If you're planning 5 days in Kuala Lumpur, this itinerary balances the city's major landmarks with a Genting Highlands day trip, Batu Caves, historic Old KL and a day at Sunway Lagoon.
My first visit to George Town, some years before the pandemic, was little more than a quick fix; a shore excursion on a cruise that sailed along the Malaysian coast before returning to Singapore. I had barely three hours on land, just enough to sense the outlines of something intriguing: the smell of spices and coffee in the air, the pastel shophouses, the street art that tells a unique story. Ever since, the city had lingered in my mind like an unfinished conversation.
Malaysia is a memorable country for me because it was where I took my first international trip—and my first airplane flight. Yes, I was a late bloomer in terms of air travel, only able to afford it after entering the corporate world.
Kuala Lumpur holds a particular place in my memory. My very first air voyage was to this city more than a decade ago, just when low-cost carriers like Cebu Pacific Air began to offer fares that regular Juans like me could afford. In retrospect, my trip to Malaysia's capital city sparked my wanderlust. Hundreds of travels later, I was delighted to return to Kuala Lumpur to reacquaint myself with old haunts and explore new things about this bustling metropolis of cuisine and culture.
When citing gentrification success stories, the neighborhood of Chow Kit in Kuala Lumpur always came to mind. Even though it had a history that walked a fine line between exhilarating and dark, the once-infamous red-light district had seen a tremendous transformation in recent years.
Entering a non-descript building atypical of the ones where popular restaurants were usually located puzzled us a bit as to where we were heading. It was only when the elevator door opened that it finally revealed our purpose, as a wide entrance leading to a buffet table greeted us.
Slept on an airport floor. Been there, done that. During my previous red-eye flights to Kuala Lumpur, I remembered dozing off in several carpeted areas of Kuala Lumpur International Airport T2 (KLIA2) as I awaited my connecting flight the next day—a few times to India and another to Sri Lanka. However, on my last trip to India, I found cozy and affordable accommodation located right inside the KLIA2 terminal. Aptly called "Capsule Transit," it served its core function perfectly: providing just enough space for transiting passengers who did not have the time or money to head into downtown Kuala Lumpur to look for a hotel.
Other than the Petronas Twin Towers, the Batu Caves was the other place I wanted to see in Kuala Lumpur when I started plotting the itinerary of my trip to the capital of Malaysia way back in 2007. That was my very first airplane ride courtesy of my brother, who let me tag along with him. Coincidentally, that journey was what kick-started my wanderlust. A few days after arriving home, I quickly wrote a short narrative about it on the now-defunct Multiply blogging platform.
As one of the major hubs in Southeast Asia, Kuala Lumpur is often overlooked by some travelers as a mere pit stop just to have a sumptuous meal of Nasi Lemak before catching a connecting flight to their final destination. Bad travel take.
Also known as "Bean Sprouts Chicken", Ipoh's famed "Tauge Ayam" was another lip-smacking draw of that city other than the famed “Ipoh White Coffee” and other local dishes such as "Sar Hor Fun", "Hor Hee", "Nga Choi Kay", and "Hakka Mee". That mouthwatering dish was composed of steamed chicken topped with sliced onion leeks that came with a side dish set of bean sprouts, flat noodle soup, rice, and pork barbecue (char siew).
Notwithstanding being sans a honeymoon mate, I walked toward the gigantic ship bootlegging the swag of Mark Renton at the end of Trainspotting. Only that time, I was ship-spotting. Unflappably sliding my feet over the smooth carpet of the hallway of HarbourFront in Singapore, I silently declaimed my own version of the film’s famous quote. "Choose Cruise Life. Choose Traveling. Choose a big ship to sail. Choose onboard parties; choose an island to explore." Finding myself separated only by thick glass and a couple of hundred meters of pathway ahead, I stopped in my tracks and laid eyes on the sheer beauty of the docked ship that awaited my first-ever cruise ship experience.
Coming off from an 18 day exploration of the state of Kerala in India, I decided to stay for a few days in Kuala Lumpur before heading back to Manila. My choice of accommodation requires a strategic location close to a food district, the Petronas Towers - which I wanted to see again after 7 years, fits my backpacker budget and a walking distance to train stations. I searched around hotel booking websites until I came across Metro Hotel Bukit Bintang at agoda.com
Metro Hotel is a simple and no frills accommodation that suits travelers who wanted to have a comfortable bed in a nice and clean room while being right at the center of one of Kuala Lumpur's highlight district, in this case - being within the immediate vicinity of the massive mall of Berjaya Times Square, the hawker food stalls at Jalan Alor and its adjacent rows of cool pubs and clubs.
I booked a deluxe room located at the 12th floor which gave me a wonderful view of the city, including the nearby monorail line which proved very helpful for me in exploring part of the city the next day.
Even if I just left India, I felt I am still in Kerala when one of the staff I met at the elevator made small talk to me in broken English, he asked me where I came from. I told him "I'm from the Philippines" and that "I just flown over from Kerala, India" his eyes lit up and told me he was from Cochin in Kerala and smiled as he disappeared from the floor he stepped out into.
Over-all, Metro Hotel is a great value for money, it isn't like the other pricier and fancier places located around it, but as long as it does the trick of providing travelers like me with a safe environment, comfortable lodging, an okay breakfast buffet and being at a strategic location - close to some of Kuala Lumpur's attraction and transportation hubs, then I consider it as a good Agoda find for me.
My short return visit to Kuala Lumpur provided me an opportunity to revisit the twin towers of Petronas, visit the Batu Caves for the first time and feast on the many hawker food stalls at Jalan Alor along with meeting Kuala Lumpur-based Filipino travel bloggers, Joey, his wife Sky and Riz.
I mostly travel spontaneously and part of it is to find places to sleep on-the-spot while on the ground carrying my heavy rucksack. This time though, I appreciated the importance of booking a place to stay days ahead of my trip. Doing so, I was able to choose the location where I wanted to stay - which made my brief stay in the city easy and convenient. Agoda.com is a great website to start your search, as you can read guest reviews and ratings, which will definitely help you choose the best accommodation that fits perfectly into your itinerary.
I went to Melaka directly after we arrived in Kuala Lumpur from Myanmar. That begs the question: what to do after Myanmar? Melaka was unfairly put in a spot where it had to at least keep up with the highs of both Bagan and Yangon. If I had come there at a different time, I would probably have had more fun and desire to take photographs. Still, I did a lot of walking around streets littered with old and historic structures mixed with modern ones (a replica of the Marina Bay Sands hotel in SG was being constructed near the waters of the Strait of Malacca), trying out local dishes here and there. It was not bad at all, really.
Travel often becomes the source of many firsts. New experiences, though incomparable to being sandwiched between Michelle Rodriguez and Arci Muñoz, still resonated in my head long after the moment they happened. Just like that border crossing my brother and I did coming from Vietnam to Cambodia in 2011. Those sorts of things became memorable as one continued exploring the world. Our trip to Myanmar afforded me the opportunity to fly to a city (Kuala Lumpur) and then connect to another flight to Yangon, Myanmar (killing a few hours in between). There was nothing particularly milestone-worthy in that undertaking, but I remembered that during the few times I got to travel outside of the Philippines, it always fascinated me every time I would see those "Connecting Flights" signs at the airport.
A few hours before we boarded our plane back to Clark in Pampanga, we took a final walk along the streets of Kota Kinabalu and came across the remnant of an old building covered with eye-popping graffiti. To say that it was Andy Warhol-esque is a bit of an understatement. I had always been fascinated by street art, especially graffiti which, if executed with fine taste, always presented a welcome appeasement to the eyes.
I was not much of a food adventurer, I must admit. You would find me most of the time ordering the usual dishes at the office cafeteria, the tortang talong at the nearby Jollijeep, and on rare occasions delighting in KFC, McDonald's, and Jollibee. During my travels, though, I tried to become more driven to sample cuisines that were popular in the places I visited. Sometimes I did get to try, but more than a few times, due to budget constraints, I let the opportunity pass me by. Not so during my recent trip to Kota Kinabalu. I figured the chances of coming back would be more expensive, considering travel taxes and the lack of airfare promos alike. I was already there, so I might as well try to let my taste buds say hello to the dishes that were widely served around the city.
The stone fish was staring out of his aquarium like a delirious sea creature high on helium when he spotted two travel bloggers—one a Chinese-looking dude and the other a semi-Chinese-looking dude with a flair of Spanish blood—walking inside the Old Village Seafood Restaurant in Kota Kinabalu. It was a strange window into the local dining scene, where the evening catch seemed to have developed a whimsical, satirical perspective on their own culinary fates.
Surrounded by a man-made lagoon, the City Mosque at Likas Bay in Kota Kinabalu pulled off a floating apparition when seen from a distance. As I trudged closer from where we had gotten off the bus, I could hear chants of worship spread out into the open air. In a place like that, with the bay fronting the opposite side and the mosque facing it against the lagoon, the chanting bemused the ears of even the most undaunted passersby. At that moment, I felt solemnity as I quickly cut the distance between myself and that architecturally gifted place of worship of our Muslim brothers. After gorging on street foods in Kota Kinabalu, I was finally experiencing the place in a new light and perspective.
From Kuala Lumpur, we went to Genting Highlands, a place on top of a mountain that was developed starting in the 1970s by one of the richest men in Malaysia. Fast forward to today, it is the site of the First World Hotel, renowned for being the second-largest hotel in the world, a casino, a theme park, a mall, and a nearby residential village.
From Kuala Lumpur, we went to Genting Highlands, a place on top of a mountain that was developed starting in the 1970s by one of the richest men in Malaysia. Fast forward to today, it is the site of the First World Hotel, renowned for being the second-largest hotel in the world, a casino, a theme park, a mall, and a nearby residential village.
