Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – October 29th – November 2nd, 2016

Kuala Lumpur is a REAL developed city – cleaner than and just as updated as many major cities in the US! At first we could not believe that the plane didn’t accidentally drop us off at a nice city in Florida. The public transit is easy to navigate, they drive in lanes on paved roads, the electricity appears to be safely wired and works consistently, there are plumbing and waste management systems, they have washing machines and dryers, and besides the occasional strange smelling food, it smells clean (no dust and minimal smog)! The city also appears to be appropriately sized, meaning that the city planners have their shit together. If you couldn’t tell, we were very impressed with Kuala Lumpur (KL)… not to say we didn’t have our challenges in the first day or two.

We arrived at the airport and cleared customs, still feeling pretty crappy from the great Nepali food crises, round 2. Our first order of business was to get Malaysian ringgit (MYR) to pay for the bus towards our hostel. After 3 ATMs failed to give us money, Andy called the bank through the free KL airport high speed wifi (like I said… impressive) while I asked around at the multiple money exchangers/banks in the airport to exchange the Nepali money (NRP) we had left. I was unable to find a place to exchange the money (they refused to exchange NRP for some reason), but luckily Andy worked things out with the bank and we got some money from an ATM. After picking up some snacks at a real live grocery store at the airport, we went to buy our bus tickets. The price was 22 MYR so I handed the woman two one dollar bills and a coin that said 20 on it. Being that this was the first time we had been in a country that used coins for change less than 1 ringgit, I was startled to find out that I had actually attempted to pay her 2.20 ringgit. After making many mistakes like this over the last two months, we had a good laugh at my stupidity and were on our way (after giving her a 20 ringgit bill instead of 20 cents of course).

On our first day in KL, we ventured out to watch the MotoGP motorcycle race. Coincidentally, the race was taking place on the weekend we were arriving and since it is a huge international event, famous race track, and there is a massive Malaysian fan base, we got tickets while we were still in Nepal.  From our research in Nepal, we saw the main race started at 12:45 pm so we left fairly early to make sure we got there with plenty of time. Unfortunately, the bus ride turned out to be more of a parking lot visit and we found ourselves ~20 minutes late for the race. Worse than that, it was pouring rain and it took us over 30 minutes to figure out where our seats were, so by the time we sat down on the covered dirt lawn surrounded by smoking Malaysian fans, the race only had 9 laps to go. We were so frustrated and disappointed! We tried to make the most of it though, and watched the rest of the race from our surprisingly good vantage point. With the race over, we were confused to find that nobody got up to leave. After many, many confused minutes, we asked some nearby drunk Aussies what race we just watched. After looking at us like we were complete morons, they answered Moto2 (meaning the lower class of racing) and explained that the race was scheduled to start at 3pm and the only thing to start at 12:45 was the drinking! It took us several more hours before we realized that our mistake originated from the 2 hour 15 minute time difference between Kathmandu and Kuala Lumpur. Anyway, long story short, we saw the entire race and even lucked out on our dirt spot, staying dry while the surrounding people were sitting in a mudslide from the bouts of torrential downpours. The race was exciting and we watched two crashes right in front of us! Well worth the $10 each for tickets! The bus ride back was, believe it or not, longer that the bus ride to the race. It took over two and a half hours! All in all, we spent significantly more time on the bus than at the race track that day.

Sepang MotoGP

The next day we sought out to exchange the Nepalese money. We had planned to exchange the ~36,000 NPR ($330) in Nepal before we left, but the money exchangers in Kathmandu did not have MYR and we did not feel up for walking around to figure it out. We just assumed we could exchange it in Malaysia. WRONG! Apparently, Nepal has a closed currency, meaning that not only can you not exchange money outside of the country, it is actually illegal to take money across the border! Who knew that was even a thing!??! Not us! Many google searches revealed that our only option was to find someone traveling to Nepal and strike a deal with them. We asked around the hostel, left a hilariously witty note in the common room, emailed some contacts in Nepal, and went to a couple more private money exchangers with no luck. The problem was finally resolved through following a lead from the hotel owner in Kathmandu, who directed us to a money courier, who told us to go to a different private exchanger, who finally gave us a decent exchange rate. Phew, crises averted again!

The food in KL was YUM! There was everything from authentic western foods to delicious Malay food and everything in between. Our culinary highlights included a trip to McDonalds where we chowed down on cheeseburgers and McFlurries. In the US, I had not been to a McDonalds in over a decade, but it tasted SO GOOD! We also at Din Tai Fung, a Chinese Dim Sum restaurant that has several branches all over the world. Andy had eaten at one in Hong Kong several years ago while on a work trip, and has now eaten at the restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, but has not managed to make it to the branch that is less than a mile from our house in Seattle! We also ventured out of our comfort zone to eat some traditional Malay black hokkien mee noodles. Unsure of the type of meat they put in the noodles, we asked for it vegetarian, and a local in line ahead of us was nice enough to translate our order for us. We thought we were in the clear, but really they just added the chunks of animal fat in mine, rather than animal fat and mystery meat/seafood. Lucky me. Andy’s fat-free noodles were delicious though!

KL's culinary wonders.

While we weren’t fighting crowds at the MotoGP and attempting to fill our bellies again after the previous 4-day fast, we walked around the city, visited a rainforest park with some of the oldest fully-preserved rainforest in the world, watched a light show at the Petronas towers (skyscrapers), and shopped. With more malls than you can count, KL is known for fashion and shopping. Since it appeared that we severely under packed, we made full use of the brand name western stores and stocked up on a couple more shirts, a pair of convertible hiking pants and shorts for Andy, and some underwear and socks. The past several months had taught us that having only four pairs of underwear and socks meant that you had to do laundry (in the sink) at least every 3 days. This assumes that the laundry will actually dry in one day, which it won’t because the air is as moist (that one’s for you Lillian) as the clothes. While shopping at one of the markets we were also shocked to find that a 512 GB flash drive was being sold on sale for 10 MYR (~$2.50)! We hadn’t even realized that technology had advanced so far as to compact that much storage into a tiny flash drive, and at such a low price! The truth, we realized later when plugging in our exciting purchase, was that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. The flash drive was a scam and completely fake. Turns out technology has advanced that far, but you’ll pay about $300 for a real one (not $2.50). Oops. 

The sites around KL.