Welcoming in 2019 in KL

From Kuching we flew to Malaysia Peninsula and Kuala Lumpur. Our flight was a bit delayed so we didn't arrive at our accommodation until about 4pm. Before leaving the UK, we had booked everything up until New Year, thinking things would be pretty busy at this time of year. We wanted something a bit special for New Year and so booked a hostel with a rooftop infinity pool and a view of the Petronas Towers. This did not disappoint! And all for £10 a night - bargain!

After checking out the apartment complex and nearby shopping mall (complete with Christmas petting zoo!), we headed to Chinatown. We saw the Jamek mosque, although I couldn’t go in as I didn’t have my head covered, and the new River of Life exhibit at the confluence of the two rivers. We then wandered over to the market, where there were lots of stalls selling clothes, leather bags, wallets, shoes as well as fruit and dinner options. We found a little hawker centre for dinner, and enjoyed watching the staff operate in what appeared to be a pretty chaotic manner!

The next morning we woke to a particularly stunning sunrise across the city, a great place to have breakfast!

I don’t know whether it’s because we were staying on the 27th floor of a tower block, but my overriding memory of Kuala Lumpur is going to be visiting tall buildings to get a view over the city. While we avoided the Petronas Towers due to it being new year and so probably ridiculously busy, we did go to the Menara Tower.

Although shorter than the Petronas Towers (421m compared to 452m), the viewing platform at 276m is actually higher as it’s on a hill. I wasn’t brave enough to go to the higher level and step out onto the glass bottomed box, but it was still useful to get a 360 degree view of the city to get our bearings. It was also air-conditioned and had a lift, both of which we were grateful for as KL was incredibly hot and humid and our legs were still(!) sore from the Mount Kinabalu climb.

On the same site as the Menara is the canopy walkway, a series of very rickety bridges in amongst Malaysia’s oldest protected jungle. I was very proud of myself for adventuring out onto this, particularly as many of the slats were broken!

From there we wandered around the backpacker district of Bukit Bintang, mainly to scout out a good place for dinner that evening. After a quick pitstop for some seriously tasty onigiri from a nearby Family Mart (particularly the chicken rendang flavoured one!), we then jumped on the metro to the Tun Abdul Razak Park to visit the KL Bird Park.

The Bird Park consists of four zones, two of which are under a giant canopy which lets the birds fly around freely. There were loads of peacocks and it must have been mating season as the males were displaying their feathers and trying to impress the females, many with little success!

There was a rich variety of birds to see, the only negative was the actions of a small number of visitors being extremely disrespectful, for example trying to feed their paper leaflet to the emus. I was so angry, I confronted the man, although he played ignorant, saying he didn’t speak English.

The third section focused solely on the hornbill, Malaysia’s national bird. It’s a bit like a toucan but the most famous one has a third part to its bill that points upwards. Finally the last section covered parrots and flightless birds. Overall it was nice to wander round and see so many exotic birds we’d never heard of before.

By this time we were pretty hot and bothered so headed back to the hostel to cool off in the rooftop pool (and rest the aching legs - five days later!!)

That evening we headed back to Butik Bintang for dinner. We’d been told about a Helipad bar which we tried to get into but the queue was huge and not moving so instead we went to a craft beer place round the corner, where James was very much in his element! For food, we went to Jalan Alor, a long street full of food stalls. We headed to a place at the end of the strip, renowned for its chicken wings. Luckily we weren’t too hungry as it took an hour for the food to come, but it was worth the wait and gave us another chance to people watch.

Our final day in KL, we took a Grab cab with a German guy called Lucas from our hostel to Bato caves, just north of the city. This is a Hindu shrine set in limestone caves at the top of 272 brightly coloured steps. The colours on their own were incredible to see. However, the most interesting part of the visit was to the Dark Caves, an hour tour into the heart of the caves. We learned about the bats, spiders and centipedes that live in the caves as well as the limestone formations (stalagmites, stalactites, flowstones etc), which I particularly enjoyed.

We explored the Chow Kit market area for lunch before crashing at the apartment to plan the next steps for our journey north the following day.

As it was New Year’s Eve, we returned to the craft beer bar to pick up some drink for the evening. However, we thought we’d try our luck with the helipad bar again beforehand and this time there was no queue! However, we didn’t stay too long as there was a thunderstorm heading our way so we thought it best not to be on the top of a very high building next to some DJ electrical equipment. We did get great panoramic views of both the KL skyline and the storm before we left though!

We had toyed with the idea of heading into the city centre to see in the New Year, but there was a nice crowd of mainly English and German people in the hostel so we decided to stay there and watch the fireworks over the Petronas Towers. We played cards, danced around to some very cheesey music and even watched a bit of Dinner for One, a classic English skit shown every NYE in Germany since the 60s, although never shown in the UK!

Overall, I didn’t enjoy KL as much as Singapore. This may have been due to the heat and humidity, the fact that it was a bit more spread out and hectic, or the fact that my legs still hurt from climbing the mountain and there are a lot of steps! That said, it was a fun place to visit for New Year and I’m glad we spent a couple of days here.

We’re currently on a rather comfortable bus up to Penang and George Town. I’m looking forward to getting back to a smaller town and trying some local speciality dishes. Happy 2019 everyone!