When Chris and I planned our ‘big adventure’ I was so excited to be able to see Sara-Sam again and we knew that Malaysia would be one of our destinations. Sara’s family were kind (and crazy!) enough to invite the two of us to their home in Johor Bahru for Christmas which we were so looking forward to. Our first stop however was to be Kuala Lumpur; we were able to get a bus easily enough from Singapore there. In typical backpacker style, we opted for the only night bus option, thus giving us an extra day in Singapore which we weren’t in a hurry to leave PLUS inevitably saving us money on a night’s accommodation.
Our choice for a hostel seemed to be the highlight of the taxi driver’s night at 5am when he took us to what he described as one of the worst areas in KL: “You see those men over there? These are not men, these are women. These are dangerous women. You should not go walking around at night”. Great. From the outside, it’s true, the hostel looked like a completely rundown building. Inside however, we were so pleased that there was a great atmosphere and the staff made us feel so welcome. There was even free toast in the morning!
After a nap on the sofas while we waited to check into our room (one of the downsides to taking a night bus which arrives at 5am) we contacted Sara-Sam who came to collect us from the hostel: “Why are you staying here?!”. Ok, Ok, so my usually excellent instincts for which hostels will be good when booking on the internet site hostelbookers.com had this time failed me.
Anyhow, from our very first day in KL, Sara-Sam truly looked after us. Seeing we were in need of food reserves, she took us to an institution called Yut Kee for some traditional Malaysian food which Chris will describe in full in his gastro guide to Malaysia. We also went to the Bahu Caves which taught us that though Malaysia is officially an Islamic nation, there are so many other influences including Hindu as we saw at the caves.
What struck us immediately about KL was how many different cultures and faces there were. Malaysia is made up mainly by people from Malaysian, Chinese and Indian heritage. Not only is this seen in the faces, but also in the different areas of the city - like in Singapore, Chinatown in a must see; there is also a Little India. This mix of cultures comes out in the food too and we ate a great variety of dishes while we were here, thanks to Sara-Sam who guided us through. After visiting the Baru caves on our first day, Sara took us to the night food stalls of Jalan Alor where we tasted our first Malaysian satayed Chicken and Beef - DE-licious! We tried so much food that day, I though we would pop but soon realised that there was more of this to come during our stay with Sara and her family!
The next day, Sara took us for fancy Dim Sum at one of her favourite restaurants which, weirdly, was located inside a shopping mall! Wow - we tried dishes that we couldn’t order in China due to the language barrier and realised how much we missed out on while we were there. We really needed someone to guide us through the menu as Sara did. What a treat it is to be taken for food by a local - Chris was obviously in heaven. He has taken to photographing EVERY single dish we eat before we touch it so we can remember all these delicious things we’ve tried!
In the evening we tried Banana Leaf rice which - you guessed it - is rice and a variety of curries eaten from the best disposable plate in the world, a banana leaf!
Over the next few days, Chris and I entertained ourselves while Sara was at work. We went to more electronic malls (oh yeah - we love it!), visited a bird sanctuary which secret bird-lover Chris enjoyed tremendously, walked around a number of mosques and also visited a fascinating museum about Islamic architecture and culture where we learned about the Muslim visit to Mecca.
We couldn’t miss out the incredible market on Jalan Petaling street. This market is famous for it’s fakes: from watches to bags to wallets. I must admit that, excluding the watches, the fakes in Thailand seemed better. Back in 1999, my Dad spent quite a lot of time in KL for his job and I’ll never forget him returning home laden with a fake watch each for my Mum and me after each trip! Once, one of them didn’t work and, when a new battery didn’t solve the problem, he took the watch back to the market and asked for a refund! Wary of the reputation I may have as a Bargainous-Burke at this market, I bought only two watches and very hurriedly! Chris bought two very fancy ones too which he was very pleased with.
KL is far more gritty than Singapore (where isn’t?!?) and the traffic is abysmal. Sara puts this down to lack of any town planning whatsoever. There are good public transport systems including a cool monorail which winds its way around the city; however none of them seem to link up very well. The metro only links up with the monorail in a few places meaning that often, the best way to get around the city is by taxi which, luckily for scroungers like us, are cheapish.
We enjoyed our stay in KL and especially loved the new foods we were introduced to. It’s a great city if you want a taste of Chinese, Indian and Malaysian culture. There’s great shopping, interesting museums and some fab Islamic as well as colonial architecture. We were lucky enough to be in Merdeka Square during some kind of annual fete; there was a vintage car show, a marching band and even some crazy motorbike stunts involving the local policemen! Fun!
On Sara’s suggestion, we planned to visit the colonial town of Melakka further down the coast for a few days before Christmas. This was to be our next stop…
No comments:
Post a Comment