Kuala Lumpur



Seychen and her husband


Heather and I were so incredibly sad to leave the Perhentians but we knew we were in for a treat in KL - Kuala Lumpur for short. We planned to stay with Seychen, a friend of Heather's grandma. She is Malay-Chinese and looks about 35 years old despite being my parents age. Seychen and her husband have a really cool apartment about 10 minutes from the center of the city.

Now all we got to do is get there.... Easier said than done. We have been patiently waiting in Kuala Besut for 4 hours to catch the overnight bus to KL. It's about a 9 hour bus ride and our luxury bus leaves at 8:30pm.

The bus makes frequent stops along the way and everything is all is fine and dandy.... BUT... At 4am the bus stops in the middle of nowhere. Heather is of corse asleep cause that beezy can sleep anywhere. I'm half awake attempting and failing to sleep. It isn't until 5am that I realize we've been there way to long for it to just be a pit stop. I can't find the driver and nobody speaks English. F@ck! I wake Heather and we decide to wait until 6:30 before we do anything. Time passes and it's still dark outside. Passengers from the bus are being picked up by friends and family. So what's going on? I ask around and finally someone tells me the bus broke, the tire is flat. Dammit! Thats the second time this has happened  once in the taxi to Agra in India and now this. We are still 2 hours outside of KL, in the middle of the jungle, and tired as all hell from no sleep. It's a mystery when a repair man will come and how long it will take to change a tour bus tire the size of a boat. We ask one young man who has severely broken English to use his cell phone so we can call Seychen, who's supposed to pick us up in KL at 7am. He speaks with her in rapid fire Malay as to what happened and when we should arrive. We end up waiting until 10 am before someone comes and fixes the tire and we are finally back on the road by 10:30. However, the driver proceeds to make at least 3 stops for gas, bathroom, and lunch which ultimately put us in Kuala Lumpur at 1:30pm. So a 9 hour bus ride turned into a 16 hour bus ride. FML.

Seychen picked us up around 2pm from a mall which was just around the corner from the obscure bus depot. We are so excited and relieved to see her! She takes us back to her apartment where we put our stuff down and get settled into her cute guest room. Seychen introduces us to her mother in law who stays with her, as well as Ros, the live-in maid. Score! Ros made lunch for us (we were starving!) that consisted of pork in a really nice gravy sauce and some sweet potatoes. Anything would have been delicious at that point, but it was honestly amazing, and the first home cooked meal I've had in months. 

Seychen had some errands to run so she dropped us off at Bukit Bintang for some shopping. This place is huge! It's a street with at least 5 different malls, outdoor vendors, markets, restaurants, spas, and more. There are people from all over the world mixing about. I managed to buy a few new shirts (I've been wearing the same damn clothes for the past 2 months) while Heather got a pedicure.
After meandering the streets and endless mall corridors, we met up with Seychen and her gardener from Vietnam, Van Sy, at the Heritage Food Court. This is located in the Lot 10 mall onthe ground floor where all the finest hawker stalls have been chosen to sell their food here. Seychen gets a variety of items including KL's most famous dish: Hokkien noodles. We also have prawn curry, fried pork with noodles, won ton soup, and some chestnut tea to wash everything down. Such a treat!


Feast at Heritage Village Food Market

Following dinner, we walked around a bit more but things were beginning to close as it was just about 11pm. I thought we were going to head home (we didn't sleep last night) but we ended up going to a different district for some beers. We went to a tapas bar that served expensive beer so after one round, we headed to Seychen's club, which is kinda like a country club. We got some cheaper beers there and more snacks that we didn't need cause we were all already obnoxiously full from dinner. But it was a blast and time flew. We ended up staying until 2am and when we got back to her apartment, we crashed. I slept soundly until 5am, when unfortunately I become sick and ended up throwing up my entire dinner and then some. I was miserable with awful stomach pains for 2 hours until I was able to fall asleep again. I didn't want to tell anyone cause I was too embarrassed (I didn't them to think I didn't like to food). It was a bad night, but luckily we were able to sleep in until almost noon, so I got enough sleep to last me another day. 
Since we woke up at lunchtime, Seychen and her husband took us to an Indian restaurant when we got ready. Malaysia is a hodgepodge of different cultures (thanks to English colonization) with many people from China, Vietnam, and India. I was excited for Indian cause it had been a month since I had some good Indian cuisine and I was beginning to miss it. The restaurant they took us to was super crowded so we knew it had to be good. It was banana leaf style (everything is served on a large banana leaf - easy clean up). Our plates were full of dahl, fried fish, lamb, curry, rice, chutneys, and plenty more of spicy deliciousness.... It was a feast!

After our glutinous lunchtime display, we set off to the central market where you can buy all sorts of handicrafts, souvenirs, jewelry, etc. We shopped around for a while, then had a Malay coffee break that tasted like drinking brown sugar. Not my fav...

Next we went to the famous Petronas towers which were the tallest buildings from 1999-2004. They are super cool looking but much prettier during the night (which we came back later that evening because they are so much more magnificent lit up). Underneath there is, guess what, another mall. Boring...

During the day

Evening

Beautiful!

Our driving tour of KL continued when we went to Chinatown to buy some discount and knockoff items. They have everything you want there! Heather went to town and bought enough to make her backpack a couple kilos heavier. Ps Heather is being very generous with her gifts, so her fam and friends are going to be pretty happy when she comes home! Our last stops of the day were the old Moorish railway station, where we also bought our bus tickets for the next day, and then the beautiful National Malaysian Mosque.

Sightseeing all day made us a little tired so we went back to the apartment to rest before dinner. Chinese was the cuisine for the evening and being Malay-Chinese, they took us the one of the best Chinese restaurants in town. They are particularly famous for their crispy duck which we devoured instantly. We also had tofu with vegetables and then kailan. Kailan  is a vegetable similar to spinach and then sauteed with an amazing spicy garlic sauce. Yum!

Merdeka Square

After dinner we went to Merdeka square when it was all lit up. It was beautiful but a shame that the pictures don't do it justice. Finally we headed to The Library, a bar right in front of the Petronas towers where we ordered a large  keg-like beer tower of Carlsberg. We joked and laughed until I started to feel sick again like last night. I eventually became very ill and was dying from stomach pain by the time we left. We headed back home and I threw up everything in my stomach and probably my small intestine too. It was awful and I am so grateful that Seychen took care of me all night until I was finally able to go to sleep at 5:30am. Bless her heart. She definitely was a great surrogate mom that night cause I was in pure hell. I never want to feel that way ever again.

Ultimate beer tower!

Although my stomach and abs were really sore from vomiting all night, I felt ok. So we woke up at 9am because we had already booked a taxi to take us to the Batu caves. The Batu caves is one of the most sacred Hindu sights outside of India. It's located in the surrounding hills just outside the city. We visited the temples and went inside the giant musty smelling cave. It was really cool and definitely made me nostalgic of India. After, I introduced Heather to her first chai masala and she loved it! She also got a roti cannai but I had to pass. I refused to eat anything for at least the next day. :(

Hike up to the Batu Caves

Namaste

You should see her right hook!

Feeling very Indian, we took a taxi to Little India. We walked around going into all the cute shops and got some traditional henna done. Well, that was original plan but Heather had a brilliant idea to put henna on her face, like the Mike Tyson tattoo. It was hysterical for the first day, but then I think she had a serious case of regret. It was funny to see her scrub the henna with nail polish remover a few days later because she was getting too many weird looks in Singapore. Plus how are we supposed to pick up guys with a Mike Tyson face tattoo?! Lol.

We head back to Seychen's apartment to pack and say our goodbyes. She and her husband showed us incredible generosity while we stayed with them. I hope one day I can reciprocate. We thanked them and gave a nice bottle of wine we purchased earlier to add to their collection before dropping us off at the "nice bus" station. Seriously though, its called the Nice Bus. And boy was it! Definitely a different experience then our last bus ride! We got spacious seats, iindividual electrical outlets, and even dinner (which I unfortunately left untouched). We're off to Singapore!