We spent a week in Kuala Lumpur revisiting old haunts – it was interesting seeing what has changed in the last 10 years and what hasn’t. It’s still a great city of vibrancy, a mixture of cultures and languages. We had fun trying out our rusty Bahasa Melayu (it’s surprising how much comes back when you start talking), eating lots of roti canai and exploring. There are many new buildings, including the huge blue multi-faceted Merdeka118 tower – the second highest in the world.
It has been opened but not to the public yet. Chinatown is still the same ramshackle area but now has some interesting murals
and Central Market, whilst suffering from loss of shops during the pandemic, has remained open. Not sure we like the new makan hall as it doesn’t seem to fit in with the arts and crafts history and style of the market but we did love that Andy’s old tailor is still trading (and made him a new shirt!!).
And of course we had to visit my favourite towers, glittering in the night sky. I fell in love with the Petronas Towers back in 2010 when I first saw them looking like crystal in the night sky – they still enthrall me and now there’s a lovely evening musical fountain display in the gardens behind KLCC as well.
It’s still cheap to eat and to get around on the monorail, MRT and LRT but now transport is a bit more joined up, which makes it easier to get around.
Next, we flew down to Singapore for a couple of days – ouch! Just as well we only had 2 nights here and used loyalty points to get free accommodation because whilst Singapore has always been expensive, it’s now crazy prices.
Still, the buses are cheap to get around on, so we revisited the Gardens by the Bay (last here in 2012) and it was lovely to see how much greener it is now. We even managed to get Andy on the high walk, but we didn’t visit the domes this time.
