Kuala Lumpur
and travels homeward
January 21, 2024
Before leaving Langkawi, we took a morning Jalan Jalan walk at 7:30 a.m. with a naturalist who is primarily interested in plants, not birds. We learned about the betelnut tree and other endemic and introduced plants. Several times while at the resort we saw rhinoceros hornbills and yellow orioles, as well as some colorful kingfishers, herons and other birds, but didn’t have much luck recording these sightings with our cameras.
We checked out of our room late morning and went to the Langkawi airport, less than a half hour drive. From there, we took a flight just over an hour to the Kuala Lumpur Airport. Once there, we were driven about an hour to our hotel in the KLCC district, adjacent to Petronas Towers. Here is the view of the KLCC park from our hotel room.
Before dinner, we walked around Bukit Bintang area, including a long street filled with food businesses and many, many people. There were many opportunities to consumer a durian fruit, if one was so inclined. Durian was certainly popular in Malaysia, so much so that one hotel had a prominent sign that they were prohibited in the elevator!
The “food street” was very popular.
January 22, 2024
We took a car about 20 minutes away to the KL Bird Park, which has several free-flight aviaries, where we got very close to tropical birds. It claims to be the largest free flight aviary in the world. We enjoyed the park, but by 10:30 a.m., it was really hot!
The bird park featured
a lot of peacocks. Other
birds below.
A Western & Victorian Crowned Pigeon.
Another tourist feeding rainbow lorikeets.
We then took a car to Merdeka Square also known as Independence Square, which has many beautiful buildings in the Moorish style. We walked around the square and then to the Sultan Abdul Samad Jamek Mosque a short distance from the square.
The street lights poles featured the national flower, the hibiscus.
From there, we went to the Central Market in Chinatown.
We had lunch in the food court at the market, and then walked through Chinatown, stopping first at the oldest Chinese temple in Kuala Lumpur, Sin Sze Si Ya (top photo, below). After visiting the temple, we walked along Petaling Street, a bustling pedestrian shopping area (second photo).
En route to Petaling Street, we got a good view
of the tallest building in Kuala Lumpur,
the Warisan Merdeka Tower 118,
which was easily visible from many spots.
Then we went to a 19th century Hindu Temple, Sri Mariammam. We returned to the hotel to cool off a bit and then walked around for a short time in the KLCC area, including the park we can see from our room.
An example of KL’s horrendous traffic to the left, and the Hindu temple on the right.
We tried again to get photos of Petronas Towers, but we were close and it was a challenge to get them in a photo. Here’s our best effort. We are planning on visiting the towers tomorrow.
January 23, 2024
We walked from our hotel to the almost–adjacent Petronas Towers, which is a very popular spot. Many of the viewing time slots were sold out despite the fact that we arrived before 9 a.m. We were lucky to get two tickets for a 9:30 a.m. visit.
Here’s a view from below of the Towers’
Skybridge, which was our first stop on the tour.
Two views from the 86th floor, to the southwest, with the adjacent tower and other tall
structures, and a different vista to the northeast.
The Towers tour took us first to the observation deck on the 42nd floor. Then we went up to the 86th floor, with a wonderful view in all directions. From there we were able to see other buildings in KL that are even taller than the towers, including Warisan Merdeka Tower, the tallest building not only in Malaysia but also in Southeast Asia, at 118 stories/679 meters (visible in the photo above on the left), and the second tallest building in the world after one in Dubai. It has been visible from many places throughout our visit. The Petronas Towers are now only the 21st tallest skyscrapers in the world (and third tallest in Malaysia but only 2 meters shorter than number two), having been the tallest in the world when constructed in 1998. Then we descended to the 83rd floor, which has shops and a café. From there we took an express elevator back to the entrance in the basement level. We were surprised that our ears did not pop on the fast descent! Not sure how they managed that.
We then took a car back to the vicinity of the bird park and the national mosque. There we visited the Islamic Arts Museum, which had many beautiful metal works and other artistic items plus a view of the large modern national mosque.
Some treasures from the Islamic Arts Museum, above
and a view of the National Mosque from the Museum terrace.
We returned to our hotel for lunch by the pool and decided for the afternoon not to take another car anywhere (traffic in KL is something to behold), so we to walked through the KLCC park to the nearby Aquaria KLCC aquarium. It had exhibits on several different ecosystems and a long ocean tunnel where we saw large fish, different species of rays and sharks, and an enormous turtle. Here is a photo of the park from ground level. Notice all the construction cranes, lots of buildings going up all over KL.
Then we went into the nearby Suria Mall, looking for the recommended Petronas art gallery, but it turns out it closed in 2021! We found a fantastic food court and then got caught in a thunder and lightning downpour trying to go back across the street to our hotel. It rained into the evening, the longest rain we encountered on the trip.
Here are a few last photos, the light show visible from our room that took place in the park each evening, the view of the park in daytime, and a nearby building adorned by hanging plants that we thought was interesting.
January 24, 2024
We returned for the third time to Kuala Lumpur International Airport where we took a one hour flight to Singapore Changi International. From there we flew home to SFO nonstop, a 14 hour flight, for a total distance of 8,630 miles.
Here’s a Google Map of many of the places we visited on this trip.
We really enjoyed our trip to Malaysia despite the heat and other challenges. The people were very friendly and outgoing, and we found English well and widely spoken. The food was good, too. We saw interesting sights in Cameron Highlands and Penang, and very much enjoyed chilling at the beach for a few days. Malaysia is an underrated destination by U.S. tourists.
