We arrive in Kuala Lumpur in the late afternoon – or in the Bukit Bintang district, where our inn is – and are pleased to see that we have hit it completely in the black. Not only is the famous night food market just a 5-minute walk away, but the large shopping malls (for example the pavilion) with their invigorating nightlife and the famous as well as quite spectacular Petronas Towers are just a short walk away.
But that was already positive impressions, because the following two days turned out to be absolutely unspectacular. Because if you are not necessarily interested in wild parties, sinfully expensive hotels with rooftop infinity pools, extravagant shopping trips or glass viewing platforms on TV towers, then Kuala Lumpur does not have much to offer. During our rambles through the neighborhoods, we missed all the joie de vivre we are used to from other major cities. Public parks are virtually extinct (or completely closed), sidewalks virtually do not exist, one is permanently surrounded by traffic noise and public transport is in fact unusable. So it comes that we needed for a distance of about 1km as the crow flies over an hour, just because between us and our destination is a main artery and a muddy river. And so, halfway through the first day, we feel like we’ve seen everything. If we had not already organized the onward journey, we probably would have left the city the next day, so we use it but to plan a little and to stray even further through the city (and the seller of our SIM card over your ear let that be part of a classic Asia vacation as well).
But Kuala Lumpur had a small highlight ready for us. On the basis of a documentation at Arte, we became aware of Kampung Baru, a small, inconspicuous and typically Asian village in the middle of the skyscrapers of the metropolis virtually next to the Petronas Towers. We also got an idea of how a mainly Muslim country in Asia is pre-Christmas. All department stores are full of cheesy exhibits (on the other hand, the windows of Lafayette’s in Paris are a joke) and the kids are happy about “snow” made of foam cannons. Just wonderful to look at and it makes us turn the city at least with a smile!