I must admit I somehow expected more from the Malaysian capital. Never had a clear idea about KL in my head, but the bits and pieces of information I'd heard and the images I'd seen formed a rather loose vision of a great bustling city.
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It is a city, that part I got right for sure. It is even bustling. Now that I've been there though, I don't think I'd necessarily call it great. However, I met some amazingly cool people in there, so my memories are of the best sort. It was the beginning and the end of the Asian leg of my trip.
I was there only for one evening before going to Indonesia, basically waiting for my flight to Bali the next afternoon. I arrived from Cairo and met up with my CS host, the one of a kind Mun, in a train station in central KL. It was a bit rainy and we headed to Mun's friend's Indian restaurant for dinner. We were joined by another CSer and Mun's mother and enjoyed all the unbelievably delicious things that my host had ordered for us. We were just four and the food would have been enough for a little army - all you can see on the table in front of us..
Unfortunately, by the time the food arrived, I was already in a lot of pain - my stomach was acting weird, to say the least. It was the first and the last time I've felt that way during any of my trips and I'm still not sure what the reason was. I think it might have had something to do with the awfully fatty and oily food I had just before getting on the plane. Or maybe it was because of those freshly squeezed juices I had on the market in Cairo? I made sure they didn't add any water but somehow the fact that they had ice cubes in them escaped me...
I somehow sat through the dinner and managed to get to Mun's place in one piece. I thought that would be the end of my night but after a while, just as suddenly as the pain had come, it was gone. We enjoyed some laughs and went to grab a snack from the street vendor at around 3 am. One of the things I loved about that part of the world - you can get good food there at any time of day and night!
The next morning I had a bit of time before my flight, so we went for a little sight-seeing session.
Of course no tour of KL would be complete without the Petronas Towers and their Sky Bridge.
Unfortunately I didn't get to go inside - somehow didn't get the part where you could only get a ticket to go up after queuing at 6 am..
Kuala Lumpur is a good place if you wanna go shopping, no doubt about that. The first time around when I went to the mall beneath the towers I didn't really see it as anything special. But I have to admit that after having spent almost a month backpacking through Indonesia, coming here on my first day back in KL was most pleasant. So much luxury (and a bakery!!!) in one place was nice for a change.
The second time around I also had a bit more time - almost 3 days to spare. Was staying with another CS host, Faisal, a bit further away from the city center. In a really nice modern building, in a flat with a bath tube which at the time seemed like the biggest luxury of them all..!
As Faisal wrote in his reference on my CS profile, I made him play tourist in his own city - we went around a bit, walked to China Town (which again, wasn't really anything special) and wandered on its market, full of kitschy souvenirs and cheap clothes.
In the evening we went to meet with Mun and his friends, where I got to meet Zak, thanks to whom we'd have a fun-filled day at the KL Tower and in the Batu Caves, and Chloe - a crazy Australian I became friends with, to later meet her in Bombay and hitchhike together to Denmark from her home in Berlin.
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On that evening I also got to taste falooda for the first time. A fact and a taste I'd forget for a long time, until one day I had a kulfi falooda in India and totally fell in love with it.
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My last evening in KL was spent over a delicious Korean-Indian-Malaysian dinner Faisal took us out for:
Afterwards we met with Mun and Zak, to later go for a small photo shoot with the beautifully lit PT in the background. Chloe had some amazing pics but apparently she lost them somewhere along the way, so all I have to show for the night is this one capture..
We later danced the night away on the club street, where we were also joined by Isaac, who was such a darling, he offered to give me a ride to the airport the next morning.
All in all, KL is home to some lovely people I wish and hope to see again in the future, but not a place I'd feel the need to visit again otherwise, although I'm sure there's more to it than meets the eye.