A Day In Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
After my scuba diving adventure at Sipidan, I flew back to Kuala Lumpur for my international flight onwards for the post diving part of my month long southeast Asia trip. I did spend a day in Kuala Lumpur before flying out which is what I wanted as I’ve never been to Malaysia before. However, since my flights were very early in the morning, I chose to stay at an airport hotel rather than in the city so my day to tour the sights was a bit shorter plus I didn’t want to be getting heat stroke in the Malaysian daytime temperatures. With this time constraint, I prioritized Batu Caves and the iconic Petronas Towers with a lunch stop at the Jalan Alor food street.
Batu Caves
Since I wanted to get to Batu Caves early in the morning before the big crowds arrived, I took an early train from the airport into the main train station KL Sentral in Kuala Lumpur and then another train directly to Batu Caves which is a series of caves in a steep hill just outside of the city. These limestone caves have Hindu temples and shrines built inside but to reach the main entrance of the first cave, there’s a set of 272 steps visitors must climb from ground level. There is also a giant statue of the Hindu God Murugan that is over 140 feet high at the bottom.
Before I entered the caves, there are some other Hindu shrines and artifacts at ground level which I took in. One was a pleasant pond which was quite peaceful. I did go inside one of the shrines too where it was as colourful inside as outside.
I took it as a personal challenge to climb these steps all the way up which is another reason why I wanted to get there early so I wouldn’t have to do this in the Kuala Lumpur midday heat. I did make it up and the caves inside were a welcome relief from the heat outside being a few degrees cooler. Of course I took my time exploring the interior caves where the Hindu shrines were since I was in no rush to get outside in the heat again. There were also several monkeys on site much like at the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
Petronas Towers & KLCC Park
After Batu Caves, I made my way back to the main city train station and took a MRT to Bukit Bintang which is the main tourist shopping area of the Kuala Lumpur. From the MRT station there, I walked over to the KLCC Park which is a nice green space right in the middle of the city with unobstructed views of the iconic Petronas Towers. This entire area was quite upscale and developed although I was starting to get a bit hot.
After getting some nice photos and video footage of the Petronas Towers, I walked to the MRT station where the Jalan Alor food street was nearby. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the food stalls were still closed as I later learned from the waiter at the Chinese restaurant on the same street that was actually open told me that things don’t really open until night time. But at least I still had food there with a nice stingray lunch although I would have liked to try out different food stalls.
I wasn’t planning on spending any night time hours in the city due to my early morning flight out but in hindsight, perhaps I should have since the transit systems between the airport and city center were so efficient. I should have stayed in the city longer to experience Jalan Alor food street at least when it opened up in the early evening and catch the Petronis Towers at night with it is totally lit up. Of course I would have had to figure out a way to spend the afternoon hours in a cooler environment since the outside temperature was getting too hot for me. I ended up having my evening dinner at the airport terminal which in itself wasn’t too bad at all because there were actually many interesting food outlets right there at the terminal, the most I’ve seen at any airport in fact.
I did observe something new for me on the MRT system for the first time on any of my travels. Some of the train cars were reserved for female passengers only with certain areas in each station platform indicating so. The waiter back at the Chinese restaurant told me that about 70% of Malaysia’s population now is Muslim due to a Chinese exodus in past years. So even if Malaysia is quite diverse with Malay, Chinese and Indian communities, the majority Muslim population obviously had the effect on how the MRT transit station works.
Overall, from my experience transiting from the airport into the Kuala Lumpur city center and back, I had a fairly good impression of of this big city. This city reminded me of Jakarta in Indonesia which is also a primarily Muslim Asian population but Kuala Lumpur was less dumpy as I didn’t see as much garbage piled up as I did in Jakarta. The infrastructure is more developed in Malaysia which is not surprising since it’s next to Singapore. I’m glad I had this opportunity to finally visit Malaysia.
