We start most days by heading down 35 floors, crossing the pool deck area and up a single flight of stairs and into the gym. Don’t forget to “sign in” to the paper book stationed outside with your name, phone number, tower and room #, or the 5”3”, 60 year old guard will chase you down. We have no idea what they do with this paper sign in book, but we oblige, even though it requires no fewer than 4 swipes of our digital badge to even access this area of the facility. One to enter the building, one to use the elevator, another to access the pool deck and another to enter the gym itself.
The gym is decent, but not spectacular. A few treadmills, decent free weights and enough to get us a decent workout 5 days a week or so. There’s some weird muscle guy there some days, who seems to be making videos for YouTube or something, with his girlfriend following him around with a selfie-stick and smart phone. Whatever, we’re earbuds in, and getting a sweat. We figure out there’s a switch you have to hit to get the AC going or it’s very hot, even in the morning. Outside the window there’s a large pool on the 6th floor deck that mostly features families and kids playing in the pool.
We find a few favorite grocery stores, which have just about everything labeled in English. Getting there requires a 10 minute Grab ride which runs us about $3 or so. The “Mercato” grocery store is in the downstairs of The Exchange- TRX, which is a gigantic shopping center that has several floors of everything. Too hot outside most days, we get our steps here too, strolling through every kind of beautiful store, sporting goods, clothing, luxury and restaurants galore. The place is endless and we also find a favorite lunch spot that has the most amazing chicken dishes for about $5 a person for a very nice meal.
It’s so nice to have grocery stores where we can load up on our favorites, which was more of a challenge in Vietnam. Here you can find everything you’d want and the bill feels like about half what we’d pay back in Seattle. This allows us to eat healthier and manage our costs well with this type of slow travel living. Most days it’s breakfast at home and dinner about half the time. The only thing that’s a smidge more expensive in SE Asia is the price of wine, which feels more like what we’d pay at home.
We soon realize that almost every day, there’s an amazing thunder and lightning storm in the evening, which becomes almost an event for us. From our 35th floor window, we can relax with our slightly expensive glass of wine and watch the show. We’ve never seen so many lightning strikes and huge thunder claps. Sometimes the building literally shakes. The rain falls as hard as we’ve ever seen, but from this view, you get to see it come in from above, and then fall below us towards the street and shorter buildings below. The breeze kicks in right before the action starts and causes the intense rain to almost come in sideways. This is better than TV. The show happens with such regularity that the very few times it didn’t happen, we almost felt disappointed. This also conditioned us to do anything outside in the first half of the day and get back home by 2pm or so.
Kuala Lumpur is full of a seemingly endless parade of adventures to have. Neighborhoods, markets, restaurants, cafe’s, museums, mosques and night life sprawl out before us. We did something just about every day in our month here and no doubt barely scratched the surface. What did seem clear to us was what a wonderful place this is. Well thought out, abundant, fun, affordable, safe, and tasty, to name a few attributes. More than once the words were uttered, “I could live here”.
A few of our favorites:
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MALAYSIA– 2 hours of exploration and learning, that are totally worth the time and really enjoyable. Learn about the incredible history of this part of the world, including back to prehistoric times, to the more recent foundation of the nation of Malaysia. Tickets are only 5 Malaysian Ringit ($1.25 USD) and you get really great insight on the history and culture of Malaysia, walking away with a deeper sense of the Malaysian identity. Our takeaway was how much modern day Malaysia values the harmonious integration of the various cultures that contribute to the country, including various Malaysian ethnicities, Chinese Malaysians and Indian heritage.
SHOPPING CENTERS- The Exchange at TRX, Pavilion, Lalaport, Lot 10 and more…
In a place as hot as Malaysia is every day, these magnificent indoor spaces make the difference. We can’t express how fun these places can be with restaurants, beautiful public spaces, movie theaters, video game arcades and just about everything else. Most importantly air conditioning and shade. The people are relaxed and happy as they stroll, eat and relax, and we are more than happy to join in the fun. We also found great deals on clothing replacements and even vision and medical care. Tim scored a year worth of contact lenses and prescription medication, for a fraction of the price paid back in the states.
Our favorite coffee shop (Swee Lee) was discovered in downtown KL at the Lot 10 shopping center. Adjoining a beautiful music and instrument store, Swee Lee makes a mean iced latte and has slices of many types of cake, that got us more than once. They play American classics, mostly rock and roll and retro pop, that sets a cool mood. Comfy couches and records for sale, they seem to have the retro American thing down pat, totally fun.
BATU CAVES– We take a 20 minute Grab ride from downtown to see the famous Batu Caves. Beautiful temples surround the place, as you make your way up far too many beautifully colored stairs leading up the mountain side into the cave area. It’s hot and sweat is part of the deal. Watch out for monkeys, they’re everywhere. They may seem cute, but they have sharp teeth and are strong. If they think you have something worth taking, they’re quick to snatch it away from you, and we did see it happen. Keep everything inside a backpack and steer as clear from them as you can. Once inside, view really beautiful and remarkable caves, with temples and ancient art inside. The caves drip water down onto the surface below, so you’re going to get wet, although you probably already are if you’ve made it this far. Glad we went, but once is probably enough for us on this one.
CENTRAL MARKET- Downtown Kuala Lumpur features a fun Central Market location, very near to several other beautiful landmarks and attractions. This particular market is different than the mega shopping centers and is more of a cultural heritage site, with a restored blue facade, shopping & eateries, and live music. Explore the stalls of every kind of trinket and get a nice meal or sweet treat. Just a block away, we find one of our favorite outdoor coffee spots, sitting adjacent to the Klang River (River of Life), that runs right through downtown. The city pipes in a cool looking mist for a neat visual effect, right across from the beautiful Sultan Abdul Samad Jamek Mosque. The historical Merdeka Square is just a block over, the location of key historical events in the founding of Malaysia.
KLCC PARK- Just wow, a beautiful park right smack in the middle of the towering vista of Kuala Lumpur, this place rivals the best we’ve seen in San Francisco, New York and Madrid. The water lagoon has fountains that shoot up into the sky in intricate patterns, sometimes set to music and beautiful lighting in the evening. Look up and take too many photos of the Petrona Towers, right above the whole scene.
Now that we’ve sufficiently gushed about how much we loved our time in Kuala Lumpur, we’ll mention some potential challenges. It’s humid and hot year ‘round here and storms hard most afternoons. We adjusted to it, but get used to the sweat and need for AC and shade.
The downtown can be congested with vehicle traffic and transportation slow. Sometimes you’d wait 20 minutes to get a ride share, even though the vehicle was just blocks away. More than once, we’d just cancel the ride and start walking.
Maybe it’s just us, but we both had digestive issues during our time here. We ended up cooking at home a lot to avoid this problem. Great food abounds, but you may pay the price, depending on your constitution.
No surprise, but there’s still “funky Asia” here. Beautiful and modern city, but look closer and you’ll see trash on the streets in some areas, run down buildings and areas begging for improvement. Nothing is perfect and this feels common during our travels in SE Asia.
As our month comes to a close, we both agree we could easily do another, and aren’t in a hurry to leave. But we have train tickets booked to Penang in the Northwest of the country. We’ll arrive in Butterworth and take a short ferry ride into Georgetown, with a week stay planned.
Kuala Lumpur, we very much hope to be back, thanks for 30 good days in a row.
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