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Summer adventures to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur – Adventures in KL

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Travel Plus: Adventures in KL
Summer adventures to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur

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With me refreshed, and breakfast in my stomach, its time to explore Kuala Lumpur. For this, I’m using my Touch and Go card (with KLIA Eskress tickets on it).

I started off with that Monorail again (there’s an article in this somewhere, before transferring to the KL Rapid to head toward Chinatown.

Kuala Lumpur
Urban Kuala Lumpur… and the KL Tower. We’ll come back to that much later. Say in the next segment of this trip report… 

A short walk, and you can start telling the Chinese influence quickly.

Kuala Lumpur

A turn, and I was in Petaling Street – the heart of Chinatown. And as usual, in places like this – keep your wits about you, your bag close – and your eye open.

a sign on a building

a street with people walking and people walking

 

a group of people standing outside a food stand
Soy milk shop was doing a roaring trade.

a man shaking hands with another man in a market
Business is business.

a street with red lanterns from the ceiling
a man walking down a street with a store in front of a building

As I was here during the day, traffic was more subdued than in the evening.

people walking down a street

There was of course, a lot of street food.

a food stand outside at night a man cooking food in a market  a man in red shirt cooking food a man walking past a food stand  a colorful umbrella in front of a building

a fruit stand on the street  a man selling food on a cart

a barrel of beans being cooked
That’s how you cook chestnuts

And of course, this area is good for tourist tat. Not that I brought much from here 😉

a table with a sign on it

and the joy of daily life.

a man pushing a cart with boxes
My attempt at a Kai Wong style photo. 60% there – but I need an old lady pushing a trolley for the proper Hong Kong effect.

a man carrying a large box on his back
It’s amazing what you can stick on a back of a bike…

KL
I’ve found my ideal bike since I have a crap sense of balance. A Four-wheeler bike. Don’t think I could strap a server on it though.

a wall with drawings on it

Sadly, it seems there were others around – namely the joy of beg-packers, with someone who was clearly western trying to blend in and playing an instrument… along with an Instragram link. Guess what – I’m not giving him any publicity. If I travel, I try to stick a planned budget and have a back-up plan to get out.

To me, beg-packers give a poor impression travellers who should know better, but are almost preying on other tourists or locals to fund their trip.

And that’s just wrong.

I headed onward – this time onto the Central Market. Whilst aimed a lot more at tourists than locals, it’s pleasant to walk around. And also… there’s air conditioning.

Aircon is important people.

a group of people walking in a market
The outdoor market.

a man standing behind a display of coconuts
Coconut anyone?

a coffee station with a sign
I swear I’ve seen this coffee brand somewhere before…. or something resembling it…

a man selling fruits at a market
Fruits…

a group of people walking in front of a building

Let’s wander inside. There’s a lot of arts and crafts shops… as well as those who will sell any sort of tat.

a store with shelves of food
Famous titbits. 

a display case with various items a display case with hello kitty bags and purses
Kitty Chan wants in. 

a store with a display of jewelry       a store with clothes on swingers a display case with food on it
Wait… am I in Malaysia or Japan?

Passing onward the Central Market, I headed to the tallest flagpole in Malaysia – where the Union Flag of the United Kingdom last flew, and where the Malaysian flag was first raised.

And this proved to be fun as the SEA Games 17 were having a rehearsal in the area.

a building with a bell tower

 

a building with a circular fountain

a group of people walking in front of a building
Nothing like going around scaffolding…

a flag on a pole
Tall flag pole – check

a building with a large archway and flags
Panggung Bandaraya City Theatre

a building with a white roof
Masjid Jamek Sultan Abdul Samad Mosque

After exploring the area for a bit – I decided to head to the main shopping area… primarily as I was getting nibbily. And as much as I like street food, food courts are always good too. And they’re air-conditioned.

What did I say about aircon people? It’s important.

I headed back to the Rapid KL – and after going the wrong direction, I was back on the Monorail… going the wrong direction.

KL

I don’t know what was going on with my brain, but oh well…

a white building with a blue dome and a blue and gold dome
Although I passed the Masjid Jamek Sultan Abdul Samad Mosque…

a building with many towers
And a Hindu temple…

Eventually I ended up in Bukit Bintang, and wandered around gazing at the retail.

a group of people outside a building

There was a lot of celebration of the SEA Games too.

a group of small orange tiger statues a group of small orange and white tiger figurines

a water fountain with a flag in the background

As well as random blue screens of death.

a screen shot of a computer screen
Oops. 

In places like Malaysia, Singapore or anywhere that is remotely hot in the world with high humidity – there’s one thing to have nearby – and that’s a bottle of water. Thankfully, bottles of water are cheap – and when there is a 7/11 to use and shop from – it’s time to get a bottle of water.

a bottle of water on a table
I won’t lie – by the time I left the 7/11, this bottle was 3/4 empty.

Ending up indoors, I wandered… and found a food court – where food was cheap. And I mean cheap. There was a hot plate place that looked interesting – so I chose that.

a table with a menu on it

I went for a dry chilli chicken hot plate – with an egg on top. I got a pretty big meal for that.

a plate of food with a egg and rice
Seriously – that was a big plate 

So in the UK – if I could find this, this is easy a £7-£10 dish. How much was it here?

a receipt on a table
9.90 Malaysian Ringgit.

So what does 9.90 Malaysian Ringgit convert into? At the time of writing:

  • GBP £1.75
  • EUR €1.98
  • USD $2.34

In terms of dining cheaply, you can’t go wrong.

My travels continued to take me onward – this time I skipped taking the Monorail any further around KL and switched to the free buses operated by GoKL. Just look for a pink bus. At Bukit Bintang, the Green line was of interest – as it took me towards the Petronas Towers.

And this was a scouting mission as I was thinking of coming back here later.

a tall building with many windows with Petronas Towers in the background
The Petronas towers

However, my plan A was knocked back when I returned later – as the observation deck was shut the one day I was there. Commence swearwords, and plan B.

I tracked back to the hotel to get a fresh t-shirt on, and head out to my next stop – the KL Tower.

Overall: Exploring KL is easy if you’ve got a Touch’n’go card – or use the GoKL buses – and I covered some distance with these with the Monorail, RapidKL and the GoKL buses. A copy of Google Maps, some data and a sense of wonder also help too.

Next: I go up the KL tower – because…there’s a tower!

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Comments

  1. CraigTPA says

    Amazing the way you seem to be able to load anything on a Honda Super Cub and it seems to casually shrug off the laws of balance. James May described it as the “Greatest Vehicle Ever Made” in terms of impact on the world. Don’t know if I’d go quite that far, but it is incredible how useful they are.