Modern and surprising KL!

Our first sight of Kuala Lumpur ("KL" as Locals like to refer to), is the super modern bus terminal just south of the city. Looks actually more like an airport: all arrivals and departures are indicated on digital screens showing assigned platforms and all platforms have their own escalator.

From the bus terminal, we jump on the just-as-modern metro. Yet the system is not so well organised, and it's quite hard to understand which line is which, where's the platform, and how to purchase the tickets.

In most of the city, the metro is elevated like in Medellin

We arrive at our "fancy" hostel right in the heart of town, in Chinatown. It would be the best hostel, if rooms had windows....

Common area of our hostel

Bathrooms of the hostel

Our street in Chinatown

The neighbourhood in Chinatown.

The city and way of life is very western and consumption-oriented. So you find some huge malls preparing for christmas (note that it's more than 30°C, and pretty much no one is Christian...)

Local way to take a picture: don't forget to show your fingers in "V"

Obviously, you still need to make a few changes to adapt the consumption to the local culture....


Just as in Melaka, there is some great street food for unbeatable prices just around the corner. For instance, they prepare these great soups where all the ingredients are mixed fresh into a bowl, and the soup is poured onto it.

The landmark of KL are the twin towers of the state petrol company Petronas, which can be seen from pretty much anywhere in Town as they are 420m high.

Sight seeing in the colonial part of town. KL was founded at the end of the 19th century so there's nothing very old.

Petronas tower as seen from the TV tower's observation deck, 250m

But the best view is a night, directly from below the towers

from KL's equivalent of "central park", called KLCC.

In Malaysia, the words are written phonetically, like on this police station. Taxi is teksi, Restaurant is restoran etc,

Here we found a nice vietnamese restaurant in the heart of the financial center of KL

Here in the "time square" of KL, with the famous "monorail".




We also found a good fancy restaurant, like in Melaka. Here all the menus are very well illustrated, so you dont have to understand a word, just show the picture you'd like to have! The only hard thing, is that it looks so good that you actually would like all of it...

Remote control to order the bill or get the waiter

David