Kuala Lumpur (Day 3): A Bat Poops on Rucha

Many of our friends (and Instagram travel bloggers) told us to skip Kuala Lumpur.  We were told there's not that much to do, it's too conservative, it's just another steel city.  Based on his last visit, Vin was also tepid about the city, resigned to spending time there only because our last minute flight deal flew in and out of Kuala Lumpur.

Turns out, we absolutely loved it.

For our second full day in Kuala Lumpur, we opted for a tour to the Batu Caves, Royal Selangor (pewter museum), a couple of war memorials, the National Mosque of Malaysia, the National Palace, Independence Square, as well as a batik print artisan shop and chocolate shop.

We filed into a white van around 8:30 in the morning, cozying up to an Australian family and a mother and daughter from Eastern Europe.  We rode a short half hour to the Batu Caves, which houses several Hindu temples in caves on a hill.  We walked up 272 brightly colored, wet, narrow steps, stopping every so often because I suddenly remembered I was afraid of heights.  While Vin took some pictures of a sweaty, nervous me, a bat defecated on my arm.

The summit was cool, dark, and covered with rock.  We took off our shoes and wandered through some temples, taken most by the pinks and blues and greens that stood in such stark contrast to the grey rock.

Our walk back down the steps was slowed by all the foreigners' excitement about the monkeys.  There were so many monkeys.  Monkeys on the railing, monkeys on the steps, monkeys eating Snickers and Nature Valley granola bars.  The thing is, there are lots of monkeys in India.  And, my family history is particularly rife with monkey stories.  My grandparents had to put bars on their windows after they had an epidemic of monkeys stealing their fruit.  My great aunt has a scar on her arm from a monkey bite.  My dad and his cousins used to wage war on the monkeys on their terrace by throwing rocks at them.  My mother told me never to get too close to monkeys because they slap hard.  Monkeys, monkeys, monkeys.

And so, I was not stopping on the steps to take monkey pictures.

Our next stop was a batik print artisan shop.  The model of this tour was the same as tours we've taken in Mexico, Morocco, Indonesia - the first stop is always the main attraction, the one thing people care to write home about (here, the Batu Caves), and the second stop is always some sort of craft shop selling local goods.  Someone gives us a tour of the facility, a history and background of the process of creation, and then expects us to buy something at haggle-free, tourist surge prices.  The ubiquity of this tour model, of this effort to prey on tourists' bleeding, curious, vacationing hearts, was comforting.

Our next stop was Royal Selangor, a pewter museum.  In addition to learning more generally about pewter, and, more specifically about the importance of this product to Malaysia, we  were happy to learn how sustainable the museum's and manufacturer's practices are.  For example, the museum reuses leftover pewter shavings to create entirely new pewter goods.

Sustainable Pewter Manufacturing

Malaysia's Largest Pewter Mug

Lime Soda in Pewter Cups

After some employees hovered over us at the gift shop, we got back into the van to finish our tour, visiting two war memorials, the National Mosque, the National Palace, Independence Square, and a chocolate shop where we tried chocolate that was surprisingly too spicy (apparently Malaysia used to be the world’s largest cacao producer).

It was only 1 PM when the tour guide dropped us back to our hotel.  We quickly got free samples of durian cake from a pastry pop up in the lobby, remembered how much we hated durian, and ventured off for lunch.  Vin had discovered a vegetarian restaurant called Blue Boy, about a 30 minute walk from our hotel.  It took us closer to an hour to find it, however, as we circled the block it was on for about 20 minutes, before finding it behind an alley.  We were dripping with sweat as we walked in.

Blue Boy was small, though larger than a food stall, completely open on one side, and had only plastic lawn chairs.  The restaurants was filled with signs about saving the oceans and switching to paper straws.  There were flies every where, and a table of old men playing cards and drinking tea.  And we ate one of the best meals we ever had.  At the very least, it was the best assam laksa and fried  kway teow we had ever had.  Tangy, spicy, hot, and unfortunately finite.

 

Our next stop was the Petronas Towers.  Our gait had slowed.  The sun was aggressively beating down on us, and we just wanted to lie down in the air conditioning and feel the laksa in our bellies.  We were thus relieved to find out the tickets to the top of the towers had sold out.

Since we couldn't head to the top, we just took the escalators a couple of flights to Madame Kwans, so Vin could try the national dish, Nasi Lemak.  We just couldn't seem to stop eating.

We still had a couple of hours till our flight.  We thought we'd end at Marini's on 57, a rooftop bar that specialized in whiskey cocktails.  Vin and I love whiskey and we love rooftops.  

Unfortunately, the security guard turned us away because of my oversized jean shorts (and probably the bat feces on my arm, the sweatshirt tied around my waist, my sweaty hair matted down at the sides by my glasses).  Vin quickly found some other rooftop bar, Sky Bar, which had a pool, 2-for-1 drink specials, and an unobstructed view of the twin towers.

And in a few hours, we left Kuala Lumpur.