Tuesday, June 14, 2022
After exploring Singapore for less than a day, we pushed our luck and jumped on a plane for Malaysia! Now our thought process went something like this when planning this entire vacation:
Let's go to Singapore.
What country is nearby that we could visit as well to knock out another country?
Malaysia- never really heard of it.
Let's go. Oh, look, cheap AirBnB with rooftop pool in Malaysia's capital- 2 nights for $60 (red flag #1)- only available Tuesday and Wednesday. Sounds like we are doing Kuala Lumpur for two days of our vacation! Rock on!
*Katie googles Kuala Lumpur (pronounced "koala lum-purr") and finds very few travel bloggers who have visited.* (red flag #2)
ignores red flags and still moves forward with this Malaysia trip add-on.
Big mistake.
When the plane started smoking before takeoff, we should have just gotten off and stayed in Singapore:
They said the "smoke" was the plane's humidifiers. I argue that these Southeast Asian countries need no more help with the humidity.
But we didn't take the hint, so we buckled up and took off around 7:30 pm for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! Our bodies are exhausted- as soon as we sit in our seats, we instantly drain all remaining energy. Meg and Stego order $4.00 bottles of water just to keep awake!
After the short "scoot" over the border, our flight lands at 8:30 pm and we begin our disembarking process. This doesn't run as smoothly as in Singapore, so we eventually make it to an ATM to get out some Malaysian Ringgit and then find the taxi pickup area. Bryan and Mike start searching for Grab rides, and no drivers are to be found...
By 9:45 pm, Meg and I are beyond impatient and ready to get to our AirBnB for a good night's rest. Bryan caves and texts our hired driver for tomorrow, Sharad, asking him if we can pay whatever ungodly amount he wants to charge us to come and pick us up. That sweet man calls Bryan, explains to him our options- an expensive train to the city's center, an hour+ bus to the city's center, or a taxi to our hotel- and explains that if we hire the taxi from inside the airport, it will be legit and safe. Thank God I found Sharad's contact info on one of my military spouse travel pages during my early research for this trip! That man saved the night!
With the bus already full for the night, we opt for a safe taxi ride straight to the AirBnB. RM118 later (roughly $26), we are finally headed towards Kuala Lumpur.
Remember how excited the four of us were about our $30/night AirBnB with killer reviews?! We really thought we were getting a killer deal. Instead, we arrive and instantly feel like we will be killed here in this sketchy skyrise.
Looking at the pictures below, it may not seem all that bad, but during the 30 minutes we spent in this place, we witnessed lizards crawling out of locked closets, cockroaches on the bedroom walls, and small flies coming out of the shower and bathroom drains. Shit. You. Not. This place looked nothing like the photos on AirBnB- we have been hotel catfished.
At this point, it's 11:30 pm, and Meg and I are about in tears. The guys leave to find shampoo and bug killer. As I stand naked in the bathroom, contemplating this poor life choice as I turn on the shower and work up the nerve to step under the water, Mike hollers to Bryan that he's found us nearby hotel rooms at a 4-star hotel!
Saved by the scream.
So I quickly pack up and rush from this hell hole of an apartment to follow the gang to the neighboring tower. We pay cash for the room when we notice the lady writing down our credit card number to "run it in the back," (red flag) and then pray this place is better than the AirBnB next door.
It wasn't much better. I don't know how Malaysia ranks its hotels, but this 4-star would be 1-star in the states. The walls were peeling, the outlets were falling out, the floors had blood(?) stains, and we don't even want to know what the "spots" were on the sheets...but the bathroom didn't have bugs and nothing scurried off when we turned on the lights, so we *guess* this is better. Also, nowhere in my research did it mention that Malaysia used different outlets than Singapore....so we didn't have a way to charge any of our devices. Full panic attack coming on.
Lucky for us, Mike and Meg had a super portable charger that fully charged all of our phones that night. I quickly realized that I can bum it, sleep with roaches and on dirty sheets as long as I have a way to call for help when someone breaks in to murder us. No communication= no sanity and full meltdown. Adding that portable charger to my Amazon cart as we speak.
We quickly take showers and hit the hay around 1 am. Maybe we will wake up from this nightmare back in Singapore with a cider in hand.
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
We woke up and realized it wasn't a dream. We come to the realization that we are going to be "winging it" the rest of our time in Malaysia and taking this thing in strides! Thanks to Stego, we have two rooms at the Hilton for tonight's sleep in Malaysia. Never in my life have I been more relieved to hear "Hilton Hotel" in my life.
Sharad, our hired driver for the day, picked us up from the dump and took us to Hilton so we could drop our bags and check out this place. Praise God- a normal lobby and Hilton front desk staff. Civilization.
Then we get back in the car with Sharad and head off for the day!
At 8 am, we arrive at Batu Caves, the main sightseeing location in Kuala Lumpur:
Batu Caves is one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside of India, and it is dedicated to Lord Murugan, the Hindu god of war. Murugan is typically represented holding a vel, or "divine spear," and pictured with a peacock at his side, representing purity and immortality. From my little understanding and research, Malaysian Hindus believe Murugan is the eldest son of Shiva and Parvati and is known for being the brave leader who destroyed demons.
Batu Caves is a natural limestone cave at the top of a 272-step climb. This colorful staircase leads up to the cave's entrance and is protected by a giant 140-foot tall statue of Lord Murugan. What isn't protected is anything small or shiny...the "Batu Monkies" were ruthless and would steal anything they could get their hands on as you climbed the rainbow stairs. These long-tailed macaques enjoyed sitting on the staircases' golden orbs (don't touch the pointy top, that's where the monkeys sit their assholes).
As we climbed, we used our breathing breaks to look out at the city's beautiful skyline from up above.
Once we get to the top of the steps and begin to enter the cave, I took this video of the bats scurrying about in the early daylight:
It isn't called Bat-u Caves for nothing ;)
Once inside, the temple was really unique. Built into the limestone walls, these Hindu statues and temples are bright and colorful additions to the natural beauty. You will notice all the peacock statues that are meant to honor Lord Murugan.
What we weren't expecting was the smells...every once in a while we got a whiff of 90-degree porta-potties...it wasn't pleasant. Where did the smell come from? We don't know. Nor did we want to really find out.
As we entered the main temple area, we heard loud Indian music playing. We took off our shoes, entered the temple, and watched some kind of ceremony happening with a vel (you know, the god's golden spear).
After climbing back down the steps, we entered the temple at the base of Batu Caves:
This temple was ornate with relief sculptures carved into the walls and colorful paintings covering all interior walls. We even received a blessing(?) from one of the priests- he said some things, dotted white powder on our foreheads, and then gave us each a flower for our hair. After an RM10 donation, we left the temple. You can barely tell I got a dot on my forehead because I immediately sweated off the blessing dot. Hopefully, it soaked in quickly enough!
As we walked towards the last temple at Batu Caves, we watched as a guy pulled up on his moped with a bushel of bananas to feed the rambunctious macaque monkies!
The final temple was "guarded" by an eagle. This creative depiction of the US National bird had us rolling with laughter....not quite the stoic bird we are used to seeing!
This last temple was dedicated to Hanuman, the monkey god. He looks pretty badass and fit, but that's about all I have on this guy.
We finished up at Batu Caves and still had a few hours to kill before our lunch reservation, so we asked Sharad for suggestions. He recommended the Pewter Tour, and not really caring about a metal shop, we said "sure!"
This place was much cooler than we expected. During our free tour of the Royal Selangor Pewter Company's museum and factory, we learned that most of the world's pewter is made here in Kuala Lumpur. If you are like me and didn't know what "pewter" is, it's a heavy metal made from copper, tin, and antimony.
During our tour, we learned that Royal Selangor produces pewter products for Harry Potter, Disney, Marvel, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, and more! This place was pretty legit! After getting a tour of their museum and learning about the earliest use of Pewter as Malaysian currency, it was time to tour their factory!
The factory tour allowed us to see real Malaysians working to carve, shape, polish, and finish unique figurines for retail sale! The middle picture below is of a lady putting together Hogwarts snowglobes for Universal Studios!
During the tour, we received a short demo of the Pewter-making process:
At the end of our tour, we were able to walk around their shop and see some of the final products. Bryan and I didn't realize how heavy the pewter really is: that stuff is DENSE. While we didn't buy anything, we did gain an appreciation for the art form and will be on the lookout for more Royal Selangor products from our favorite brands!
Finally: lunchtime! By this point in the day, we have realized that we skipped breakfast in our haste to figure out hotel accommodations, so by noon we are starving and the smells coming from BBQ Lamb KL have us drooling! Meg found this place on Facebook and Bryan used WhatsApp to make us a reservation in advance, so we were hopeful that this part of our Malaysian planning would work out.
For RM120 ($27 USD) we feasted in a river on a mixed-meat set for the four of us! This unique restaurant is set in a shallow river, with tables and stools in the water! As we ate, fish jumped up and splashed our legs! While they offered us some tasty lemonade and some kind of dessert soup, we stuck to our bottled water. One thing we knew was that the Malaysian water "should be" safe to consume in most areas. We weren't risking it, so we stuck to bottled water and beer for the entire two days.
Of course, this part of the trip couldn't run perfectly smooth, so we endured a quick rainshower mid-meal. By this point, huge raindrops are flooding our nearly-finished meal and I am hysterically laughing. Mike and Meg probably think I have lost my mind because I can't help but cackle at our misfortune! Hey, but I did plan ahead and had two umbrellas, so we enjoyed the final few (wet) bites of meat under our IKEA travel umbrellas- at least here I was prepared!
Now, you know we have a slight fascination with foreign bathrooms, and Malaysia takes the trophy for "worst possible concept for urination." Yes, they have toilets. No, you don't want to sit on them. They *may* have toilet paper, but more than likely you will have to use your spare tissue pack to wipe because Malaysians have invented, what we kindly refer to as the bum gun. Yep, it's a water hose to shoot at your hooha. Give me the tissues, I draw the line.
After our filling lunch, it was time for the highlight of our time in Malaysia- Batik painting. Sharad dropped us off at Jadi Batek at 2 pm and offered to give us a half-day city tour tomorrow if we wanted to hire him again. With today's success, we were definitely down. In total, it cost us $75 USD (including a hefty tip) to hire Sharad for the day. Worth. Every. Penny.
When I booked our (awful) AirBnB, I received an email with suggested tours and experiences. One of those was a $16 USD batik experience, where we got to design, wax, and dye our own Batik cloth! Knowing a little about batiks from our college friend, Taufik, Bryan and I were beyond excited to participate in this painting experience! Bryan and I own batiks that we ordered to wear at Taufik's wedding back in March of 2020, so we couldn't wait to experience some of this artistic culture for ourselves!
Our class began with us learning about the Batik-making process and walking around the Jadi Batek design shop. With our creativity freely flowing, we each picked out one of their templates (because we weren't wasting time attempting to draw our own) and got to sketching!
Once we sketched out our design, the ladies taught us how to use the tjantings, a handheld tool that holds melted wax and slowly drips out the hot wax so you can "draw" out your design. This tool would only keep the wax hot for about 30 seconds, so you had to constantly get up, pour out the cooled wax and then scoop up fresh, hot wax to continue your work. It was painstakingly slow, but worth the hard work in the end!
Note: another toilet pic- this one did have toilet paper and a bum gun. We opted for the toilet paper and considered this the cleanest toilet yet. Way to go Jadi Batek. We love you.
After outlining our work in the hot wax, we were then taught how to mix the batik dye and how to blend the colors properly. Three and a half hours later, we finished our small batiks! We left our masterpieces at the shop overnight so they could add the chemicals and wash out the wax, making it so our designs were permanent and wouldn't bleed or fade over time.
After all our hard work, Bryan wasn't leaving without a hand-painted Batik shirt, so we went shopping and found him a beautiful red and pink batik to take home! For RM200 a piece, Bryan and Mike walked out with handmade Batik shirts!
After our batik experience, we were feeling on cloud nine. Then we crashed back to the Malaysian earth when we tried (and failed) to hail a taxi and get a Grab ride. This city sucks.
When all else fails, you walk the 45-minute trek back to your hotel and sightsee as you go.
First sight: The Petronas Twin Towers. These are a set of tall buildings that the city is famous for. All I could think about was how much I wanted a Patronus to appear and carry us to our hotel (Harry Potter reference anyone? Ok. Cool.)
Next up on our sightseeing tour: what Stego coined "the best place to live in Malaysia:" a cemetery.
Sightseeing stop (or better yet, pass through:) Pintasan Saloma Bridge. This bridge was just starting to light up for the night. We were more concerned about making it to our hotel before the sun goes down.
Little did we know we were crossing from the "good part" of town (lol at that joke) to the rougher part of town. Come on Hilton.
Right after crossing the Pintasan Saloma Bridge, we enter the rougher part of town that just continues to get worse the deeper we go. We walk past a large mosque during the evening call to prayer. Check out the video to experience a little of our trek; it was really cool to experience this first-hand!
With the evening call to prayer growing quieter in the distance, we continue our dusk walk towards the Hilton. As we walk, I snapped some photos of the street markets, restaurants and rooms for rent. I'm telling you, we were in another world and really experiencing Malaysian life in full color.
It looks colorful and bright, but the pièce de résistance:
High quality y'all. If that doesn't scream "Visit Malaysia," I don't think anything will.
BUT we did make it back to the Hilton hotel (after dark, I might add.) Knowing we weren't risking our lives back on the streets, we headed to the rooftop restaurant and enjoyed another "mixed meat" shared plate. The food was good, but the view was spectacular- nobody has to see the streets below...
After dinner, everyone showered and then met back in our hotel room for a night of cards: hearts and euchre for the win!
Day one of Malaysia is done. Let's see if we can survive one more day in Kuala Lumpur.
Thursday, June 16, 2022
Not risking the street life this morning, we opted to spend our morning lounging by the hotel's rooftop pool with a view! We aren't sure where the rest of the hotel guests have gone, but we were happy to soak in the rays all morning long while enjoying beer for breakfast!
At 1 pm, Sharad picked us up from the hotel and began our second day of city exploring! First stop of the day was Chinatown for lunch. As we explored this shopping district of bootleg purses, backpacks, and Rolex watches, we ran across a fruit stand with the strangest red, spiky fruit, called rambutan. You won't be shocked to know that Bryan refused to try it, but I bought two of these palm-sized fruits, and Meg, Mike, and I gave it a whirl!
The Rambutan fruit is a medium-sized tropical fruit that is closely related to lychee; it has a grape-like texture with a giant, coconut-husk-covered seed in the center. It didn't have much flavor, but it sure looked funny!
Now it's time for real food! We found the Tang City Outdoor Food Court and jumped right in! After seeing this guy sling food in a wok, we were ready to order!
Thank God for picture menus. Bryan and I ordered lemon chicken, sesame chicken, and fried noodles for lunch and watched as the surrounding food vendors slung food and iced cold beer around the arena to waiting customers. We quickly realized we weren't at a tourist location, as most of the surrounding tables were filled with 70+-year-old Asians staring at the out-of-place Americans.
But the food was good and cost less than $15. Malaysia may be rough, but the food has been good and cheap!
After lunch, we met back up with Sharad and headed out to see the city with our personalized tour guide! Sharad started our tour at the Royal Palace. As we drove, Sharad explained that Malaysia has nine sultans that rule over the nine Malaysian "states." Every five years, the sultans rotate being king over the country, as a whole. Sharad was quick to share his distaste for the ruling government and explained how vast the wealth divide is within the country. The more Sharad shared, the more we understood Singapore's choice to separate from Malaysia.
Next up on our city tour, Sharad drove us to the National Monument. The National Monument is a sculpture that commemorates those who died in Malaysia's struggle for freedom: against the Japanese occupation during World War II and the Malayan Emergency, which lasted from 1948 until 1960.
While at this monument, we learned that Malaysia was a British colony until 1957. Then, eight years later, Singapore separated from Malaysia to become its own sovereign state. It was at this monument that Mike, Meg, Bryan, and I discussed the political and governmental differences that launched Singapore into the 21st-century western world while leaving Malaysia behind as a "second world country."
The final stop on our city tour was visiting the National Mosque of Malaysia. This mosque required that all visitors wear a purple robe to cover up, so we donned the thick cotton robes and made our way inside. Bryan and Mike were permitted to leave their hoods down, but Meg and I had to keep our heads covered while on the premises.
As we entered the marble patio, we met an English-speaking guide who taught us a little bit about the National Mosque: it has a capacity of 15,000 people in the mihrab (prayer room) and the mosque is situated among 13 acres of surrounding gardens. The Malaysian National Mosque features a 73-meter-high minaret (tower with speakers that announces the call to prayer) and a 16-pointed star concrete main roof.
This place was beautiful and awe-inspiring, but we were dying in the purple robes. The only thing keeping us from falling out from heat strokes was the brief feeling of AC blasting from the prayer room and the cool marble floors beneath our bare feet.
After stripping out of our robes and hanging them to dry, we got back in the car with Sharad for our final stop: the airport. We had more than enough time to check our bags and find a cool(ish) spot for dinner before our flight back to the land of cleanliness.
We tried to bump up to an earlier flight out of this country, but apparently, everyone else and their brother had the same idea, so we were stuck with our 9:35 pm departure. We got to our gate at 9 pm to learn that our flight has been delayed. Again, I had a moment of insanity laughter- we are never leaving this god-forsaken country- before Meg pulled out a deck of cards and we passed the next hour with another game of hearts.
Eventually, our flight departed around 10:15/10:30, at this point, time was no longer linear.
But, by the end of the night, we made it back to Singapore! It was so late, the indoor waterfall wasn't even running:
But, hey, we will take a bone-dry waterfall over another minute in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Be on the lookout, we have three days of Singapore adventures headed your way!
'Til then,
Katie
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