So, as we look at our calendar for this year, we’ll be seeking experiences outside of Vietnam. For our first 4-day weekend of the school year, we decided to travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I had spent some time scuba diving on the other side of the country back in 2018, but only stayed half a day in the city as I transited back home.
Kuala Lumpur is a city that is more developed than Saigon, but by no means reaches the level of Singapore. Cars have won the transportation game in the city, with only a few motorcycles sprinkled among them. The city is a healthy mix of native Malay people, with many Indian and Chinese Malaysians that have had generations of their families calling the country home. Tin mining originally brought large populations of Chinese and Indian immigrants throughout the colonial times Malaysia endured. First, the Portuguese conquered the territory. Then the Spanish, then English, then Japanese during WWII, and finally the English again. They gained their independence in the late 1950s. In terms of self-governance, Malaysia is a young country.
Our tradition for the past few trips has been to book an early flight and take our own motorbikes to the airport. Driving in a quiet Saigon, with the wind in your face early in the morning has been a nice way to wake up. We arrived to our hotel in KL around 1:00pm.
Our first stop was Chinatown to grab some local food and head to the Central Market. I had visited the Central Market back in 2018, where I bought a painting for a family member and got my picture taken with the artist. As we were walking past the man’s art shop, his back was turned and he was painting on a huge canvas. Even though I was surrounded by art shops, I knew this was the man who sold me the painting those years ago. As I went in, I told him I had a picture I wanted to check on the cloud to see if was really him, his wife turned on her hotspot for me and it turned out that I was standing in front of the same man. I ended up buying another piece of art work, took a few photos with him, and said I’d see him again in 4 years.
After some more exploring, we went back to the hotel to gear up for a Vespa back of the bike food tour. KL is famous for their street food, so we were paraded around to check out parts of the city dedicated to China, India, and the Malay people. It really felt like we traveled to three different cities during the tour. We learned heaps about Malaysia from our three guides and sampled food from the three cultures.
I’ll highlight a few of our favorite stops, the first being the River of Life. Kuala Lumpur gets its name from the merging of two rivers in the center of the city. The newly formed river feeds out to the Malacca Strait, in between Malaysia and Indonesia. To portray its significance, the city has outlined the river with blue lights and many, many misting machines along its walls. It is a sight I’ve never seen before in my life, truly unique.
In the Chinese quarter of the city, we went to a famous alley way that translates to “Little Demon Street.” Apparently, back in the day, many kids would run around the alley playing all day and their parents would yell at them, but they wouldn’t listen. So to pay homage to those little demons, they named the street after them. Beautiful street murals, historic buildings, and unique fixtures line the small alley. We went back the next morning to grab a coffee at the old post office and walked the alley during the daylight as we liked it so much.
The final stop of the food tour I wanted to highlight was the Malay neighborhood with traditional homes right in the center of the city. They call it the last Malay settlement in KL as the land is only reserved for Malay traditional homes. Many of these homes can glimpse up at the famous Petronas Twin Towers, making each square foot of land worth $1,500 on average. But, as these homes have been protected, developers have not been able to buy out the locals and instead the city retained some more of its roots.
We got back from the food tour after midnight, ending our first night out in KL. The next day, we booked a firefly tour, which would take us an hour and a half beyond the city limits. But this tour would not leave until mid afternoon, so we took some time to walk around the National Mosque (the second largest mosque in SE Asia behind the one in Jakarta) and explored some of the beautiful architecture left behind by the British. These buildings include the current police station and the old railway station.
Later on, we were picked up for our tour. We first went to what could be described as a hill close to the Strait of Malacca. A lighthouse stood on top and black monkeys protected the walkway below. We watched them swing from trees, fight with each other, and balance on whatever they could find as we walked to the top. My overall conclusion from the walk being that monkeys can’t really find a way to get along. That, or their style of play is a bit different from my idea of a good time.
After the monkey and lighthouse experience, we had a nice seafood dinner on a river before heading to the main attraction. Nearby, we boarded a boat on a quiet river at night hugged by jungle on both sides. The only sounds heard were the monkeys playing in the trees and squawking at each other. But below, the bushes lit up like Christmas trees. The area is famous for having the largest colony of fireflies. These fireflies flashed white light very quickly, as opposed to the sporadic flashing yellow light fireflies I’m used to in the US. The boat ride was beautiful, eerie, and unusual. It was worth the trip outside of the city. After the fireflies, we took the van back to the city where we would spend one more day exploring the city itself.
On our final day in the city, we set out to the most popular tourist destination, the Batu Caves. Up about 300 steps sit three caves used by Hindus for prayer. The caves are right in the city, only twenty minutes by car from our hotel in the city center. Guarded by swarms of monkeys, we made our way to the top along with all the other tourists. We only saw one woman get bitten by a monkey on the way, the rest of us were safe.
In the taxi on the way to the caves, our driver told us about one of the caves that has been closed to public for decades. The story goes that a couple went into the cave and were never seen again. They sent search parties, but alas, the search was suspended and they closed the cave, never to be seen by tourists again. On a completely different note about our driver, he claimed he used to be ranked 5th in the world in throwing darts back in the 1990s and he was ranked first in Asia. Upon some research back at the hotel later that night, I found out he was really 95th in the world in the 90s. Now back to the caves…
The cave is enormous, with the ceiling stretching far above us. A few holes allowed some light to shine through, with the Hindu temples providing the remaining illumination. We followed the cave until we reached an opening in the ceiling, with mountain surrounding us. This open air refuge housed the most prominent Hindu temple, where many came to have their head adorned with a white ash. The ash was put on the thumb of the “priest” (not sure what the leader of Hindu ceremonies are and I’m currently sitting on the plane back to Saigon, so it’ll have to do) where he swiped his finger through a candle flame before touching the forehead of the patron.
Once we finished our visit at the caves, we found some lunch at a vegetarian Indian restaurant before heading to the oldest mosque in the city. It sits right where the two rivers converge to form one, so it is surrounded by water on both sides. We put on traditional garments provided by the mosque to cover our skin and had a quick tour before a raging thunderstorm came strolling through. We took cover in the mosque to wait out the storm.
In the evening, the sky was clear from the storm, just in time for our elevator ride to the top of the KL Tower. This tower provides a 360 degree view of the city and the mountains in that surround it. We snapped some pictures and waited our turn to step onto the sky bridge, a clear floor landing that jets out from the platform.
Our final stop of the trip was to a hawker center right by our hotel that we passed each time we came and went. Opening at 5pm, the hawker had about 15 food trucks selling a mix of foods and drinks. As it was Saturday night, a live Malay band were playing. We seemed to be the only ones here that weren’t local people, making the experience a bit more fun. We grabbed some food from various trucks and listened to the band until they stopped playing.
The next morning, we woke up on the earlier side to catch a taxi to the airport. KL and Malaysia are definitely worth a visit for anybody coming to this region. The city and country are beautiful and the people are friendly.