Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Coming off Singapore, which set pretty high expectations, I knew the rest of SE Asia would probably only go downhill from there in terms of Westernization and cleanliness. Time to get into the chaos of Southeast Asia!

Getting to my hostel and around Kuala Lumpur was quite easy as they have a very convenient train system to use to get around. Sometimes it's just easier and more entertaining to walk around though so that's what I did the first day. In order to avoid the mid-90s temps that hit the city every day I was there, I headed out somewhat early to a nearby park and lake to get back into nature and away from the crumbling, dilapidated buildings around my hostel. The time spent there was worth the buckets of sweat as the whole park was green and full of flowers and different animals - even a deer park.

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Perdana Botanical Gardens

Both full days I had in KL I decided to take a rest around midday and head back out a little later on to get some dinner and stroll around. I knew one of the nights I wanted to catch the sunset, and views over the city just before and after sunset, since the skyline has quite a few skyscrapers (and many more in the construction phase including an 800+-meter tower according to a security guy at the KL Tower). The first night I walked over to the KL Tower and was contemplating using my ticket to head up to the 300-meter observation deck when the sky opened up and unleashed on the city. That made my choice easy! I waited about thirty (30) minutes for the storm to clear, took some pictures of the Petronas Twin Towers at night, and then called it a night.

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Downtown KL

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Petronas Twin Towers

I knew one day I needed to get up to the Batu Caves which turned into more of a hassle than I thought due to rail station construction. Instead of hopping on one (1) train to get to the caves it turned into a short train to a free shuttle bus to a different train line that took me out there. Thankfully their signs are in English as well. The caves were something different to see, but I only needed about 90 minutes - the same amount of time it took to get to the Batu Caves - to explore the cheap and free ones which included some lovely steep steps for one of them. Monkeys were all over the general area as tourists fed them or they stole what they wanted. There were also other activities they took part in several times that I'll skip over. Quite the interesting experience overall.

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Batu Caves

After returning to the hostel and avoiding the midday heat again, I ventured out to the KL Tower to take in the views and sunset which didn't disappoint. As it seems with most skyscrapers or tall viewpoints these days, the KL Tower had two (2) glass-bottom overhangs to see what a 300-meter straight down view looks like - just a little bit different than looking over the side of a 100-meter wind turbine for the record. Mission complete and time to start the real chaos of Thailand!

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Views of and from the KL Tower

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