We say our fond farewells to Banana Garden Villa and this time it’s for real. 41 nights in total over three visits have been wonderful. It also marks out last night in Vietnam with the next stop, one night in KL airport.
We’re going posh for the airport hotel. You can tell it’s posh when we spot a fridge in reception just for cold towels, the TV remote control comes with its own leather folder – yes, seriously – and there’s a keypad to switch on lights and close the curtains.
So, what to do? It’s already 5pm as we have an early flight the next day. One option would be a budget challenging £20 and half an hour train ride away (not including a manic golf buggy ride to and from the airport station) to the centre of KL. The other option is to enjoy an evening in the luxury hotel with its remarkably good value food & drink.
So, we do the central KL option. This allows us to hit one of our favourite foodie places, Sushi Zanmai, get some essentials (i.e. fizzy sweets) from Mr DIY and blow out on a big bottle of gorgeous Oudh Lush shower gel. All of which are handily located at the central train station mall. We also see, from a distance, all the KL big towers one last time. Do we regret doing this? Not one bit.
A lovely & luxurious way to finish our time in Japan and south east Asia. Next stop is the cheap, unassuming, rainy & freezing cold of Dubai for three nights – errr, not on all those counts.
Our full week in Kuala Lumpur ends up being here, yet not here. We experience other cities, other countries, other worlds.
KL is a city of malls. Pretty much everything here can be found in a mall – shops, museums, GPs, cinemas, art galleries, fun fairs, live events. It’s hot, malls are cool, QED. We get our hands on a rather nice flat overlooking one of the newer ones, Lalaport. It has everything you might need – a supermarket, the Malaysia qualifiers for the IESF World Esports Championship 2025 (well done, Arcane Ladies), and, of course, a Mr DIY.
If you haven’t encountered a Mr DIY before, imagine that Woolworths, Robert Dyas and Ryman had a baby and everything it sold was super affordable. No one would need Amazon if there was a Mr DIY near them. We love it. Having secured all of the noodle bowls, fizzy cola sweets, and flannels we need for the moment, our thoughts turn to food.
As a world city, KL offers any cuisine you can think of…except vegan; no one has yet invented a dish that Malaysians won’t merrily add chicken and/or cheesy cream to. We, of course, take full advantage of numerous Sushi Zanmai locations, plus some of the best tapas we’ve had outside Spain, excellent pasta, and some really good coffee with oat milk at Zus. We resist the horror of fizzy coffee mixed with orange juice but Allan quickly discovers Spicy Garlic Prawn Pringles, which he is delighted by but Chloe declares are an eyewatering abomination unto Nuggan.
It’s not all disgusting fish snacks and gaming legends, though. We discover MinNature Malaysia, a labour of love that invites you into the cities, markets, homes, and industries that make Malaysia what it is – but very, very small. It’s like a model village of a nation. We are delighted to spot a tiny ‘Mrs DIY’ in little Ipoh.
Looming over our flat is Merdeka 118, the new tallest tower in Kuala Lumpur and second tallest in the world. Though it officially opened earlier this year, it still has no public visitors, so we content ourselves with going to see Thunderbolts* at the Lalaport cinema. There’s a little thrill in watching the opening sequence, in which Florence Pugh leaps from its roof, knowing that a Black Widow is kind of about to land on our heads.
The towers that Merdeka 118 usurped are the Petronas Twin Towers. The irony that the HQ of one of the world’s biggest oil companies looks like an otherworldly magical fairy tower spun out of air and light is not lost on us. However, it is a wonderful sight lit up at night and has now become tradition that we take a specific photo each time we visit.
The Ilham Gallery, in a hotel rather than a mall this time, is hosting a exhibition that explores the concept of ‘plantation’. Artists look at what the explosion of plantation agriculture has meant for Malaysia personally, politically, environmentally, and socially over the years. From the extraction of wealth and labour by various colonising forces – the UK, Portugal, Netherlands, Japan – to a system of land rights that redistributed some land to many poorer families able to work it for a certain number of years. The impact of monoculture, be it of rubber or palm oil producing trees, has been immense.
On a lighter note (pun intended), we had fairly low expectations of the Immersify digital art experience back at Lalaport but it turned out to be incredibly well done. We were guided through a series of rooms in which different digital images were projected onto the walls – many were animated, some simply played with the light. Yes, it was all very Instagram-friendly, but it didn’t pretend to be anything other than what it was. It was bright, fun, interactive (design your own fish then watch it swim through the digital tank!) and hugely over-stimulating.
The final section brought to life the work of various artists, including Klee and Degas. The Van Gogh section was particularly beautiful – perhaps as his work seems to lend itself to animation in a way few others do. If Van Gogh were working today, we think he’d grab digital media with both hands.
It’s hard to get around by anything other than car and activity seems to centre heavily on malls, but Kuala Lumpur is a great place. Having been here three times, though, we can’t help feeling we’re missing ways to get to the spirit and heart of it. If we come back again, we’ll look for a local tour guide who might be able to open up whole new sides of this megacity.
Moving from the bucolic pace of Hoi An to Malaysia’s capital megacity was always going to be a contrast. We’ve been here before but, every time, we forget just how utterly car-dominated it is. It’s one of those places that’s so big that what looks like a trip round the corner on a map is actually an hour’s walk. Pavements, even on major roads, are intermittent at best, stopping suddenly at inopportune moments. It’s hot, humid, and very, very busy.
The view from our flat is spectacular. We can see the KL Tower, the Petronas Towers, even the new mega tower that looks like an 80s mobile brick phone, with dozens of high rises in between. When the inevitable lightning storm strikes, it’s drama all round.
To a passing visitor in the city centre, Kuala Lumpur seems like nothing so much as a collection of shopping centres connected by dual carriageways. The malls are a welcome break from the oppressive weather and are social hubs for many. People come here to eat, hang out, go to the cinema; some even contain amusement parks. But they are set up for cars and taxis – so they are completely disconnected from the city itself. It’s an odd way to spend tourist time.
On our first night, we seek out the nearest Sushi Zanmai – something we’ve been looking forward to all trip. Decent sushi at a price that means a slap up meal for two will still get you change out of £25. It is, of course, in a shopping centre.
We’re only here for a few days before we head north to Penang. We know from previous visits that there’s a real, touchable Kuala Lumpur there somewhere. When we return, this time for a full week, we’ll get out and visit some places that are in the open air – or that at least have windows!
