After a virtually empty and an uneventful Air Malaysia flight, we arrived in the tropics! Our next flight is not until the middle of March leaving out of Vietnam (which will be the longest we have gone without flying in the past 4 years).

We arrived late Monday night to a nice hostel in Chinatown, but had a room with a very rickety bunkbed. Turns out I accidentally booked a twin room instead of a double (oops!). Exhausted, we quickly fell asleep only to be awoken at 6am to very loud bells. Lucky for us, the oldest Hindu temple was right next door! The next morning we were able to move to a double room on the other side, away from most of the racket.

Tuesday was supposed to be a planning day to catch up on life and figure out where we were going to stay the first couple weeks in Malaysia, but the hostel’s internet was down. Instead, we spent the morning searching for a cafe with free wifi. After wandering for awhile and having a hard time deciphering the store fronts, we settled for Starbucks but even that was spotty. Since we couldn’t do any planning, it was time to explore the city.

Sara “stumbled” across a market in Chinatown, so of course we had to do some shopping! The market also had a good looking restaurant and we had lunch. I’m not really sure what some of the things were that I was eating, but it was tasty. A short train ride took us into the heart of downtown where the iconic Petronas twin towers stand. There was a really nice park with views of the towers but the tranquility was interrupted with sounds of construction. Similar to our observations in Shanghai, there is construction everywhere in KL. No matter where you look, there are multiple cranes rising into the sky – I feel the buildings were taller each time I looked their way. That night we really got into the spirit of backpacking and had instant ramen for dinner, yum!

Batu Caves

The next morning, we woke early and took a train to Batu Caves. The caves used to be a refuge for the Malay people and now it is the largest Hindu shrine outside of India. Unfortunately, the sacredness seems to be lost as it’s overcome with small vendors. The caves themselves were really spectacular, it seemed like the entire mountain was hollow! The coolest part was all the friendly monkeys scampering around:

Later that day, we checked out the Islamic Arts Museum. My favorite part was looking at all the different types of mosques. They had models of mosques from all over the world and even one from New Mexico. The rest of the afternoon was spent planning out where we were going to stay in Singapore. It was difficult because we were inadvertently traveling over the weekend and most places were already full. We eventually found a room (only for one night) and booked a bus ticket for the next morning.

Our last hurrah in Kuala Lumpur was “date night” at the Barbecue Gardens rooftop restaurant downtown. When we arrived, the place was empty which was a bit disconcerting, but the service was excellent. There was a grill built into the table where we cooked our own food. It was fun but messy with grease splattering all over the table and onto our clothes. The food was excellent and we had a geat time overall. The manager even took our picture and put it on the restaurant’s Facebook!

Next up: 5 hour bus ride to Singapore

Kuala Lumpur Train Station

KL Street

KL construction

Twin towers

Park

Trees

Relaxing in park

Street art

Subway sign

Monkey at Batu Caves

Monkey at Batu Caves

Batu Caves

Batu Caves

Monkey at Batu Caves

Monkey at Batu Caves

Batu Caves

Flower stand

[Show slideshow]