Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur is a big city but with no real hub - rather a few smaller centres of activity. It’s fairly new by most standards being founded in the mid 19th century. There’s a lot to take in so on Our first day we decided to do one of the big sights first; Batu Caves.

The city is fairly easy to get around - In our case much easier having Paul to figure things out. We take a short train ride from KL Sentral on the KTM commuter line. It was a bit of a slow start for the journey as engineering works made it rather late arriving and getting there but we didn’t complain as it’s part of the journey and the cost of the ticket is only about 50p each !!

The Batu Caves are on the northern edge of KL. Not as old as you may think as their use only dates to the 19th Century. The first things you notice are the enormous golden statue of Lord Murugan (Hindhu god) and the very large staircase. It’s an impressive site and there are, as with most Asian sights, lots of tourists. We head up the 272 steps and take In the view as we go. It’s fairly stop start as you need to catch your breath, dodge the other tourists and also mind the monkeys. There’s a couple of temples and impressive caves inside but nothing much else.

Next stop on our trip back from the Caves is a stop at Sogo (Japanese dept store) for lunch at their food court. For around £2 you can get a bowl of noodles or sweet and sour and they are delicious. After lunch we walked to Merdeka Square where on 31 Aug 1957 Malaysia declared independence from the British rule. There are lots of different buildings in the square - Sultan Abdul Samad Building formerly the HQ of the colonial administration, The Royal Selangor Club and St Mary’s Cathedral.

A further walk takes us to Central Market and China Town. Central market is a 1920s building formerly a fish and meat market now set up with lots of tourists shops.

We decided to come back to China town another day and In need of air conditioning and some dinner we headed to another part of town called Bukit Bintang. It is early evening and the whole area is heaving with locals. Here is an enormous Mall called Pavillion, with loads of shops and restaurants. Also lovely air conditioning as a respite from the high humidity and we managed to find a great Japanese restaurant to have Katsu Curry and Tonkatsu.

The great thing about KL is their free tourist bus network which we use several times during the day and has a handy stop near our hotel.Read more