our Hotel Window
It was awesome to have this view every night. If you look closely at the lanterns below, you can also see the shoppers strolling by.

Delicious Food in Chinatown
This was just one of many food options in Chinatown. This was a street fondue and grill. You selected your food item, and took it back to a boiling fondue pot at your table to cook yourself, or you could have it barbecued. Each stick was colour coded with a given price, so the bill was tallied without any paper, just counting the sticks.

Chinese Hot Pots
Another delicious street food option was the hot pot, boiled to perfection and delivered to your table. A typical dinner of all we could eat, along with a large beer, would set us back maybe $10 CAN.

Thank You KL !
All in all, our six days here were excellent. Great food, great city, great people!

Comments

[Janet]

And no Tanner to steal from Stan's fondue!!!!