Sunday, November 9th, 2008
4 Days in Kuala Lumpur
Well, actually only 2 full days, I spent most of the other 2 traveling. The flight is only 1 hour, but bus time to and from the airport (at least one hour each way), plus plenty of delays left me with little time to sight see on the those days.
So Kuala Lumpur is pretty nice city. Quite a bit more modern than Bangkok, and less smog. There is a HUGE Muslim and Indian population there, so much so that in the middle of the day you could hear the prayers on the loud speaker. Kind of made me want to take a trip to the middle east and see what its all about. I probably ate more Indian food than Malaysian food (it was easier to find!), which was fine because it was really good.
I mostly did the tourist-y things, saw some buildings and monuments, and a bird zoo. I spent over an hour just walking around a mall, it was at least twice the size of the Roseville Galleria! The thing was enormous, and modern, and there was another one right next door. In the area called the Golden Triangle (tourist/modern center) there must have been 5 or 6 full square malls and shopping plazas. It was overkill, but impressive, and really pretty to look at.
KL was actually more expensive than Thailand, even more expensive than Bangkok. You can find cheap food, and taxis (on the meter) were cheap, but pretty much everything else was almost twice what it cost in Thailand. Not that it was expensive, for a Westerner Malaysia is still a steal. Pretty much any place in Southeast Asia save Singapore will be cheap for Westerners.
Overall I really enjoyed the trip. The city is laid back, but maybe a little too laid back. There wasn’t a whole lot to do there for tourists, but the city was enjoyable enough that I wouldn’t mind living there. Also, almost everyone speaks English. Malaysia only received their independence from Britain about 50 years ago so the English Commonwealth mentality is still around. All of their signs are in both Malay and English, plus they use a Western script for their words so one could presumably learn the basic Malay tourist words in just a few days if they paid attention. I had no problems traveling there at all.
Recommendation – should see, no more than 2 days for KL, but I am sure that plenty of surround cities are worth the trip.
2 Responses to “4 Days in Kuala Lumpur”
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November 9th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
DAD said:
Very interesting, not many people shopping in this country now except for food. I’m interested in your Indian food experience, what did you eat? Certainly is a plus for American travelers to have English written and spoken. Most of my union meetings they don’t speak English, NIT!!
November 10th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Kyle said:
Lol, ya I ate a lot of curry, something called Roti Canai (like Indian pancakes), of course naan, etc. It was what we’d see in the US, just a lot better and waaaayyy sketchier (eating from the side-street vendors, tastes soo much better that way).