Kampong Kelang Gates Baharu

The Malaysian leg started with a 6hr bus from Singapore, including a suspiciously seamless border crossing where Dan didn't get a stamp in his passport... we'll find out whether this was significant when we try to cross into Thailand. Arriving in Kuala Lumpur, we immediately realised we'd been scammed by a fake hotel booking website, who had charged us more than the cost of the hotel in 'service fees'. They'd have their hands chopped off in Singapore, but we don't have that level of nanny-state protection anymore. More's the pity 🥲

Kuala Lumpur has a population of just under 9 million people (to Singapore's paltry 6 million), and you can feel the difference as you come in. The skyscrapers are much more intense, the highways are broader, and all the routes are tangled together in a web of overpasses and underpasses. They even have a monorail network, which we were unfortunate to not have a chance to ride. The major landmark is the Petronas Towers, a pair of twin 'postmodern islamic' towers that were the world's tallest buildings from 1996 to 2004. Now, they are about to be overshadowed by Merdeka 118, which will be the world's #2 tower behind Dubai's Burj Khalifa when it officially opens later this year. At the same time, in the centre of KL there were a lot more homeless people and beggars, more hawkers on the pavements, more dirt and dereliction. It's all very cyberpunk, techno dystopian. It felt much closer to how we imagined China than Southeast Asia.

KL was not somewhere we intended to spend much time. It has some big landmarks, but the main reason people come here is for the shopping opportunities. We did explore a couple of the major malls, which were EXTREMELY large and labyrinthine. These are malls on steroids: up to ten storeys tall, with few (if any) maps, poor signage, and zero consistency with staircases, entrances and escalators from floor to floor. They also have covered walkways between them and a monorail station running through the middle, so that in practice they all join together into one mega-mall like a kilometres-wide ant colony.

Chelsea had a brainwave for how to go swimming in the city centre; we bought day passes at a hotel with a rooftop pool, underneath the Petronas Towers. This was a good chance to get away from the crowds in the malls, read our books in peace, and also watch would-be influencers doing hours-long photoshoots.

Lastly, we wandered around Jalan Alor for dinner, which comes alive at night-time with street vendors and outdoor restaurants. Things are ramped up during Ramadan and it’s busy with people feeding up after the day’s fast. Being Muslim in the tropics is no mean feat, and the clamour for sustenance is substantial. Instead of sitting down, we picked up a few different snacks, including pani puri, doughy 'fishcakes', Thai banana pancakes, and blowtorched marshmallow ice-cream on a stick. The latter, despite sounding great, was actually quite chewy and gross; would not recommend. We still haven't worked ourselves up to trying the ominous durian fruit yet, but watch this space. At the end of the night, we went for a drink on the famous nightlife street at Changkat Bukit Bintang, where the happy hour deals run until 10pm and the promoters have to clear the sex workers off the tables to make room for punters. A lovely evening out.

Regular readers will know that in our last installment, we talked about how little went wrong in Singapore. Malaysia feels like somewhere where things can definitely go wrong—we're back in business! Stay tuned.Read more