I was in Kuala Lumpur last weekend, my first trip to the Malay Peninsula (which is pretty ridiculous since Johor Bahru is literally about 30 min away by car). But anyways, this marks the beginning of my travels around SE Asia and I’m already trying to figure out where else I can go!

We did a three day trip to Kuala Lumpur or more commonly known as KL. It was about a 40 min flight from Singapore to KL, so it is roughly the distance from Seattle to Vancouver. We got there Friday morning and departed Sunday night which is quite a bit of time in KL since there aren’t a lot of attractions to see but that made the trip more relaxing and low key. We did most of the touristy attractions including the Petronas towers which look like they glitter at night. Unfortunately we did not go to the bridge between the two towers because you have to queue up around 6:00am to get the first come first serve tickets. Who wakes up that early during vacation??

The Batu Caves are a series of caves made out of limestone just north of KL. At the entrance of the caves is a beautiful bronze statue of Lord Muruga which stands at a height of 140ft. We even climbed the 272 steps to get to the top! I had to look up the number of steps later, I’m glad I didn’t know this before because I’m pretty sure I would’ve just stayed at the bottom. At the top are a few temples and statues and paintings of Hindu deities. The cool air was refreshing after that long hike up too 🙂

Other interesting things to notice were the heavy Islamic influences in both architecture and daily life. Since it is an Islamic nation, the dress code was a lot more conservative among the locals. This was one of my favorite buildings. The beautiful building below is called City Point filled with shops, offices and restaurants.

And the contrast between the old and new architecture is always amazing to see.

Our favorite shopping place was a place near Kasturi walk called Central Market. They had a lot of local handicrafts and trinkets to buy such as handpainted batik kites and the overall atmosphere was very colorful and friendly. It helped that the area was airconditioned too!

And of course we had to try the local food. Most of it is found in Singapore but this was hands down the best I’ve had so far. The one at the top is called Laksa, there are a few different varities but we had the Penang Laksa. It is a coconut based curry soup with chicken, shredded fish, prawn paste, thinly sliced onions, cucumbers, chillies, pineapples, fresh cilantro and boiled eggs. It was mostly spicy but getting those pineapples once in a while was heavenly! The one at the bottom is Nasi Lemak – coconut rice with chicken and condiments. The chicken was in a sweet and spicy sauce and the meat just fell off the bone. Delish!