Kuala Lumpur: City of Green



On our way home from Thailand at the beginning of the new year, we decided to embark on a short detour and finally check out Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We had frequented the KL airport on the way to numerous destinations, but had never taken the time to scope out the city. For our short near week of exploration, we stayed in the luxurious Hotel Istana in the downtown part of Malaysia's capital city. It was time to earn our many Malaysian passport stamps.


The Hotel Istana's lobby featured a fancy bar area and music each evening. Kuala Lumpur shares a similar colonial past as most other major cities of SE Asia, subjected to British rule well into the 1950's, and also a Japanese occupancy during WW2 like Jakarta.


The hotel also featured a very nice courtyard, an excellent place to share our breakfasts together.


One of the more delightful architectural achievements to gaze upon in KL are the sky-high Petronas Towers. For six years after their construction in 1998, these towers were the tallest in the world. Several other more recent buildings have surpassed them since including one in Taipei and another in Dubai. That's Dre in the photo. :)


However, the best part of visiting the Petronas Towers for us was the park below it known as Taman KLCC. Featuring seemingly hundreds of big toys as well as water sprayers and pools, this lush green park had us visiting and revisiting each day (especially upon Pea's insistence).




We liked this park! It was walking distance from our hotel and totally free!


50 acres of greenery made for a very pleasant escape from Jakarta.


KL was a also much more walkable metropolis than other SE Asian cities we have visited. We noticed many people came out at night to walk or run the track around KLCC Park. With noticeably cooler temperatures and an illuminated vista, our own evening stroll was extremely pleasant.


We were also pleasantly surprised to see some interesting graffiti art adorn many of the allies we passed through.



As a result of the colonial movement coupled with globalization and its strategic location for transit, this green city boasts a very international vibe much like Bangkok.  We took full advantage and ate some incredible food at a cheap price, including this Middle Eastern feast. It was just as nice on the way out of my stomach too!


Also like Jakarta's Indonesian-Chinese population, there is also a large Malaysian-Chinese population living within KL. Unlike Jakarta, however, the 1.7 million people living in KL seemed to be much more manageable. In other words, it did not seem crowded or polluted in the least.


While Mama Dre started her winter quarter of college online, Penelope and I sneaked out for a day trip to the Batu Caves, a Hindu odyssey which followers have been visiting since the 1800's.


The limestone caves in the background are said to be about 400 million years old, and the temples and statue in the background are dedicated to a Lord Murugan. Murugan, of course, is the Hindu God of War. His brother is Ganesha. That would be cool to have an elephant brother. Sometimes I envy Murugan.


The Batu Caves feature many different options for travelers. You can choose one route which takes you deep into the caves where you can view rare spiders, and other creepy crawly insects and arachnids rare to this area of the world. However, with Pea in mind, we decided to avoid anything potentially scary and walked about the Mahabharata and Ramayana themed caves instead.


This is the giant, Kumbakarna, from The Ramayana, totally trippy to see in the dim lighting of the caves.  In the story, Rama ends up defeating him and his brother, which is good because I love happy endings.


Only a 25 minute taxi outside of KL, the Batu Caves are a must stop for any trip to KL.


Best part of our trip? Family time in the hotel, ordering room service and eating in! Kuala Lumpur gets our seal approval...especially with the decently priced wine options. :)

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