KL
Trip Start
Nov 22, 2011
1
16
20
Trip End
May 13, 2012
Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia
Monday, April 2, 2012
The next morning we rose early and caught a commuter train out of the city to the Batu Caves series of caves and temples, one of the most important and popular Hindu sites of worship outside of India, which attracts hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to the yearly Thaipusam festival. The 272 steps up to the vast main temple cave were killer, watching out for attacks by the macaque monkey population on route, but afforded good views back over the city, its skyscrapers just visible in the haze. In the afternoon we followed a walking route around the Colonial District, finding it more than a touch odd that the territory which is now a unified-country was part of the British Empire until just over 50 years ago. We checked out Merdeka Square, where the Union Jack was lowered for the final time in 1957 signalling independence, the colonial-administrative Sultan Abdul Samad Building, 100 year-old Jamek Mosque and many more historic buildings. We followed this with a change of scene taking in the sights, smells and tastes of the vibrant Little India. We were staying in another of KL’s districts, Chinatown, which alongside a plethora of Chinese Temples and food stalls is also home to the fantastic Central Market and the infamous and crowded Petaling Street, where we wasted a few hours on Sunday amongst unrivalled amounts of knock off products and tourist junk.
That was the end of us as a travelling duo, Olly leaving for a diving course in Fiji via Indonesia and Australia, so I was now flying solo for a couple of weeks (somewhere on a radio nearby Celine Dion belted out 'All By Myself'). I went for a look around the ethnic Malay area of town Kampung Baru, followed by one of the best museums of my trip so far, the City Gallery back at Merdeka Square. Passing back through KL a week later, I also finally found my way to the National Museum – a harder task than it sounds as it’s located in the middle of the capital's confusion of highways and overpasses – and enjoyed another cultured afternoon whilst learning a lot about the formation of modern Malaysia from a hotchpotch of British territory in the region, the new country existing initially only on the peninsula as the Federation of Malaysia, before Sarawak and Sabah on Borneo (and for a couple of years also Singapore) joined the country. But more on the constitutional complexities of Malaysia next time.
