Hot and Steamy in KL

6 July 2010 Author: Rachel

We are really getting a feel for KL! Or should I say, it is infusing our pores with its diesel soaked humid air. And what can I say – I like it! We started off early today in hopes of making it to the Lake Gardens, Chinatown, Merdeka Square, and Little India, with a quick stop over to get Nick one of those doughnuts he saw yesterday. Our first stop was to the “sentral station” to purchase tickets on the overnight “jungle train” we will be taking on Wednesday (7/7) to Kota Baru. After that we wandered over to Lake Gardens – a large forested park – and were instantaneously lost. Luckily, this area houses the National Mosque which was relatively easy to locate because it is a very large building.

On arriving at this beautiful umbrella domed building, we saw that it was open to visitors! Because I was inadequately dressed, I donned a very stylish lavender hooded cape and was allowed to view the outer portion of the mosque.

From Kuala Lumpur

We had a very nice tour and learned a few things about Islam. The most interesting to me -- which has nothing to do with Islam specifically-- is that they had posters up with a family tree showing how the Torah, the Bible, and to Qur’an are all reporting similar stories and are actually one story. But of course every group thinks they are correct. Why can’t they all just get along? Anyway, those hooded capes are pretty hot, so we moved on to Chinatown.

Walking from place to place in KL is not the easiest task. It appears as though you are heading in the right direction and then you hit a six lane street with no crossing in sight. There are two choices in such situations: one is to walk up or down the street until you find a delegated cross walk or pedestrian overpass while the other is to wait for the right moment and RUN!!! Both methods work fairly well, though one is safer than the other.

After a longer than expected walk, we made it Jalan Petaling, the main street of Chinatown. This covered pedestrian street is full of Luis Vuitton, Prada, etc. etc. knockoffs. The side streets are packed with dark food stalls, meat and vegetable markets, and other random shops. This whole area is saturated with a strange mixture of delicious and disgusting smells. After eating a yummy spicy noodle dish, Nick and I made our way up to Little India via the Central Market and Merdeka Square. At the edge of Merdeka Square we discovered that there is a giant fountain made of sculpted carnivorous pitcher plants! Nick and I rested on a bench by this fountain for quite awhile, so long in fact that we were videotaped as part of some game show…? Trying to escape the video cameras, we made our way to Little India. This area was similar to Chinatown, however it appeared to sell more practical items and was less touristy. We were pretty tired at this point and began thinking about heading back to the hostel for some rest.

Before making it back after our 7 to 8 mile trek, we stopped at the doughnut shop and Nick got himself a German chocolate doughnut - I was happily drinking an iced coffee from The Coffee Bean. By the way, KL is a very diverse city where the integration of Asian, European, Middle Eastern, and American cultures have produced delicious food, outdoor markets, tall buildings, clean streets, packs of motorbikes, and more shopping malls than I have ever seen!

Highlights? We went in our first mosque, I saw my first “wild” monkey roaming the streets, and I learned that I really like Persian kittens.