» TRAVEL DIARY: KUALA LUMPUR
Let's start by saying that Malaysia is a beautiful country. The flight, however, was a nightmare. Or rather that the hours spent on the airplane was a nightmare.. How do people fly to Australia?
We stayed in Kuala Lumpur for five days. When we first arrived, we checked in (duh) and everyone fell asleep immediately because of the time difference. Hello jet lag!
I don't know how long I had been sleeping, but I had the weirdest dreams that day - and I never dream.. By then it must have been around 1-2 pm, and someone (thanks dad and Mona) had brought us all McDonald's. When everyone had eaten and showered, we decided to stay close to the hotel and walk around. We ended up in Pavillion, which is a shopping centre where we just walked around, and then ended up having dinner at the centre. I've never had Malaysian food before, and I had a chicken-veggie-rice dish. That's basically when I decided to go vegetarian for the rest of the trip.
On the way back to the hotel, which was in 'Bukit bintang', there were multiple fruit stands with exotic fruit, and we decided on the coconuts - hello pretty Instagram pictures. But, it was too hot and humid and the coconut water was warm.. The following morning we had kept the coconut in the fridge and it was delicious. I mean, warm coconut water isn't really my thing.
The following day we went to 'China town'. It was very cool. We had dragon fruits - sooooo good - and walked around, where we eventually met a group of Malaysian girls that study tourism. They had a school project where they had to ask a couple questions with tourists, and we ended up chatting with them for a bit.
We went to a beautiful mosque, 'Masjid Jamik' and then found a Malaysian market (?) very close to it, so we ended up walking around there. They had beautiful Indian sarees and traditional Malaysian clothes.
Since my cousins wedding was coming up, we decided to look for dresses there, with no luck. I think people started feeling sad for us, because they suggested that we go to this huge department store called 'Sogo' - didn't find anything there either, but the area was beautiful. There was this "street-stage", where a band was playing music and anyone could walk up and sing.
We also went to the 'Petronas towers', took a bunch of pictures and went to the shopping mall inside of the towers for dinner.
On the third day we went to 'Seyelang Hot Springs', 'Kanching Waterfalls', 'Batu Caves', birdpark, 'Thean Hou Temple', and 'Little India'. Saying that it was a long day is an understatement, but we didn't stay for long at each place.
The hot springs were cool. I've only ever been to one other hot spring before, so it was definitely fun to experience. The waterfalls, however, were amazing. The view was breathtaking and the waterfalls were of 7 levels. This was the first time we met monkeys (during the trip), and we were told to hold on to our items, not wear hats, keep our sunglasses close and not look them in the eye. The "smaller" monkeys were nice, but the "bigger ones" weren't.. There was another school girl with a project. This time it was about our encounters with the monkeys. Very interesting.
The third stop was the Batu Caves. It is a popular Hindu shrine, with 272 (!) steps. Talk about a massive workout. There were monkeys everywhere.. When I say everywhere, I mean everywhere.. They would attack, try to get your water, and just straight out annoy people all the way up the stairs. It took me forever to get up the stairs, but it took me longer to go down.
The bird park was fun. Birds flying everywhere, flamingos, owls (I love owls), and other very interesting species that I had never seen before (I'm no bird expert). Many bird selfies were taken that day.
Then we stopped by the chinese temple. It was very light and airy - so refreshing because of the very humid day. I got a not-so-good fortune, which basically told me I would fail in everything.
The final stop for the day was 'Little India'. It really was like how I imagine India to look like, but much smaller. Music playing on the streets, colorful clothes everywhere, henna and Indian food. We had, for the first time for 3 days, amazing Indian food, that was served on banana leaf - so cool. Then we got henna done and went to the hotel. The day didn't end there. We showered, changed and went to Pavillion again for dinner.
On the fourth day we went to the central market. We walked around and had Malaysian sweets (if anyone knows the name of these, please comment). We realized that we weren't too far from 'Merdeka Square', so we walked (all the way..) and went into this museum (?), took pictures and acted all tourist-y. Fun day. Can you guys guess where we went after? To Pavillion! That day I found a dress for my cousins wedding. Fun day indeed.
On the fifth day we went to 'Mega Mall' (as suggested by a nice taxi driver), so the rest of the family could get clothes for the wedding. There was a market inside with traditional Malaysian food, which actually turned out to be delicious - so spicy though! After a few hours well spent, and a Krispy Kreme donut later, we went to the 'Menara Tower'. By now we were exhausted, so we refused to walk up to the tower (uphill.. Sorry mom), so we decided to walk (!) to the 'Petronas towers'.. My legs have never been as toned before.
We found this beautiful area behind the towers, so if you ever visit KL, make sure to go to the park.
I think you guys can guess where this last day ended - Pavillion! (Well, outside of it, in McDonald's - so fancy)
Kuala Lumpur was great. It was enriched with different cultures and religions, and everyone seemed to be understanding of one another. People were friendly and helpful. Definitely worth a visit.
On day six we went on a bus to Singapore - more about that in another post.
xox,
Laila
Trackback