24 Hours in Kuala Lumpur by Tim Elliott
Featured Hotel in Kuala Lumpur
Sheraton Imperial
See all hotels in Kuala Lumpur >
Given that Australians regularly pop up in the most far-flung pockets of the planet, it’s a mystery why so many neglect Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s wonderful and underrated capital. From its beginnings as a tin mining town in 1857, KL has become one of Asia’s great success stories, an Aladdin’s Cave of little known delights waiting to be sampled by anyone savvy or curious enough to seek them out. It’s also the ideal stopover for those heading to Europe, and not only because of its position, some eight hours flying time north of Australia.
Few places have come so far in so short a time as KL, which has grown from a lawless and malarial frontier settlement to a stable and affluent regional centre, absorbing in the process all manner of catastrophes, including fire and flood, civil war and racial unrest. This is a brassy, rambunctious place built on risk and impulse, a city that manages to marry elements of British empire (clocktowers, colonnades and cricket pitches), with the steam and sizzle of a hard-driving Asian capital.
It’s a late night city, too, a monsoonal version of Madrid where people live to eat and party till late. Because KL was largely anonymous to me, everything was a revelation; the skinny Malay boys buzzing about on mufflerless motorbikes; the Chinatown locals burning $100 Hell Bank bills, offerings to their dead relatives in the Hungry Ghost Festival. At the night market at Kampung Baru, in the heart of the city, I sat at a rickety plastic table eating mangosteen and durian, the colossal spires of Petronas Towers — the world’s tallest twin buildings — glowering over my shoulder. KL is a one-off whose unexpected pleasures and accessible scale make it perfect for a one-day layover.
8.45pm: Arriving on a Saturday night from Sydney, I take the KLIA Ekpres, a light rail link direct from the airport. The Ekpres departs every 15 minutes from the airport’s ground level, and is the best way to get to KLCC (KL City Centre): it’s cheap, clean, and fast. Taxis can take up to an hour-and-a-half; the Ekpres takes 28 minutes.
9.50pm: I book into my hotel, the 223 room Ascott Kuala Lumpur, a five star serviced residence in the heart of KLCC. This was recommended by a local, and is curiously absent from my guidebook, despite its luxurious rooms (29“ TV and stereo, huge bathroom, lounge and kitchen), excellent location and decent rates. It also has some of KL’s best views of Petronas Towers. (Book well ahead to be sure of a room with a view.)
10:00pm: KL’s a small city: most places are a short cab ride away. (Inner city fares rarely exceed RM10 to RM30.) It’s a 10-minute taxi ride through manic Saturday night traffic to Jalan Balai Polis, in Chinatown, where I have dinner at the Old China Café. Tucked away in a quiet corner, this is a moody and intimate eatery reminiscent of a Shanghai teahouse, with saloon style swinging doors and antique marbletop tables, its walls adorned with portraits of Sun Yat Sen and black and whites of venerable Chinese families. The food is Malaccan Nonya, which blends Malay spices with Chinese ingredients and techniques, while also benefiting from Portuguese and Dutch influences. It’s the ideal post-flight recovery food because it’s richly flavoured yet light and varied, with restorative dishes like Ginseng Chicken Soup and Itik Tim (duck soup cooked with pickled cabbage, sour plum, tamarind and tangerine peel). Also try the Devil Curry, Fried Assam Prawns, and Pie Tee, or Top Hats (crispy rice flour cones filled with minced chicken, sweet turnip, bean sprouts and chilli sauce.)
11.15pm: I work off dinner by meandering through Chinatown, up under a canopied alleyway crammed with five-inch thick smouldering joss sticks, the fumes from which are intended to placate the demons loosed during this weekend’s Hungry Ghost Festival. There are piles of phoney money, plus papier-mache TV and radios, all of which will be burnt tomorrow (thereby making them available to the ghosts). Just around the corner is the lantern-lined Petaling Street, a renown shopping stretch (great, apparently, for fake Fendi handbags, wallets, watches, and streetside noodles). Right now, however, all the vendors are packing away their stalls in a tumult of clanging and banging — an amazing spectacle, like the dissembling of a gypsy village.
Walking further north, along Jalan Tun HS Lee, I pass the art deco Lee Rubber Building, once the tallest structure in KL — all four storeys of it! — before flagging a cab and heading home.
9am: The buffet breakfast (included in the tariff) in the Ascott’s 22nd floor Sky Lounge, affords one of the best opportunities to admire the Petronas Towers, about 300m away (a good distance, as it happens; too close and you can’t appreciate their scale). Rising 452m above street level, the 88-storey towers are mesmerisingly immense and unexpectedly graceful, enormous ribbed spires like parallel minarets. Fluted and winged and linked on the 41st floor by a Skybridge, the towers incorporate Islamic motifs (the floor plan is based on the eight-sided Star of Islam), that make them both futuristic and traditional — Blade Runner meets Sinbad — and a truly sultanic statement of the city’s ascendance. In 1997, shortly after their completion, urban climber Alain “Spiderman” Robert attempted to scale one of the towers using his bare hands and without safety devices, but was arrested by police at the 60th floor, 28 floors short of the top.
10.15am: A destination in itself, the swanky Suria KLCC shopping centre, at the foot of Petronas Towers, offers a snapshot of the modern Asian shopping experience; six gleaming floors of sports stores, food courts, cafes, boutiques, coffee bars and bookstores, all below a capacious beehive atrium. I came here to have some photos burnt onto disk in the Canon shop, but it’s worth coming just to stickybeak: Saudi women in hejab mill about while their husbands play with toy Ferraris; hyperactive kids skate by in socks on the polished marble floors. Stock up on reading matter at the large and well staffed Kinokuniya (level four), or graze at Chocz, a gourmet chocolate bar (level three). The complex has a post-office, on the concourse, which is open all weekend.
11.30am: For a more cosy retail feel, I catch a cab five minutes across town to Lot 10, in Jalan Sultan Ismail, in KL’s Golden Triangle district. Here you’ll find some of Asia’s finest couturiers; check out New York-based Malaysian designer, Zang Toi, at shop 50. And don’t miss Heirloom (shop 21), run by ex-interior designer Chan Yue Yee, whose vintage jewellery is frequently snapped up by top collectors, including the Malaysian PM's wife, Endon Mahmood. This is absorbing and richly crafted stuff: translucent porcelain, intricate embroidery and burnished kris, plus Nyonya necklaces made from gold and intan (diamond off-cuts). With its antique cabinets and moody nooks, the store is great to linger in, like an ambient, turn-off-the-century trading house.
12.30pm: KL’s sticky heat dulls your appetite but sharpens your thirst: skipping lunch I opt instead for a premature yet utterly envigorating chocolate martini (Kahlua, Baileys, vodka and milk), in the Village Bar, a short walk from Lot 10, in the opulent Starhill Gallery. Constructed entirely of recycled bottles obtained from local hawkers, the Village Bar is all muted tones and refracted light, with Indian inspired décor and stained glass lamps. The faux leopard fur menus are inlaid with a mirror panel so, as manager Kay Chang puts it, “the guys can check out the girls behind them.”
2.00pm: High tea at the Carcosa Seri Negara is a KL tradition. Take a cab (15 minutes), to the Lake Gardens area at the western edge of the city, up the winding road, past the monitor lizards and wrought iron lampposts. At the top of the hill sits two grand colonial manses built between 1896 and 1904: Carcosa housed the British Governor-General, Sir Frank Swettenham; Seri Negara was his guesthouse. During World War II Carcosa became the Japanese officers' mess, and following independence in 1957 the official residence of the British High Commissioner. There are 13 suites here, but for most people tea on the plantation style balcony will do. A fixed price menu includes sandwiches of smoked salmon, cucumber and watercress, and egg and mayonnaise, followed by scones, rhubarb crumble and spicy banana bread, plus a range of teas; Assam, Darjeeling and, best of all, a smoky Sri Lankan mix called lapsang souchong. Take your time here; the silence is only broken by the muezzin’s call to prayer.
4.15pm: Travelling south to the Indian dominated district of Brickfields, I get a one-hour massage at the Blind Master Massage Centre, opposite the YMCA, on Jalan Tun Sambathan 4. Trained by the Malaysian Association of the Blind, the masseuses’ visual impairment supposedly enhances their sense of touch. They certainly know how to iron you out: this is one of the deepest deep-tissue massages I’ve ever had, and is available with talcum powder or oil. Ask for Roslan.
5.30pm: I take coffee at one of the no-frills coffeehouses sprinkled along Jalan Tun Sambathan 4. Malaysians relish their coffee, the beans of which are roasted, fried in butter and rough-ground before being cloth-filtered and served any number of ways, including, but not limited to, kopi (with condensed milk and sugar), kopi o (sugar but no milk), kopi o kosong (black), kopi ping (with ice), and kopi chum (mix of coffee and tea).
6.00pm: I return to the hotel for a sunset dip in the rooftop pool (level 22), reading magazines and taking in the skyline. There’s also a spa up here, on the other side of the terrace, if you want another angle on the city.
7.00pm: Dinner at Bangsar Seafood Garden Restaurant, in Bangsar, a 20-minute cab trip south of the hotel. This is the place for tiger prawns, soon hock (a tender white-fleshed fish), and the legendary Baked Crab in Butter Sauce. The décor is utilitarian — a high ceiling and cavernous interior, with seating for 600 — but the food attracts Chinese and Malays alike, from banqueting families to government ministers. Sitting at the table next to me is Rafidah Aziz, Minister of Trade and Industry, and her extended clan.
8.30pm: Heading back to the city, I stroll around the old village of Kampung Baru, its heritage mansions festooned with creepers. This is an original Malay settlement whose rusticity has been preserved by government fiat prohibiting the sale of the land to Chinese developers. Meandering east, I end up in Jalan Raja Alang, with its stall after stall of exotic produce; jackfruit, lemongrass, ginger buds, durian and dried fish. I wind up feasting on mangosteen at a roadside table, beneath the glow of the Petronas Towers.
10pm: I check out of The Ascott, catching a cab to KL Central Train Station, where I take the KLIA Ekpres to the airport, arriving with over an hour to till the departure of my 11.45pm flight to Europe.
48 hours
* Dine at the revolving Seri Angkasa restaurant atop KL Tower, 282m above the city. (Book ahead for sunset reservations.).
* Have a midnight feast at the famous Nasi Lemak Antarabangsa street-stall, in Kampung Baru’s Jalan Raja Muda Musa.
* Party at Zouk, listed in 2004 by British magazine iDJ as among 50 legendary clubs worldwide.
* Tuck into sizzling steak (served with a bib), at the creakily colonial Coliseum, once a favourite of Somerset Maugham’s.
* Stroll down Bintang Walk, an al fresco dining strip in Golden Triangle, ending at Lecka-Lecka hubble-bubble bar for a waterpipe and a Tiger beer.
72 hours
* Ascend the Skybridge, on the 41st floor of the Petronas Towers. (Tickets are free from the base of the Towers from 8:30am; expect queues on the weekend.)
* Visit Putrajaya, Malaysia’s US$8.1 billion planned city and administrative capital 40km south of KL. (Open to the public 9:00am-5:00pm daily including Sundays.)
* Cool off in the Cameron Highlands, half a day from KL.
* Check out the wave-pool at Sunway Lagoon, a waterpark in Petaling Jaya, 11km southwest of KLCC.
* Admire the Masjid Jamek, KL’s Moghul style mosque, built in 1907 at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers, where KL’s founders first set foot.
Expert Advice
Johnni Wong is an antiques collector and owner of The Old China Café.
BEST SOUNDS
“For an evening of extraordinary music, there’s no better place than the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas [Suria KLCC], home to the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. Check if seats are available as tickets to top-rated performers like Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, and Sumi Jo are usually sold out.”
CURIOS
“Head to Petaling Jaya, about 15 minutes from the city centre by Light Rail Transit. Look for the flea market near Amcorp Mall, held Saturday and Sunday. Best bet is on Sundays between 11am to 4pm. Browse through old books, phonographic records or Chinese porcelain, silverware; even Malay textiles and vintage jewellery. The best stalls are on the lower ground floor. Bargain hard.”
HEAVY STUFF
“For bigger items — furniture, chandeliers, sculpture or even a billiard table or a vintage bathtub — hire a taxi and head to Malacca, about an-hour-and-a-half away by car. Go straight to Jonker Street (aka Jalan Hang Jebat) and Heeren Street (now Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock) for the antique shops and old homes, some from the 1700s. The best-stocked shop is Abdul & Co. at 79 Jalan Hang Jebat. Visit the Baba Nyonya Heritage Museum for a visual feast. It’s the ancestral home of six generations of a Straits Chinese family. [Ph: 60 6 283 1273; guided tours 10am-12.30pm and 2pm-4pm.]”
Looking for a great place to stay in the Malaysian capital? Check out our selection of luxury hotels in Kuala Lumpur.