Kuala Lumpur In Less Than 24 Hours

We checked into our rooms, which we were very pleased with.  I had booked us a Family Room, which turned out to be two identical rooms, each with a queen bed and private bathroom, conjoined by a door in the middle.  It was cute, clean, and comfortable.  We were only spending a night, and this was perfect.

We settled in and decided the most convenient place to find food would be the Berjaya Times Square mall.  I think it might have been close to 4 PM, and we hadn't had anything to eat since we'd snacked on the train.  We went inside to look at our options when we ran into an Asian family of five with luggage looking just as lost as we did about an hour ago.  See, this mall is truly confusing!  And all the confusion that we had gone through just to get to our hotel however, was not behind us.  Like I said, this shopping center is 10 stories high.  We walked around and saw a ton of shoe stores, but no food and no directory.  My mom asked a young woman working a cell phone kiosk where all the food was, and she recommended we go to the fifth level.  So we went up one escalator after another until we reached the fifth floor to find what?  More shoe stores, and not a single food establishment.  I'm pretty sure she heard us right, and that we heard her say the fifth level.  Or maybe we were just blind and way too tired to circle the floor for food.  Was this to be obstacle #3?  The choice was now do we continue to go up, or go down to the first floor where the information desk is?  We decided on the latter, found a directory, whose Lower Ground Floor appealed to us, and made our way there.

The Berjaya Times Square mall still remains a mystery to me.

It wasn't long before we plopped ourselves onto a cozy, red booth at a place called Sweet Chat Cafe.  They had an eclectic menu, a cozy vibe, and we wanted nothing more than to relax and enjoy our first meal in KL.  The young lady who served us wasn't the friendliest, and her Malay was very hard to understand.  Not only did she speak incredibly fast, but she had a slight Indian accent.  In fact, her speech reminded me of the way Trinidadians speak from when I worked in Trinidad in 2007 (that's another story for another day), a mix of Creole and Hindi fused together to produce Malay -- it's hard to explain; you just have to hear it.  Anyway, we ordered our food and a round of exotic iced drinks, which for the most part was very tasty.

Smoked curry beef noodles

Malaysian fried rice with chicken

Hands down, the best dish of the night: nasi kunyit, or Indonesian rice with coconut & turmeric served with the most delicious chicken cconut curry.

Sahara went with a non-traditional plate of scones, bread & jam, and rice ball soup. This was a dessert shop after all.

A rice ball filled with peanut -- this was fun to eat!

A mango slush with coconut & black grass jelly and 'Blue Ocean,' which tasted like sprite and peach

While we ate, we talked about the things we wanted to see afterwards.  On the itinerary I put together for Kuala Lumpur, I had listed the following attractions: See Little India and the Petronas Towers, go up the KL Tower for views of the city, eat at Jalan Alor, KL's famous street food, shop at Central Market for batik & handicrafts, see Masjid Jamek, KL's oldest mosque, visit Petaling St. in Chinatown and the brand new shopping center, Pavilion, that just opened.  Because time was limited, we only ended up visiting the Jamek Mosque and the government buildings near it, saw the Petronas Towers and stopped by the Suria KLCC mall at the base of the Twin Towers.

Somewhere along the course of today's confusion we somehow acquired a KL City Map, which is absolutely necessary whether you're a first-timer or a repeat visitor to KL.  It has a list of all the tourist attractions, shopping centers, and 3-star and above hotels, as well as 2-star and below hotels.  It tells you where all the bus terminals are and it's got a huge, colorful diagram of where everything is located in the city.  It even breaks down the transit rail system, which we all found a bit confusing.  This map would have been so useful when we were looking for our hotel. 

We love anything to do with architecture so we decided to start our exploration of KL with a visit to the Jamek Mosque and save the Petronas Towers for last when it's all lit up at night.  Because tickets to the Towers' Skybridge are given out every day at 830 AM on a first come first serve basis, there was no rush in getting to the Towers.  We were content with the idea of admiring the Towers from below.

The Jamek Mosque is conveniently labeled on the map as a station on the Kelana Jaya (formerly Putra LRT) Line by the same name, so we got back on the Monorail at Imbi, switched onto the Ampang Line at Hang Tuah and took it to Masjid Jamek where both the LRT and Ampang Lines meet.  It was only 3 stops, and cost very little to ride; though all the trains were very congested.  It was early evening, and many people were trying to get home from work.  The Masjid Jamek station is underground.  Once you exit the station, the mosque is right across the street.  However, we had to make our way through a busy food market before we reached the photo spot below.

Masjid Jamek, KL's oldest mosque

Great self-timer shot, courtesy of Sahara

We then walked our way back through the busy food market to get closer to the mosque, but were stopped short by a security officer who stood guarding the entrance to the mosque.  He literally ran over to us while waving his arms shouting, "No!  No!  No!  Tidak boleh masuk," which translates to "You cannot enter."  Because we weren't dressed appropriately, we understood and just told him, "Iya Pak, enggak apa-apa.  Kita hanya mau ambil foto," or "No problem, Sir, we just want to take some pictures."  He calmed down and allowed us to take this one shot (above).  Though the mosque has a pretty neat Moorish design, it is rather dirty and tired-looking.  I understand it's more than 100 years old, but still ... it could use a little cleaning. 

Near the mosque is the Sultan Abdul Samad Building, a Moorish-designed government building that houses other government departments.

Sultan Abdul Samad Building

You may notice all the buildings in KL are sporting the country flag.  In fact, everywhere we looked in KL had the country flag up, and that's because Malaysia's Independence Day was just days away, on August 31, which celebrates Malaysia's 55th year of freedom from the Brits. 

We then walked across the street to a water fountain that caught our eye.

 

You can see the KL Tower & the Petronas Towers behind me.

We continued walking passing Merdeka Square and the Royal Selangor Club.  Merdeka Square is where the Malayan flag was hoisted for the first time at midnight on August 31, 1957, and has thus been the site of the annual National Day Parade ever since.

Merdeka Square & the Royal Selangor Club

From Masjid Jamek, we took the Kelana Jaya Line all the way to KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Center), whose station is also underground.  You walk up a long stairwell and the moment you emerge from underneath and look up, you can't help but be completely spellbound by the ginormous, brightly lit towers above you.  It is spectacular.  We sat outside and stared at it in silence.  This is Kuala Lumpur's beloved icon.  Everything you want to know about the Petronas Towers is right here.

The world's tallest twin towers

Imagine working at an office here every day.

The KL Tower

Above is the Menara Kuala Lumpur Tower, or as the locals call it, the KL Tower.  It's a telecommunication tower home to the highest viewpoint in KL with an antenna that's 1,381 feet tall .  It has over 2,050 steps, where races to the top are held annually, and a revolving restaurant with a birds-eye view of the bustling city below.  Click here for the views.  How many rooftop pools do you see?  We didn't get the chance to go up the KL Tower, but when I return to Kuala Lumpur, it will definitely be on my list of things to do, along with all the other things I didn't get to!  It's almost like going to Paris and not up the Eiffel Tower.  It's something that I think one should do at least once in their life. 

We ended the night with some boba (of course!) from the mall, Suria KLCC, nearby.  This mall is pretty high-end shopping with luxury designer labels like Chanel, Prada, Gucci, etc. ... we skipped the shopping and went directly to the food court, where we reflected on today's highs and lows. 

Suria KLCC Mall

Getting home was quite an adventure.  We thought we could take the Kelana Jaya Line from KLCC to the Dang Wangi station, where we'd switch lines and hop onto the KL Monorail, which would take us home to Imbi.  We had paid for tickets all the way back to Imbi from KLCC.  When we implemented the route we thought we could take as I had just explained above, we were denied an exit at Dang Wangi station.  In other words, the token security machine upon exiting the station beeped out loud when we tried to scan our tokens through.  Normally if you want to hop from one train line to another, you just scan your tokens, exit, get on your connecting train, then ultimately deposit the tokens at your last point of exit.  It didn't work this way at Dang Wangi.  It wanted us to deposit the tokens.  But had we done that, we would have had to pay for additional tickets to Imbi, which we already paid for.  We held on to our tokens, asked the ticket agent behind the booth what the problem was, and could not understand a word she said.  It just didn't make any sense, so we were temporarily stranded at Dang Wangi station.  Why couldn't we switch over to the KL Monorail?  Dang Wangi connects to the KL Monorail.  We stood there and thought for a minute.  Great, this was obstacle #4. 

The only other solution was to continue down the Kelana Jaya Line all the way back to Masjid Jamek where we were earlier, change trains there by hopping onto the Ampang Line, get off at Hang Tuah, then hop the KL Monorail back to Imbi.  Essentially, this route is just going backyards from the way we came today.  Although this route sounds more complex, at the end of the day both routes had a total of 6 stops.  The route we wanted to take was more of a zig-zag, while the route the trains allowed was more of an open triangle.  It all worked out.  Our tokens were scanned and welcomed at Masjid Jamek as well as at Hang Tuah.  We were reluctant at first to approach the security exits but when they didn't sound, we knew we were in the clear.  Just one more stop till we were home!  And needless to say we made it back to Imbi where we deposited our tokens, and walked back to our hotel where we slept soundly.  Tomorrow, at 2 PM we will be on the ground in Indonesia.  Check back for stories from the Spice Islands!