Well although my stay was short, I definitely packed a LOT in in my two days in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I flew into Kuala Lumpur direct from Hanoi, Vietnam. Upon my arrival, I decided to save some money and be adventuresome by taking the shuttle bus into town instead of a regular taxi. After about an hour, the shuttle came to a stop in Chinatown, where I had booked my hostel. Chinatown is the sort of "heart" of Kuala Lumpur and it is definitely a happenning place. The streets are PACKED with food stalls and shops selling everything from rip off northface gear to fake designer handbags and basically the fake version of any other thing you can think of. (I even saw one guy selling the new Star Trek DVD, which hasnt even come out in theaters here yet.) After navigating my way through the streets, I found my hostel and checked in.
Although my hostel was fairly cheap, I now know that I REALLY never want to find myself on the wrong side of the law. My room was a cement block with a bed and thats it. It definitely felt like I had acted like an idiot one night and found myself in Santa Rita County Jail. Anyway, I decided to roll with the punches and take it for what it was. I deopped my stuff off and set out to check out this MASSIVE capital city.
Seeing as though Chinatown is a sight in and of itself, I decided to start there. I began by searching for a famous Hindu Temple that happens to be located in Chinatown instead of Little India (go figure). Anyway, as I was looking for the temple, I saw another guy with his map out and seemed to be looking for the same thing as I was. Anyway, being the person that I am, I approached him and asked him if he knew where to find the temple. We decided to look for it together and ended up spending the next two days together touring the city. This guy's name is Johan and he is from Denmark.
After locating and checking out the Hindu temple, Johan suggested we do a walking tour of the Colonial District and Little India. I agreed and we headed across town (on foot) and began the tour. We got slightly lost along the way, but it was realy neat to see the old colonial buildings and all of the hundreds of local indian people bustling around Little India in their many colored garmets. After the tour ended, Johan and I decided to come back to Chinatown and call it a night. Before we went our seperate ways on night one, however, we decided to meet the following morning to go check out some famous caves called the Batu Caves which are located just a few miles outside of the city.
The next morning, I met Johan at his hostel and we set out to go find the bus to check out the Batu Caves. These caves are a REALLY sacred place for the Hindu people and there is even a Hindu temple built inside of the main cave. If one were to visit in January/Feburary, they would likely encounter the 1,000,000+ pilgrims that come to these caves to pay their respects during some Hindu festival which's name I cannot pronounce, let alone spell. The caves were really neat and came complete with monkeys that will steal ANYTHING right out of your hand if they are given the chance. I actually saw one grab a coke out of someone's hand and proceed to drink it. (If you dont believe me, refer to the pictures.)
After the caves, we came back to the city and decided to check out the skydeck of the Kuala Lumpur Tower. This tower is located in the business district a.k.a "The Golden Triangle" area of the city and stands 272 meters above the ground. After taking the elevator to the top, we were rewarded with a spectacular panoramic view of the entire city and well beyond. It was a little hazy the day that we went up the tower but the view was still impressive.
After the tower, we decided to fit in one last set of activities and so we decided to head to the Lake Garden district of the city. We decided to have some fun getting there and so we opted to take the city monorail to get there. This monorail reminded me so much of the one at Disneyland, I literally felt like I was going to get off in Adventure Land. Anyway, after we got to our stop, we got off the monorail and set out to find the park. On our way to the park, we came accross the Malaysian History Museum. We decided to check it out and it turned out to be a very well set up museum. We were able to learn about Malaysia's history from the beginning of the earth (Pangea time frame) all the way through their current government structure.
After visiting the museum, we finally made it to the park. After walking around the park for a little while, we decided to call it a day. We headed back to Chinatown and grabbed some dinner before we went our seperate ways. Needless to say, I now have 2 people I can stay with when I make my way to Denmark (and mark my words, that WILL happen!)
Although I only had two days in Kuala Lumpur (and Malaysia for that matter) I definitely made the most of it. Im off to Laos tomorrow so be sure to check back soon to see what kind of wild and crazy adventures I get myself into.
Until next time,
Evan
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