Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
3.1390°N, 101.6869°E

Malaysia wasn’t originally on the list of countries Sarah and I planned to visit. This wasn’t because we had no interest in seeing the country, but rather we knew we needed to force ourselves to prioritize our destinations in Asia.

As we walked through our proposed travel plan with our Airtreks consultant, he mentioned that Kuala Lumpur was on the way from Indonesia to Vietnam and we could stop there for no extra cost. We heard great things about the food and culture in Malaysia and decided that a week in Kuala Lumpur was definitely worth the layover.

We spent the first few nights in Kuala Lumpur at a hotel in the Golden Triangle area of the city, close to the main commercial street of Bukit Bintang. This area is a huge shopping and entertainment district, and massive malls line both sides of the street. If New York and Las Vegas had a baby, I think it would look something like Kuala Lumpur’s Golden Triangle area.

So Much Food, So Little Time

After spending most of March living by beaches, it was something of a transition for us to be in such a big city, especially the city’s most commercial area. While we weren’t excited to spend time in the massive indoor shopping centers, our saving grace was that these malls have incredible food courts. And the air conditioning in the malls was nice as well.

The choice of food in Kuala Lumpur is overwhelming, both in these mall food courts and at the street carts located everywhere in the city. Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Thai and indigenous Malaysian food carts sell cheap and delicious foods. Walking the streets you are constantly bombarded with smells of different spices, curries, fish and meats.

Sarah took a Malaysian cooking class while we were in Kuala Lumpur. She learned about traditional Malaysian food and all of its (many!) cultural influences. The cooking class began with a visit to a market just outside of the city. Sarah learned how people choose their meat, fish, spices, produce and other ingredients in traditional Malaysian food.

Firefly Show

While in Kuala Lumpur we took a shuttle bus from our hotel up to the village of Kuala Selangor. Along the way, we stopped at the Altingsburg Lighthouse overlooking the Strait of Malacca that separates Malaysia and Indonesia’s Sumatra island.

We also – of course – had to take some time to feed the macaques and silver leaf monkeys that hang out around the lighthouse.

The town of Selangor is known for its seafood restaurants sitting on stilts along the Selangor River. It’s also known for its riverside firefly colonies. These are some of the largest firefly colonies in the world, so we decided this was something worth seeing. We had dinner at one of the restaurants on the river before loading onto a boat at sunset to go see the fireflies.

While in Kuala Lumpur we also went to see a traditional Malaysian dance show (and participated), visited the temples at Batu Caves and learned how pewter is made. We explored many of Kuala Lumpur’s neighborhoods including Chinatown and Little India and we visited the Petronas Towers, the tallest towers in the world. We visited a Hindu temple during a celebration of Shiva, ate frog, and got some really good deals on a couple pairs of sunglasses.

There’s so much to see in Malaysia outside of Kuala Lumpur, and Sarah and I were really hoping to get out to see Penang or one of the other Malaysian islands. We ended up opting to stay in Kuala Lumpur, and resting up for the next part of our trip.

One of the hard things we’ve found from our last few months of traveling is that we need time to not be tourists…days and nights when we are okay sitting in our room, catching up on Netflix and eating a pizza. It’s a hard thing to do because we’re in places we’ve never been to, and may never go again. But we forced ourselves to “re-fuel” in Kuala Lumpur and are feeling pretty rested and ready for the madness of Ho Chi Minh City.