I know it’s spring, but all the spring break travel recaps I’m seeing has inspired me to write recaps of our winter break trip. I keep meaning to these recaps, but I kept getting a bit of writer’s block regarding the Taiwan portion because truth to tell, I didn’t plan that part, so I didn’t quite know how to write about it. Since I’m a little stuck on the Taiwan portion, I thought I’d just start with the Kuala Lumpur recap, even though it was the last part of our trip.
People looked a little surprised when I told them we were going to Kuala Lumpur. I guess it’s not a place on everyone’s radar. It wasn’t on mine either when were were looking for a trip to add to our Taiwan trip. The Husband and I both came to the table with three suggestions for places to visit, and Singapore was on both our lists – it’s easy to navigate, close to Taiwan, and has lots to see and do. Singapore, however, is actually quite expensive. My brother-in-law had once mentioned that Malaysia was one of his favorite countries, so when I read that Kuala Lumpur was a lot like Singapore, but more affordable, I started looking at that. If we had more days to spend in Malaysia, I probably would have also tried to go to one of the beach towns, but since we only had five days, we decided to stick to one location and travel at a slower pace – lots of time to relax, swim in the pool, and wander around.
I will say – of those three things, “wandering around” might not be the best thing to do in Kuala Lumpur. While there are lots of parks and outdoor spaces, the roads are very difficult to cross and there is a lot of traffic. Despite there being a public transportation system, and even though I believe that using public transportation is one of the most enlightening parts of travel, we didn’t end up doing that. For most of our trip we took Grab (their version of Uber) almost everywhere. It was very convenient. And cheap. I think for 5 days in Kuala Lumpur we spent something like $50 on Grabs. The tour guide on our food tour told us that Grab is so cheap and convenient because the government subsidizes the cost of gas.
But we certainly did eat a lot of food. Warning – there will be lots of food pictures in this recap.
We went to Kuala Lumpur (or KL) for five days, four nights. This post will be the first three days.
Day One – Leaving Taiwan and arrival in Kuala Lumpur (KL)
We left our hotel in Taiwan the morning on December 29th. The flight to KL was about five hours long and we arrived at 4pm. The line through customs was very long and a little confusing. The Husband was able to go through the automated kiosk, but since I had the kids, I had to stand in line. After about thirty minutes in line, someone pointed me towards the Family line where there was no wait at all. After we cleared customs, we picked up our luggage and took a taxi to our AirBnB.
We had a slight snafu with booking our accommodations. We had originally booked in a hotel, but the week before, we couldn’t find the reservation and our credit card hadn’t been charged. We ended up finding an AirBnB that was close to where we wanted to stay. It was pretty much an extended stay apartment kind of situation, which was a little disappointing because it didn’t have the housekeeping or breakfast that are convenient when we stay in a hotel. But the place was clean and spacious, with a kitchen, and there were enough beds for everyone and there was a pool, so it was a fine place for us to stay. And, there was a view of the iconic Perdana Towers out our window.
By the time we got to our Air BnB, it was maybe 7pm. I will say, we are not good “arrivers” when we travel. The day we arrive in a new country, we are always discombobulated and cranky and incapable of making decisions. This almost always manifests in us being hungry and at the same time unable to find anything to eat. So this first night, we couldn’t pin down a place for dinner, and decided to go for a walk to explore our neighborhood. We ended up at My Family, which is a 7-11 type convenience store, where we got wraps and sandwiches and instant noodles to take back to the apartment. Not the fanciest first meal, but it got us fed and we could all go to sleep.
Day Two – Exploring KL on foot, and Food Tour
To start out our second day, we decided to explore on foot. Here’s the thing we quickly realized – even though things look close on the map, they are actually quite difficult to get to. The roads aren’t always straight, and many of the roads are four lanes of traffic and crosswalks/ traffic lights are spaced out rather far apart, so it is a little difficult to get from point A to point B. But it being our first full day in KL, we thought it was an okay first way to explore. One of the good things about walking though, is we passed a street vendor selling the Malaysian National Dish – nasi lemak (steamed coconut rice with cucumber, peanuts, spicy sauce, and in our case quail.) This vendor also sold tasty sweet fritters and other street foods. We ended up buying something from this stall every day we were in Kuala Lumpur. We found out later on that the regulations on street vendors have been loosened since 2020 because people were hard hit by COVID so the government wanted there to be fewer barriers for people to make money.
We walked to Bukit Bintang, which is known as the central hub of Kuala Lumpur, known for high end shopping and ample street foot. We ended up at the very pink Opera Cafe for lunch, an adorable restaurant that felt very fancy.
After lunch, we browsed the bookstore at the mall then wandered around the area some more. KL is very busy city and it was almost overwhelming, all the hustle and bustle and foreign languages being spoken. We stopped for some yogurt cubes – an interesting frozen treat.
We bought tickets for the hop on hop off bus tour that we would take the next day, and also made a stop for some fresh fruit juices. We tried all three flavors: watermelon, lemon/lychee and mango. The lemon had salted plum in it, one of my favorite drink add ons. All the juices came with handy little carrying handles, which I thought was so smart!
It was mid afternoon by this point, so we took a Grab back to the AirBnB to rest. The kid wanted to check out the roof top pool, so we went up for a few minutes:
The big event of the day was the Sambal Nights Food Tour. A food tour is one of our family’s favorite things to do when we travel. I try to book one for our first day in a place – I find it is a good way to orient ourselves in a city, gives us some of the history of the place, and the food keeps the kids engaged. We took a Grab to the meeting place and met our tour guide Cash. He was such a knowledgeable tour guide and willing to answer all our questions about life in KL. There was SO MUCH food involved, and all of it delicious. One of the most interesting things about Malaysia is that it is the intersection of Malay, Chinese, and Indian people and cultures, and the food very much reflects that.
(Side note: On that international note, Cash told us that when kids are in elementary school, they are given the option to learn another language, either English, Mandarin, or Tamal. I thought it was so interesting that Cash said the idea is that kids are given the chance to learn the language of their parents. It’s such a different mindset then I encounter in the U.S. where people are alarmed if kids don’t learn English and choosing a foreign language is about learning something different rather than connecting with one’s roots. Little insights like that are what make traveling to foreign countries so fascinating to me.)
The first stop was a walk through the local market where we saw stalls for fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood, spices….
After the walk through the market, the food tour took us for our first stop where we had noodles and roti. While waiting for our food, Cash brought out all the fruit that he bought at the market and we tried them all. I love fruit, so this was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole tour.
Pictured above was only a sampling of the fruit we had – Mangosteen, which is banned on public transportation because the skin makes a deep purple stain. This was very sweet, juicy and chewy. Rambutan – kind of like a lychee on the inside. The kids really liked this one, with the fuzzy pink exterior. Snake fruit – I had never had this before, and I really liked it -you peel aways the scaly exterior (hence the name) and the inside is light and crunchy. Not pictured, but we also had durian, which to my palette was not as stinky as people like to say.
After the fruit, we each got a chance to try our hand at making roti. The man who instructed us in roti making makes 400 roti a day. 400!!! Watching him make roti is like watching a magical dough ballet. My roti flips were no where near as elegant.
Friends, there was SO MUCH food on this tour. I can’t even document it all. There were steaming bowls of noodles. Fried street food. Mango smoothies.
And this isn’t even all the food that we had. The food tour lasted four hours and by the end, our stomachs were stuffed and we had learned so much about Kuala Lumpur. The food tour ended at the base of the Perdana towers at around 10pm, and from there we took a grab home and collapsed into bed.
Day Three – Hop on Hop Off Bus and New Years Eve
I had a read that a Hop on Hop off Bus was a good way to see a lot of the city – the KL Hop On HOP Off Bus had over twenty stops. You could just ride the bus to all the stops, or your could get off, do some exploring and catch the next bus to continue on the bus route.
The first stop we got off at was Central Market, a building that was built in 1888 as a wet market and today is a arts and crafts market. A friend of mine had recommended it to me as a nice place to find souvenirs. We stopped at a batik stall and looked at all the beautifully skilled batik pieces. Here the kids each picked a prepped screen and tried their hand at batik painting. These paintings are one of our favorite souvenirs that we brought home and now sit in our sun room.
Next stop on the Hop on Hop off Bus tour was Little India. The family loves Indian food so we thought this would be a good place for lunch. The moment we got off the bus, I was wrapped with the sights and sounds and smells of India. Well, I’ve never been to India, so I can’t say for sure, but the architecture, the Indian music, the smell of spices and food – it was all such a different world.
We had lunch at a place called MRT1924, a vegetarian restaurant the served South Indian Food. Very tasty:
Then back on the Hop on Hop off Bus. Our next stop was the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia.
The Islamic Arts Museum of Malaysia was on a lot of lists of “must see” museums in Kuala Lumpur, and I agree. Coming to Malaysia, I hadn’t really thought about how Malaysia is a Muslim country – I had never visited a Muslim country before, and I didn’t know what to expect. The wonderful thing about this Museum is that they really highlight the intersection of the Islamic and Asian. There were quite a few exhibits on the history of migration to the area, which I found fascinating. And then there were lots of displays that highlighted how the Muslims who came to the Malay peninsula influenced the culture. For example, batik fabrics that feature Islamic designs and writing – I was in awe of how skilled the batik was:
Chinese Islamic calligraphy:
There was also a huge display of models of mosques thoughout the world. I found this part facinating – how there are basic elements that all mosques have, but each country/culture puts their own spin on things:
We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon at the Museum and then took a Grab back to our apartment. As always, the kids wanted to go to the pool, so we had some more pool time before going to dinner. I have to admit that I was a little leery of the rooftop pool since I don’t like heights. I stayed away from the outside edge of the pool and kept to the shallow end. Even still, there is something really cool about being in a pool so high up, that it gives the illusion of extending into the horizon.
After pool time, we grabbed dinner at a restaurant that was just next to our apartments. We had burgers and fruit juices and the Husband ordered a super spicy yet delicious goat curry.
Afterwards, what with it being New Years Eve and all, we decided to stay home since everyone said that it would be a madhouse in the City. Fortunately, our apartment had a great view of the firework display at the Petronas Towers, so we got to watch those. We don’t usually watch fireworks – they are often too late and too loud – so this was a special treat for the kids to be able to stay up and watch them from the comfort of the apartment.
After the fireworks, we went to bed, but there continued to be smaller firework displays throughout the city that I could see. I marveled at how back home fireworks were very regulated, so aside from sparklers, the only fireworks one could see were the displays put on my the city or county.
And that was our first three days in Kuala Lumpur. Lots of food, and sensory overload as we took in such a multicultural teeming city. We had two more days in the city and more adventures to come!
Have you ever been to Malaysia? What are your “must dos” when you travel? Do you like to watch fireworks?