Kuala Lumpur in one day: exploring the Malaysian capital on foot

Originally, this day in Kuala Lumpur was supposed to be a trip to the Thai Embassy. But with almost no wait, I quickly had plenty of time to explore the city on foot.

From the Petronas Towers to Bukit Nanas, via Merdeka Square, Chinatown, and Central Market, I ended up walking nearly 10 km in the heat. And against all odds, it gave me a good overview of Kuala Lumpur... in just one day.

Kuala Lumpur, a young city

KL for those in the know is the capital of Malaysia, relatively small, 243 km² when compared with the enormity of Bangkok and these 1570 km² we can clearly see that we are not playing in the same category... With these 1,6 million inhabitants (7 all the same if we count the metropolis), it is a recent city in full effervescence which came out of nowhere following the discovery of tin deposits in the XNUMXth century.

Sometimes, I get a bit sidetracked on the story and forget that it's just a blog whose main point remains the photo, or at least, through what I've done and seen, to give you an idea of ​​the places, guide you in choosing visits etc..., but I'm also very interested in history and geography; hence all this information that I like to distil through my blog.

I wanted to share with you here these images found on the web, while I was preparing these articles on Kuala Lumpur, to see how much the city has undergone a major boom, here is a comparison between a view of the city in the 70s where we can clearly see that it looked like a small town. We can recognize the Merdeka square which serves as a landmark.

The other photo shows KL now, with a view slightly more oriented towards the north but we can clearly recognize Merdeka Square, we can also see the Kompleks Daya Bumi tower on the right of the photo as well as the Kuala Lumpur tower and the Petronas twin towers in the background, and in the very background the mountains where we find ourselves Batu Caves.

Petronas Towers and KLCC Park

The famous Petronas Towers, named after the Malaysian oil company which has its offices there, with their 452m height and 88 floors, were in their time (inaugurated in 1998) the tallest towers in the world until 2004 (Taipei Tower). It took no less than 6 years to complete them, the same time as the current tallest tower in the world, the so-called Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

I was going there from the Thai embassy and I had just submitted the necessary documents for my visa. So I had just walked 2 km, the heat being quite strong, I took a break shortly before to eat in a small Indian restaurant before continuing on my way.

The towers are quite imposing and quite an icon, I remember them especially from having seen them in the film Haute Voltige, with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Behind the 2 towers is a nice park. A breath of greenery always welcome in the city. My next stop was to reach the Bukit Nanas reserve, 2 km from the park and the towers.

Bukit Nanas and Menara Observation Tower

To get there, I walked right in the heart of the city, there are a lot of offices in the area and so it's teeming with people. I took a raised and covered pedestrian path, with the air conditioning, which was welcome on this hot day (I might say it again...), it's very energy-intensive but it would make you want to see the same in Bangkok.

It is a nature reserve, right in the heart of the city, preserving a tropical forest such as the region was covered with. The surface area today is only 9 hectares, compared to 17 before the construction of the observation tower (and a water treatment plant).

The tower itself is 421m (including antenna), with a platform located 276m above the ground, offering a breathtaking view of the city and the reserve. Problem being, the price… 52 Ringgit for the observation tower alone! That’s 500 Baht at the current exchange rate. See the information and all the prices on the official website.

The forest reserve was being redeveloped and therefore closed, and the cultural “village” was empty… so it was a bad day to come…

On the way to Merdeka Square

I then went down and walked along the park to reach the Indian quarter, towards where my hotel is. The goal was to then reach my next stop, Merdaka Square.

I first passed by old ruined buildings that looked like beautiful colonial-style houses, then by a church and finally the telecommunications museum, which on the side looks like an ancient Greco-Roman temple. It was time to go out to pray, many people wearing a rug on their heads to go to the mosque and protect themselves from the strong sun.

So far I have found Kuala Lumpur really different from what I expected, in this case a more modern city, cleaner, closer to what Singapore is for example, while it is not, it seems almost more "disordered" and "poor" than Bangkok, yet as I said it is a city that seems to be booming, there is a lot of construction in progress, it is not a disappointment strictly speaking since I did not expect more than that from this visit, but it was a little disconcerting let's say.

But let's continue this stroll through the city, whose name means "muddy confluences" (it's suddenly less classy). As I was walking back down the street from my hotel, I passed the Indian quarter, which is similar to that of Singapore, in that there is a row of stalls with Indian restaurants, flower sellers and religious products.

I walked along the metro line and crossed a bridge spanning the Klang River, which no longer looks like a river since they have concreted its entire bed... I pass by the Jamek Mosque which is therefore under renovation and continue to the large independence square (from the United Kingdom in 1957), Merdeka Square.

Independence Square

Around Merdeka Square, there are several buildings of historical interest, such as the Ministry of Information, known as the Sultan Abdul Samad Building, and the Royal Selangor Club, a club favored by high-ranking officers during the British colonial period.

You can also see a beautiful fountain, the observation tower in the background as well as the recognizable tower of "Kompleks Dayabumi". It is a good spot to get a glimpse of the diversity of Kuala Lumpur without even needing to gain height.

The other building that stands out is the imposing façade of the Sultan Abdul Samad Monument, named after the sultan who ruled the area at the time of its construction (between 1894 and 1897, roughly the same time as the theater). These buildings housed government departments of the British administration, and were the seat of the Federal Court of Justice until 2007, when they have since housed the offices of the Ministry of Information, Communications and Culture of Malaysia.

Short break at the Central Market

I continue my wanderings by heading towards the previous station Masjik Jamik, Pasar Seni. To do this, I walk along the platform to Komplex Daya Bumi where I cross again, several homeless people sit in the area, I take a photo of the view of the train leaving from Pasar Seni station, then while I'm there, I tell myself I might as well visit the Central Market, in passing, I will take advantage of the air conditioning and especially treat myself to a break after 5 hours of almost continuous walking, including a meal taken in a kind of "food court".

A quick tour of Chinatown

After that, I deviated from my originally planned route, seeing that I was suddenly right near Chinatown (I was thinking of just walking along the subway before). I then headed towards what I thought was a temple: Chan She Shu Yuen.

In fact, it is not a temple, but a "kongsi" or "clan houses" which were associations of popular origin of the Chinese diaspora. They brought together people with the same clan name who helped each other, particularly economically, while Chinese immigrants were often denigrated and victims of oppression.

Today the word is used to refer to a business, as was often the case back when kongsi operated as real businesses and many believe that the success of Chinese trade would come from the establishment of these kongsi.

After taking a few photos, I wandered through the streets of Chinatown, which was unfortunately deserted at this time of day, as the vendors hadn't yet set up their stalls. So I didn't linger any longer, especially since it didn't look very impressive visually.

Station area

It was only after this aside that I finally, since that was my goal for the end of the day, reached Kuala Lumpur station. A station that also has (or had, since the website no longer exists) an integrated hotel, the Heritage Station Hotel, housed in this nearly 100-year-old building.

The neighborhood is only a few minutes from KL Central and Masjid Negara National Mosque, inaugurated in 1965 (and already renovated in 1987) and which stands out for its 73 m minaret and especially its capacity of 15 people. This makes it one of the largest mosques in Southeast Asia, and yet, I will pass 000 m from there without stopping, because I did not see it and was not aware of it at that time...

And I'm taking the time to talk to one of them. He's been in this situation for 5 years! And yet, he has a job! He explained to me that he's a courier, but that due to lack of means, he has neither a bicycle nor a motorbike so he does everything on foot... I'll give him 10RM (equivalent to 100 baht) which will make him happy at the time, but which deep down seemed so illusory... In these moments, even when I don't have a pasha's life myself, I always think to myself, "don't complain, look..."

And conversely, I always think to myself how this could end one day, how not to eradicate this scourge that is poverty simply because man is too selfish and the system wants to be "that way"... The equation seems so simple, a more equitable distribution, fewer very rich for more "less poor". And while we have the means, financially first, but also emotionally, compassion, mutual aid, these are unfortunately things that we have, but which are not always applied so naturally...

I'll stop there before I get into the act, but there's so much I could say about this subject that particularly exasperates me.

Return to Chinatown (Petaling Street)

On the way back, I will only think about my hotel, my room and resting... But before that, I will take the time to have my shoes repaired... My soles being more than unstuck, but the rest of the shoes being in rather good condition, I said to myself while taking a photo of this shoemaker that it was a good fit and that I was going to give him a bit of work after all.

I'll end this article with a few atmospheric photos of the city, taken on my way back to my hotel. This took me back past Petaling Street, Chinatown's main thoroughfare, which was becoming busier, as the stalls were already being set up during my previous visit.