August 24 - 26, 2016 

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, or “KL” to the locals, is an interesting place to spend a short period of time. It’s hot and humid which makes walking around for any period of time uncomfortable. A lot of great Chinese, Thai, and Indian food here, but majority of the population are Malay and Muslim. That means a lot of women are in long skirts or pants and head scarves. Also, alcohol is ridiculously expensive, like $10 a drink at a bar.

I didn’t spend much time in KL, but here are my tips:

1. Get a SIM card at the airport. I bought a 4G HotLink SIM card, RM40 for 7GB - and it worked great in Langkawi, as well. 

2. Take the bus from the airport to downtown for RM15. You’ll buy a bus ticket on the first floor of the airport. Or, use Uber. Uber is great in KL.

3. I stayed at Hotel Soleil for $30.86 a night. Location, pool, and view were great. Digs were a bit dingy, though, and the street was loud all night long. Luckily, my travel partner, Rosh, and I both thought it was funny and stayed up late chatting anyways.

4. My favorite restaurant was TG’s Nasi Kandar, which probably made the best Indian food I’ve ever had.

5. I enjoyed shopping at the Pavilion Shopping Mall and having a novelty coffee at the DC Comics Cafe.

6. The Batu Caves is a limestone hill that has a series of caves and cave temples. The caves are one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India, and is dedicated to Lord Murugan (aka Kartikeya), the Hindu god of war. It’s super easy to get to by transit. It’s the eighth station from KL Sentral Railway Station, a RM2.60 train ride that comes around every 40 minutes. 

7. It’s also worth getting around to the Islamic Arts Museum and Masjid Negara (National Mosque). They’re within walking distance of each other. The mosque is only open certain hours for visitors, you do need to rent a robe to wear, and there’s quite a line to wait in. 

8. It was fun seeing the Petronas Towers in person. I personally wouldn’t pay RM85 to visit the observation deck, as just walking around the area was great and there are plenty of bars in impressive skyscrapers around town.