Before we start, here are some things to keep in mind if you ever want to vacation in Kuala Lumpur -
1. travel bloggers will tell you to start your day early because the weather is nicer... it is not. 😑 The weather is hot and humid literally from morning to night. ☼ But, it didn't rain as much as the weather apps predicted even though we travelled during "rainy season." I would still suggest starting your day early, not for the weather, but to avoid the crowds. The downside to that is a huge majority of restaurants don't open until 9-10am so don't expect a lot of breakfast options if you head out at 8am like we did every morning.
2. wi-fi in public places is NOT free nor is it widely available. We learned that the hard way on day 1 (more on that to come).😖 All of the places you'd think offer wi-fi-- the mall, hotel lobbies, restaurants-- require a log in & password. We didn't get an international sim card, so for the rest of the trip, we planned our entire day (buying attraction tickets and booking Grab rides in advance) first thing in the morning while we were still at the hotel using the room's wi-fi, and then stuck to a very tight schedule.
3. we did A LOT of walking in 90℉ weather but there are no public water fountains or even places to purchase bottled water. No one was walking around with a water bottle. 💦 I thought that was nuts and was amazed that no one was suffering dehydration. Most places don't allow for outside food or drink so I wasn't even able to keep my water bottle on me like I usually do.
4. the travel posts/influencers I looked up on Instagram lead me to believe that English was widely spoken and the streets are walkable. Both are not true. 😣 Speaking of influencers, we saw so many of them!! 📸 They were unabashedly walking around with their phones out talking to an "audience" and filming themselves. Many of the female ones had a male partner following closely behind taking pictures of them. We got caught in an afternoon rain storm once... as we were running back to the hotel, we saw two girls dressed in cocktail dresses, heels and full hair & makeup filming a TikTok like it wasn't even raining. Hilarious.
Now that all of my complaints are out of the way, I can start in on the fun stuff!! 😀 My plan for the trip was to head out for breakfast, an activity, and lunch in the morning. Then back to the hotel for a catnap and shower. Followed by another activity and dinner in the evening. Wes prefers a more laid back vacation but my way was the only way we'd get to cross everything off my "must see" to-do list. Relaxation be damned, it's tourist time!!
As mentioned previously, not many restaurants are open early for breakfast. We found the Malaysia Food Village in the basement of a shopping center. There were probably 10 stalls in the food court but only a couple were open by 8am. I think we were the only people there who weren't shop employees or janitors. LOL Wes got the "breakfast set" (soy sauced noodles with a fried egg on top, and an iced coffee) from the most popular stall. I went for the pork congee from a different stall. 🍚 I also got an iced Milo, which is their version of Ovaltine and a popular breakfast drink.
After breakfast, we hopped in our Grab and headed to Chinatown. 🚗 We got to Petaling Street right as the stalls opened, but unfortunately, not many were fully set up or ready for business. We did a quick walk through and headed to other parts of Chinatown. We passed many temples randomly situated in between stores and restaurants. It was still Ramadan when we visited so a lot of people were there for daily prayers. I would have liked to go inside to see some of the design & architecture but neither of us wanted to disrupt the worshipers, so we skipped. Some of the temples had plaques out front. I am amazed how old these buildings are (mostly from the 1800s!)
Central Market was my favorite part of Chinatown. It is a mall with shops inside and also outdoor stalls. We (mostly Wes) did 90% of our gift/souvenir shopping here. There were lots of funny knock-offs of movie & videogame characters and pop culture references. Most of the shops had your generic souvenir items, like t-shirts, key chains, and totes, but we found some really cool & unique stuff in a couple of them. I really wanted a pair of sandals but they didn't have the color I liked in my size. 😕
The day we visited Central Market was also the day of their monthly "Makers' Hall" craft show. There was a sign outside saying we could watch the crafters make their items and talk to them about their artistic process. I was so excited! LOL I soon found out that all of the "crafters" are sales people employed by the actual artists who just work at the craft show. 😕Bummer. It was still neat to look around and we got some delicious fruity herbal tea.
We headed back to Petaling Street after we finished with Central Market. All of the stalls were set up by then so there was a lot more to see.😀 It was fun to walk around & look, but a bunch of the stalls sold the exact same things so it wasn't as great as I thought it would be. I saw a couple knock off handbags that I liked but didn't buy any. I almost bought one that I thought was $15, but I misheard the stall owner and it was actually $50. It was lunch time and I wanted to try a clay pot chicken place but neither of us were hungry. It was too hot to have any appetite, especially because all of the restaurants were outdoors and only sold hot foods (like soups & noodles). And the foods were also spicy hot, which didn't sound great either.
The last thing I wanted to do in Chinatown was visit the National Textiles Museum. It was across a major street and a body of water (from what I could tell on maps) so we couldn't walk there. No problem, I thought, we'll just pop into a building and use the wi-fi to hail a Grab. This was when we realized that there is no such thing as free public wi-fi... we were stranded 😳😨 It was mid-afternoon by this point and it was HOT (and I am much too old, grumpy, and out of shape for all this!😡). We walked all throughout Chinatown, stopping in any building, praying there was a connection. It took probably an hour of frantic walking before the Traders Hotel saved us. I got just enough of a signal to hail our ride back to the hotel.
Wes wasn't hungry for lunch after our stressful ordeal but I wanted to eat something. I found a restaurant with good reviews that was close to the hotel, and we headed out for another walk. My mistake was not fully looking at the restaurant's address. We walked around the area for ages and couldn't find the damn place. 😞 A local saw us and must have recognized the distress on my face because she asked if I needed directions. Turns out the restaurant was inside of the Suria mall (which I probably would have figured out sooner if I had realized the addresses of the two places matched 😑 yes, I am dumb).
We had lunch at Serai. I got a traditional chicken & rice dish--nasi lemak--that came with a salted preserved egg (my main reason for ordering it 😋). The rice was blue! Along with the delicious egg, the chicken was served with some fish chips, a sardine stuffed jalapeño, and a salad. Everything was so good but it was hard to eat with how hot/stuffy/uncomfortable it was. Trust me when I say I was SO SADDEN by this... my main reason for travelling is to explore food and eat eat eat. 🍴 But hardly anywhere had the amount of air conditioning Americans are used to. If I had to guess, I would say most buildings kept their thermostat at probably 78-80℉. I found it very difficult to enjoy a meal when I was physically uncomfortable from the lack of air, and had no appetite. 😵 I think Wes felt the same way because he also barely touched his food throughout the entire trip.
Our evening activity of the day was the Petronas Twin Towers. Literally all of the travel guides I read claimed this to be the "must see attraction" in Kuala Lumpur. I beg to differ. The towers look amazing from the outside, especially when lit up at night, but the inside was sort of a rip-off. We went up to the sky bridge and observation deck in groups of 20-25. The elevators were tiny and we were herded like cattle. The tower employees weren't interested at all at giving us a tour so we just kind of aimlessly wandered around until it was time to pile back into the elevator for the next floor. I guess most people were there just to take selfies, but I'm a nerd and wanted a proper tour filled with fun facts & history.
The view from the sky bridge was really cool and our tour time slot coincided with the water fountain show outside of the Suria mall. We could also see our hotel all pretty and lit up from the bridge. I do admit that the city skyline is gorgeous and the height of the towers is an architectural achievement but it did seem kind of like a tourist trap. 😒 The windows on the observation deck were dirty and had a terrible glare from the lights outside so it was hard to even get a good picture. My favorite part of the "tour" was our disgruntled elevator porter. He crammed us all in and said that if we felt claustrophobic or unsafe its because the elevator only supports 20 people but his boss makes him put at least 21-22 passengers in. He made it clear how unhappy he was about this, and told to all leave a bad review online and report the safety violation. Hilarious, I love his sass 💅
After the Petronas Twin Towers, we headed back to the mall for dinner. We ate a Madam Kwan's, another popular authentic Malay restaurant. This was the first time that day I got a cool beverage; drinking water is literally impossible to find here!! Restaurants don't offer ice water, it has to be ordered off the menu and it comes at room temperature in tiny glasses with no refills. Because of this, my iced lychee juice tasted better than anything else I had ever drank. LOL Wes got fresh watermelon juice and he said the same thing. I ordered the mackerel fried rice🐟. It was really good but, again, it was hard to eat hot--temperature and spicy-- food while I was also hot, and sweating in the stuffy mall.
It must have been a combination of the heat and jetlag from the first day because this entire post sounds like me complaining just like an entitled American would. 😅😬 The lack of wi-fi did make things a bit stressful but Chinatown really was a ton of fun to walk around and shop. I loved my three Malay meals. And now looking back on it, the Petronas Twin Towers was actually pretty cool. All of the high-rise buildings in the city were. 🏢 Tomorrow, day 3, was my absolute favorite day on vacation... so brace yourself for A LOT of pictures.
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