When we first decided to go travelling our first plan was to go to South East Asia for 6 months. We then slightly changed the plan to take our time to get to SEA and stop off on the way (see Greece, Turkey, Egypt, India and Sri Lanka) and now, nearly half way into our trip, we finally set foot on SEA soil in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! In another change of plan we then had an exciting offer to spend Christmas with a friend in Australia so 6 days later we left SEA with vague plans to return. So now we are in Perth, with no onward plans decided! We have made it half way round the world and way further than we planned to.

Anyway, those 6 days in Kuala Lumpur were jam packed! We knew that we would love KL as soon as we reached the airport to be greeted with a free welcome drink. We headed to our city home – a 74 story skyscraper in the shadows of the Petronas Towers to begin our city exploration.

KL is home to a wide range of ethnicities, languages, religions, and cultures with a predominantly Chinese, Malay and Indian population. The shops and food offer an array of cuisines and shopping experiences and as usual we ate our way around the city stopping at street food stalls and many convenience stores. The girls favourite eats included Korean corn dogs, Taiwanese bubble teas, Thai rolled ice cream and Chinese Tanghulu (crystallized sugar coated fruit on a stick). Craig and myself highly rated the Malaysian roti canai and teh tarik (sweet, milky tea – similar to the Indian masala tea we loved) and laksa. We all loved chicken and rice and dim sum. 

The malls of KL are immense and house not only shops but entertainment away from the sweaty, humid outside world. We roller skated, go karted, saw Moana at the cinema, visited Kidzania and had an educational visit to Petrosains science centre. Despite the malls being Christmassy and the fake snow fall outside one mall (actually foam!) we are still struggling to comprehend that it is nearly Christmas, being in a city and climate so far from an English winter.

The Petronas Towers are the world’s tallest twin skyscrapers. From 1996 to 2004 (when myself and Craig both last visited KL on our own separate travels) they were the tallest buildings in the world. We watched an impressive light and music show here which included a unexpected fountain shower that soaked us!

In Chinatown we saw Merdeka 118, an 118-story 678.9m megatall skyscraper. It is the second-tallest building and structure in the world, only behind the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

The Batu Caves, which has it’s own metro station is one of the main tourist attractions of KL, has three main caves featuring temples and Hindu shrines. To reach it there is a steep 272 colourful step climb and many hungry monkeys. Sophie lost her drink to one clever monkey who grabbed it from her hand and unscrewed the bottle to drink it! 

Now we have swapped KL for a heatwave in Perth and are enjoying gatecrashing our friend’s house and making friends with Opal, the pug. Nearly at the halfway point of our trip we are excited to see where our journey home takes us!