We originally planned to visit Cambodia right after Indonesia, but there was no direct flight connection. That’s the reason why we decided to turn a 10h layover in Kuala Lumpur into a 110h layover and discover the city a bit.
Mega City
Kuala Lumpur – what a big city. It’s super impressive and fascinating. The skyscrapers, the highways, the shopping malls – everything is too big.
Our flight from Yogyakarta to Kuala Lumpur was a bit bumpy and we arrived around noon at the airport. Its quite easy to get from A to B, but costs are similar to Germany.
We planned to stay for four nights and explore the city a bit.
We were quite unprepared. We didn’t know too much about the city, but thats ok. We will find our way through the urban jungle. How hard can it be?
Infinity Pool
Our apartment was very nice. Since we started our trip, this was first time we had a bedroom, a living room and a kitchen only for the two of us. The Apartment was a bit outside of the city center and in one of the many skyscrapers. In total 39 levels! And the most cool thing ever: with an infinity pool on the 39th floor!
The bad thing was that the whole building was full with apartments for short term rent, a hotel and too many AirBnBs. I think you can guess it – the pool was super crowded. Especially in the evening. And I totally understand it, the view from the pool is more than breathtaking.
We decided to try the Early-Bird-Tactic the next morning. And it was worth it. Only some people, impressive skyline and sunrise over the city. Just stunning and surreal!
Arctic Air Condition
On our second day in KL we just strolled around the city. And used our aimless slack time for checking out some malls and discuss what we need and want to buy. KL has too many shopping malls. Its just too much. And the weirdest thing, they cool the malls down like crazy. The two of us were literally freezing every time, when we entered a mall (or public transportation for that matter). I think that’s not healthy at all. And I can’t imagine, that anyone likes it this cold. Especially if its around 30 degrees hotter outside.
Anyways, we really enjoyed the feeling, to be back in a first world city and to have so many shopping options (Birkenstock, Vibrams, Bodyshop, …).
In the evening we discovered the street food market in Bukit Bintang. Very touristic, but also a good selection of different kinds of food. And we ended up drinking our second beer on our trip in a nice, quite expensive pub. They had one of my favorite beers from tap, so no possibility to not do it. Tipsy and happy, we made our way back home.
Batik is something for hippies
I always try to learn or do something new. This time I organized a silk painting or also called batik workshop for us. It was surprisingly relaxing and fun (even for Mo). Highly recommended to everyone. The process itself is really easy: you put some kind of liquid wax on silk, let it dry and then you just fill it with colors of your choice. It’s strangely hypnotic to watch the colors running around on the watery silk. It took us around 2 hours for a smaller beginner piece.
In the end the result was okayish, but nothing really sophisticated. To be honest I enjoyed the process more than the final result. But now we have a nice souvenir to send home.
Our time in KL was very limited. So it was not possible to find all the good street food places by our own. Thats the reason why we organized a street food experience with someone living in KL. It was such a nice and educational experience. And we ended up walking trough china town and enjoyed the skyscrapers at night.
It was too hot in my brain
Unfortunately I caught a cold on our last day in KL while shopping some new shoes. The arctic air-conditioning finally got me. So we had this super nice apartment in a stunning city, and I was sick, sleeping a whole day and trying to reduce high temperature. It felt so bad. Mo, cooked me some vegetables and bought me chamomile tea. But I felt too bad to eat something.
I also was super afraid of having fever on the day of our departure. First, because I’m afraid of flying while being sick. Secondly, I was thinking that the Cambodian border control might not let me enter their land, because they will think that I have some tropical disease.
Additionally, I was really woozy from the heat in my head.
Another thing which I recognized while I was suffering: Normally, if you are on vacation and you get sick, you try to survive it with some medicine, so that your able to continue traveling. Because its such a limited time and you can take a rest if you’re back home – only work would be waiting ;).
But now it was something different, because we don’t go back home so soon. We just gonna continue traveling. It doesn’t make sense retarding it, because it will catch you even stronger. So you need to rest during traveling and get fit again. Lesson learned!
Even though my fever was mostly gone, the way to the airport was super exhausting for me and I was more than happy that Mo helped me with everything. I was too weak to help myself.
It was kind of sad that we only were able to use 3 of the planned four days to discover KL. But it was such a wonderful and impressive stay anyway. The cultural mix from all the influences by Indian, Chinese, Indonesian, Malay and many more creates such a colorful and vibrant city that one could easily spend weeks there.
Kuala Lumpur, it was a pleasure to meet you and thanks for all the new impressions.
For a few more awesome pictures see our gallery or check out our Instagrams: Katja and Mo.
