Kuala Lumpur is not on a lot of American’s radar. Likely many people would have trouble identifying the country it represents. Despite its relative obscurity, the city has managed to have a skyline that puts it in the record books. Currently the second tallest building in the world is in Kuala Lumpur. That building, the Merdeka 118, has been recently constructed and is still not yet ready to receive visitors. However, another building, the Petronas Towers, does receive visitors. This was once the world’s tallest structure from 1998-2004, but now it only ranks 21st in the world and 3rd in Kuala Lumpur as the Exchange is now second.
Despite its lower ranking among world skyscrapers, the Petronas Towers are a must visit location in Kuala Lumpur so we set aside Wednesday as our day to visit. The truth is that was the day we were able to get tickets. When we arrived in Kuala Lumpur, I decided we should check out tickets only to discover that none were available until Wednesday, our last day in the city. So as a warning, these are tickets you will want to get early if you are planning to visit the Towers.
After checking out the map, we decided that the distance to the Towers was walkable. Fortunately it had not rained all night like the day before so the humidity was lower although the temperature was about the same. It took us about 45 minutes to walk to the Petronas Towers. One fun sight along our walk was a window washer high on the side of a skyscraper.
We arrived in plenty of time so we could check out some other areas of interest in the district. First we made sure we knew where we needed to go to start the tour of the Towers. Then we began to explore the community. One thing we were not expecting was a huge mall. At the back of the Petronas Towers is a Five story mall. Many of the stores here are high end stores. There were also a number of coffee shops and fast food places including a food court on the third floor. On the main floor was a mall display area, and here they were obviously promoting the Lunar New Year celebration.
Outside the mall was a small lake area with fountains. The fountains were programmed so they produced a variety of water patterns. It was fun to try to capture the various water patterns against the surrounding skyline. And there are a lot of tall buildings around. While the Petronas Towers may be the tallest in the immediate area, there are no shortage of skyscrapers nearby. It shows that this city of two million people is a major city.
Beyond the lake was a park. I thought this might be a botanical type park with a variety of plants and flowers. While a variety of trees do grow in the park, it is not really a botanical park, but one that people use to rest and decompress. There is a children’s play area which includes a water park for them to splash in. There are also small shelters around where people can sit and visit without being directly in the sun. It’s a very practical park which would appeal to the people living in the surrounding skyscrapers.
After wandering around the park, we still had time before our tour. We saw that there was a Starbucks Reserve nearby so we went there to try to spend down the gift cards I had put money on. I had three different cards. I ordered two drinks and a sandwich, but when I went to pay, the server told me I could not combine the cards together. They could only accept one card. That was crazy in my opinion. No one card had enough to pay for what I ordered. In the end I had them charge me separately for each item, and I used a different card each time. That meant I still had money left over on each card but not enough to buy another drink. That didn’t make me happy. Such a quirky way to do business.
The time finally came for our tour. We were there early, and the guides finally lined us up. After showing our tickets on our phones, the guide gave us a visitor’s pass. They had three different groups to keep us spread out. We had blue cords on our passes. The first thing they did was take a picture of each family or couple before they went up. {marketing} After everyone was checked in, they took our group over to the area where we would get the elevator. The guides told us not to take photos in this area.
The first location we went to was the bridge between the two towers. I don’t think workers usually use this bridge as one end was roped off. They gave us ten minutes or so to wander around the bridge and take photos. From this level one can see quite a few things down below. However, the Petronas Towers themselves blocked the views in some directions so we could only see the two sides. In the photos the lines are from the railings on the side reflecting in the glass.
We left the bridge and then took two more elevators up to the 86th floor. Here we were really at the top of the world. We also could go around to all sides of the tower so while it wasn’t a complete 180 degree view, we could see pretty much all the different sides. We also had nice weather so the views were good. When I made the reservations, the weather forecast predicted rain at this time. Fortunately that didn’t happen.
There was a lot of information about the building of the Petronas Towers at this level. There were models around not only of the building, but of the city of Kuala Lumpur. Television monitors also played various information shows about the tower. Then there were signs providing information. It was a bit much to take in.
Once we had our time there, they took us down a few floors to the gift shop level. Here the photos were on display which were taken at the beginning of the tour. Of course clerks encouraged us to buy them, but we didn’t.
Finally we took two elevators again down to the main level where we gave up our lanyards which completed our tour. Since it was billed as a tour, I had expected a little more information provided by guides. There were lots of guides, but their responsibility seemed to be more to move us along to the next stop or elevator and not to provide us with information. Nevertheless, it had been an interesting experience and certainly worth doing once.
With the tour done, we decided to grab some ice cream, and Silvette wanted to get a souvenir ceramic bear from Starbucks since they didn’t have mugs. Eventually we headed back to our hotel. There was a nice breeze blowing which we appreciated as we walked back, but it was not long after our return that it started to rain, and it came with a thunderstorm. We were certainly glad we managed to avoid that both in visiting the Petrona Towers and in walking back to the hotel. It also meant another night of eating dinner at the hotel.
Our time in Kuala Lumpur was coming to an end. Tomorrow we would take a bus to Singapore, our final destination on this trip. Join me in two weeks and take a bus ride with us through Malaysia.
Thanks for stopping by and reading about the Patronas Towers. Questions and comments are always welcome in the box below. I’d love to hear about anyone else’s experience in Kuala Lumpur.