Kuala Lumpur has an impressive skyline. I’ll tell you more about that next time. The point is when you look at the skyline the city seems to stretch for miles. It is a city of a little over two million people so it’s not small. I say this as it surprised me to discover that some of the central areas of the city were not far from our hotel. After I found a self-guided walking tour on the internet, I thought it would be a good way to spend our second day. I expected to have to travel some distance on the light rail to get there. Nope. It was only about a kilometer away, an easy walk for us.
When I say an easy walk, that is only a comment on the distance. What it doesn’t take into account is the weather. It had rained all night and into the morning. At the same time the temperature was in the 80s. So yes, an easy distance to walk but walking in the heat and humidity was not so easy.
Our first location seemed to be the center of the colonial period. Britain had colonized Malaysia. They gained their independence from Great Britain in 1957. The first location has a number of interesting buildings. Most are colonial government buildings which the British built. The interesting thing is they built in a somewhat Moorish style. One of the large buildings was walled off from the street so we couldn’t see it. However, we could see some domes and spires on the top. Initially I thought this was a mosque. However, it was just a large British government building.
Across from the major government building sits a large open field known as Independence Square, a location where they celebrate their independence every year. A very tall flag and flagpole stand at one end of the field. It was too large for me to get in a photo as I was too close. At this end of the field is also located a library.
Among the older buildings was a tall modern building I found architecturally interesting. While it seemed a fairly simple building, the design on the exterior evoked the sense of the Islamic style. Unfortunately that pattern is not so visible in the photo below. It is one of the earlier skyscrapers built in modern Kuala Lumpur.
We walked over to a bridge that crossed a river. The river was rather dirty looking and not very inviting. However along the river are some interesting elements. Just up from the bridge another smaller river joined this river creating a V shape. In the V is the Masjid Jamek Sultan Abdul Samad Mosque. It is one of the oldest mosques in Kuala Lumpur. In front of it is a sign with small letters that says Kuala Lumpur. Unfortunately the name is lost somewhat in the busyness of the location.
On the other side of the river are two buildings painted completely with murals. One is a dark blue and the other has more of an earth tone look. They are quite unique in terms of street art.
After crossing the bridge we went down the street to the well known Central Market. This market has been around since 1888. Inside, the market consists of a number of small shops selling a variety of items and souvenirs from Malaysia. It felt like a normal shopping mall. The second floor contained mostly clothing stores. One of the major art forms here in Malaysia is batik. This clothing area was full of clothing shops for both men and women with clothing made from batik cloth. I have to say the shirts tempted me. They are so colorful and unique, but in the end I didn’t buy one. I wasn’t sure if they would fit me well. On the other side upstairs was a large eating hall offering a variety of Malaysian foods. However, the best thing throughout the market was the air conditioning!
Outside the Central Market on one side is a covered area where more shops have been set up. These small shops also offer a variety of things to buy as well as foods. We walked through part of that, but retreated inside the Central Market as it was cooler inside.
When we checked the map again, we discovered a nearby Starbucks. I could spend some of the money I put on gift cards yesterday to buy lunch. It was a bit of a walk, but it was nice to sit and rest in a cool environment and enjoy lunch. Near the Starbucks the sight of a Methodist Church surprised me.
We finally left Starbucks and headed for the Chinatown area. The key location for this is Petaling Street. It is an open market, and much of what sells here are knock offs of well known brands. Even though people know they are knock offs, it still seems to be a popular area for tourists. The hawkers were definitely out to get your business. More people were shopping here than at the Central Market. I personally don’t think it is appropriate to buy knock offs. I wrote a post that gives some of my reasons for that which you can find here.
After passing through the street with all the shops, one arrives at a much quieter street with covered sidewalks. Here one of the interesting things is the street art again. Toward the end of the street one can turn left and see a wall covered with sepia colored images representing some of the history of Malaysia. On a brighter note look up and see a young girl staring with desire at an ice cream cone. At the end of the block a building has whimsical features drawn around the windows and doors of the building.
At the end of the street is a Chinese shrine. We peeked in, but we had seen quite a few of these kinds of places by now so we didn’t linger.
The walk we were following ended at this point so we decided it was time for us to head back to the hotel. We walked down some different streets and encountered other buildings as well as religious shrines along the way. One of them was in the style we saw at the Batu Caves the day before. The Sri Mahamariamman Temple is the oldest operating Hindu temple in Malaysia.
We were doing OK heading back to the hotel, but we thought we would check out another location. We had purchased an E-SIM card when we came to Kuala Lumpur. Unfortunately we ran out of data on our way back, and when we tried to walk to this other location, we became lost.
We came across an interesting mall along the way, however. It was an older mall definitely geared to the Muslim women. I told Silvette if she ever wanted to buy a head scarf, this was the place. I didn’t feel comfortable taking pictures here. We eventually found a mall with Wi-Fi we could grab and realized we were only a few blocks from our hotel. We were glad to be back in our cool room.
After we got back, it began to rain off and on so we didn’t go out for dinner, but again stayed in the hotel. We have one more full day in Kuala Lumpur so read about that day next week. The photo above offers a clue as to what we will explore.