First off, KL is not a city I would recommend for an extended holiday. It’s got great markets and a few interesting sights, but it’s a bit grimy without Bangkok’s exotic charm, and modern without Singapore’s cleanliness. I can’t really put my finger on it, but the place struck me as vaguely Stalinist — maybe it was the omnipresent government propaganda-with-a-wholesome-touch, the islamic headscarves or the proliferation of the obviously very heavily planned look-at-how-great-we-are monolithic architecture.
No worries, the city had enough to offer for a day or two of knocking around; after we arrived on the Odyssey super duper luxury express bus (SGD $60, 5 hours from Singapore) — wow, buses have airline food too — we stepped out for some dinner. Unfortunately, we managed to end up passing through Jalan P. Ramlee, the most horrible street ever, on our way to check out the Petronas tower. I guess the staff at the Renaissance figured we wanted to go hang out with other orang putih foreign scum, in the gaudy, neon-lit bass-blaring bars with ladyboy hookers outside. Gah.
Fortunately, we found a brilliant food court right around the corner and had some stellar Indian food (if you’re walking up this street towards the Petronas towers, it’s on the left just after the bars and before the curve leading to the towers.) The towers are spectacular at night and lend themselves to some hilariously goofy photography. They’re right to be well proud of the building, although they could stand to turn down the air conditioning a bit.
Saturday we hit Chinatown for some fun haggling over cheap camera equipment and knockoff DVDs/watches/t-shirts (hey you! You want watch? Good price! Real Rolex!) and Buddhist monks selling trinkets. That was good fun; the central market annex wasn’t so much of a must-see. On to Merdeka square, a big grass space with an interesting palace and mosque next to it, then to the orchid garden, 5 to a cab, to be ripped off by the cabbie. Caveat emptor with the taxis, the meters seem meaningless unless you’re going from a hotel or you’re a real hardass.
The real highlight of the trip was the amazing Saturday night market and the ponggal (Tamil harvest festival) celebrations right out front; I bought a traditional song-kok hat and gorged on various delicacies, and ended up with tons of photos with amazingly enthusiastic Tamil revelers. The Menara Kuala Lumpur (KL tower) was also pretty fantastic; interestingly enough, the view wasn’t as spectacular as I had imagined, but hey, a big city from that far up is going to be cool no matter what. I just wish the random Indian guy who chatted us up about Singapore and INSEAD and god-knows-what would have let me spend more time actually enjoying the view.
Mika managed to hire a private bus for us the next day; our driver took us through the sights of Melaka (not that great, except for Jonker street and a great Chinese traditional mask shop — lots of fun) and a trip back through the hyperefficient Singapore customs. Good stuff for a weekend.
