Trip Summary:

Dates:    November 15 – 19

Year: 2017

Main Language of Country:   Malay

Transportation Used:   Car, MRT (Train)

Currency: Malaysian Ringgit (MYR)

Accommodation: Family Home

Number of Photos Taken: 577

Favorite Place: KLCC Gardens

Strange Foods Eaten: Chicken Satay, Nasi Goreng

Tap Water Drinkable: Not Sure (We drank bottled water but brushed our teeth with tap water)

Capital City of Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur

Population of Malaysia: 31.2 Million

Visiting Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Everything You Need to Know About What to See, Places to Eat, and Things to Do

After Vietnam, we caught a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a few days. Our motivation for visiting Kuala Lumpur (or KL as the cool kids call it), was to visit family, so any sightseeing that we did (which ended up being quite a bit) was just a bonus. It’s always great visiting a place and spending time with people who have lived there for a while as it creates a totally different experience. Where you stay, the places you eat (like our favourite, Nasi Goreng for breakfast), and the areas that you visit are usually not the same as they would be if you were visiting by yourself.

A few things that we noticed in Kuala Lumpur is that it is a very sprawling city. It seems to extend forever and there are a lot of tall apartment buildings and towers, but with exception of the downtown area, it never feels very dense. The second thing was that there is a majority population of Indian and Chinese in KL….this means a lot of the food is based around these populations, which makes for some really good eating.

Where to Stay in Kuala Lumpur:

As we were visiting family in KL, we ended up staying with them. Because of this, I have no advice on where to stay, but my favourite two websites to use throughout Asia are Agoda and Booking.com, so you can use the two buttons below to take you to them.

Things to Do in Kuala Lumpur:

We only had a few days in KL and weren’t able to visit outside of the city. While KL is a fun city to explore, it’s not really a highlight and I have a feeling that there are a lot of other areas of Malaysia that would be better to visit. If you have a few days in KL, however, here are a few ideas of things to do:

Explore the Old Downtown:

For our first morning in KL, we hopped on the train and took it to Masjd Jamek to do some exploring around downtown.

TIP: The train system in Kuala Lumpur is fairly easy to use, but connecting all of the different lines and transferring between them can sometimes be confusing. You can get a Swipe and Go card from the ticket office of most train stations for around 12 Ringgit (MYR) and then you add funds to it as needed. In our two days in KL, we used around 30 or 40 MYR each.

There are walking tours that you can do to go through this area of the city, but we decided to wander around ourselves. We mostly roamed around aimlessly and checked off places as we saw them. These places included Chinatown, Merdeka Square, Jamek Mosque, Sultan Abdul Samad Palace, Maybank tower, and Petaling Street.

In this area of downtown, you can see a distinct contrast between the old buildings and the shiny new ones which you don’t find in a lot of cities and makes it quite interesting to explore.

Near the train station of Masjd Jamek, you might run across some cartoon statues scattered around a small area. These were done by a cartoonist named Lat and they depict comedic parts of daily life in KL. I’ve tried to mark the rough area where you can find them on the map at the top.

We ended up eating lunch in downtown KL at a small Indian food buffet place. You walked in and pointed to a few different pots that they had behind the counter and made your best guess as to what you were eating. We also had Pulled Ginger Tea which is a must if you find yourself in Malaysia!

Batu Caves:

After exploring the Old Downtown, we hopped back on the train and headed to Batu Caves. The caves are on the very edge of the city, but there is a designated stop on the train which makes it very easy to get to (the stop is called Batu Caves).

It’s currently free to enter the caves, although there was a bunch of construction going on in the entrance and middle of the caves which might have been the beginning of some sort of ticket booth to collect fees for entrance.

There is a humongous statue called Lord Murugan at the entrance to the caves which make a good photo spot for sunset too, especially if you wait until the sun goes down and it starts to get dark.

Then you climb the stairs and enter the caves themselves. There is one big chamber that you walk into, and at the far end is another set of stairs up that takes you to a temple. The temple sits underneath a big opening in the ceiling of the cave so you can look up the tall green walls all the way to the sky above.

Batu caves are home to a group of monkeys as well which you can watch climbing all over the stairs or walls of the caves.

TIP: As we were at the caves near sunset, we decided to eat dinner there as well. As you are leaving the caves and walk down the main stairs past the tall golden statue of Lord Murugan, you’ll see a small Indian restaurant across the street. We ate here and had the Banana Leaf which was really good and highly recommended!

Spot an Asian Biker Gang:

On our way to the airport at the end of our time in KL, we were stopped at a light and from behind us came a huge group of guys on motorbikes. It’s not quite a biker gang like you might picture from the movies, but instead it was a bunch of Malaysian men on small little street bikes with no mufflers. As the light was about to turn green they all started revving their engines and making all sorts of noises.

Some were wearing cow and rooster outfits which made the whole thing even more bizarre. The closer we got to the airport, the more guys on bikes there were all around us which made it feel like they were escorting us. Apparently these bike gangs are quite common so you might even be lucky enough to see one for yourself.

Spend the Day in KLCC:

On our second day full day in Kuala Lumpur, we headed for KLCC, a large mall in the heart of KL. Getting there is really simple and you just take the MRT to the KLCC stop, which might mean switching train lines at a few stations depending on where you are in the city.

Unless you’re a shopping fanatic, however, the mall isn’t where you’ll want to spend the day. Instead, you can head to the gardens behind the mall where there is a pond and fountain, pathways and benches through a park, a wading pool, and a really good view of the Petronas Towers.

Also, along the edge of the gardens is the KL Aquarium which costs 69 Ringgit to enter. We had planned to go to the aquarium, but didn’t have quite enough cash to enter and weren’t able to find an ATM so decided to skip it. It is supposed to be a good aquarium, however, with a glass tunnel that you can walk through with sharks swimming all around.

Get a Photo of the Petronas Twin Towers:

The twin Petronas towers are one of the iconic buildings of Kuala Lumpur and the view from KLCC is hard to beat.

We ended up spending a lot of time walking around the gardens behind KLCC trying to find cool views of the towers for when sunset came around. Here are some picture of the best views that we found. I also made a quick map above with the all of the spots listed on it.

You can also head around to the front of the Petronas Towers to get a view from the entrance way where there are some more pools and fountains.

TIP: I had planned to get up high and try to get a view of the city from above. From my research, I heard that the best view was from Traders Tower which you can get to from the gardens of KLCC. We decided not to because they have a strict dress code and all that we had were half-clean shorts and tee-shirts after 6 weeks of travel.

Conclusion:

So if you happen to be planning a trip to Malaysia and have a few days to spend in Kuala Lumpur, then you’ll definitely be able to keep busy in the city. I wish that we had more time to explore more parts of the country, but we’ll leave that for next time!

Malaysia was our last stop in South East Asia before we headed back to New Zealand to spend a few weeks with friends and packing up before heading home to Canada for Christmas.

If you haven’t already, check out the rest of the trip from the beginning, starting with Singapore.

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