two weeks in kuala lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is a surprisingly modern Asian capital city. I suppose that the fact that it's only 120 years old helps with the modernity, now that I think about it. It is urban, with a diverse population, and a gleaming skyline. Best of all, for me, is that you can WALK in it and it has lots of different kinds of FOOD. Needless to say, I spent my entire two weeks walking and eating . . . sometimes at the same time.

KL was founded in 1857 when some tin prospectors landed at the point where the Gombak River meets the Klang River. There, they discovered loads and loads of tin, which is a good thing for tin prospectors to find. They named this place Kuala Lumpur, which means “muddy confluence”. So KL is a city built on tin, economically and topographically. To this day, the city sits upon a massive tin deposit, which makes for some truly incredible lightening storms. We were there during a very stormy season and we both delighted in watching the daily lightening shows from our balcony.

Chris went to work every day, but it was sort of like being on vacation for him. Not that I'm making any generalizations about consular life in Chennai OR consular work in KL, but he did about 40 visa interviews in the mornings, did some American Citizen Services or some administrative work in the afternoons, and was generally on his way home by 5:00. I guess that it goes without saying that this stands in great contrast to a day in the mines here. Life there is . . . well . . . NORMAL.

Me? I slept late, walked all over town, and ate every kind of food that I could find. Malay, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, American, South American, and Italian. I was in heaven. I ate a lot of ice cream. I was a very happy girl.

The thing that I liked the most about KL, other than the walking and the food, was the people. The population there is very diverse, ethnically, culturally, and religiously. It is a Muslim country and the majority of people are Muslim, but there are also a lot of other folks around; Chinese, Western, Malay, lots of other Asians, and Indians. It was nice to not be the center of everyone's gaze wherever I went. Even among the Muslims, there were a wide variety of people. They ran the spectrum from fully covered by burkas to wearing jeans and T-shirts. It was not quite New York, but it was a very comfortable and exciting mix. And the people were friendly, though crime is on the rise.

The thing that I disliked the most was the complete lack of a historical feel. As I said, the city is very young and built sort of on the Singapore model . . . hotels, malls, and more hotels. That could start to get on my nerves after a while, but it was very acceptable, considering the amazing food that was hiding in the hotels and malls.

Because we were living there, we didn't really take a lot of pictures. Here is the view from our apartment window. Yes, that IS one of the Petronas Towers, right outside our door. There was a storm rolling in, like very afternoon that we were there.