Kuala Lumpur & Melaka

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia's busy capital city

The Towers are a quarter of a mile high!

From the green rolling hills of the Cameron Highlands, we took a bus to Malaysia's bustling capital. The journey was supposed to take a little over four hours, but our driver (who thought he was Michael Schumacher) breezed it in two hours forty minutes!

That night, we headed straight for the iconic Petronas Towers. It was not hard to find them, as they were illuminated at night and loomed over every other building in the city. If only Aberdeen had buildings like this!

'Splashing' on the hologram

The following day, with the temperature hovering around 35°C, we took the easy option and hopped on the city tour bus, which was a really good way of seeing the various highlights of Kuala Lumpur and hearing about the history of the place.

I'm not usually a fan of museums, but we hopped off the bus to see the National Museum and it was actually pretty good. For me, the highlight was not the numerous displays of historical artifacts or the informative videos but a really cool projector that shone a hologram of water (complete with fish swimming around) that reacted when you walked over it. I know, I'm so cultured...


A few weeks ago, we were pointed in the direction of this article, which recommended ten budget restaurants in Kuala Lumpur. We ended up eating at three of them and were not disappointed. My favourite place was Precious in Central Market. The restaurant's decor made me feel like I had been transported back to the 1900s and my spicy chicken dish with coconut flavoured blue rice was delicious.

Tasty food from Precious in Central Market

After three days in the capital, we travelled south to Melaka - a town which was ruled by the Portuguese, Dutch and British before Malaysia gained its independence (the National Museum taught me something after all!) For that reason, the town attracts a lot of visitors and there are loads of little guesthouses.

We stayed in an old, family run hostel on the river where the owner baked a cake each day for the guests. While there have been no more incidents of chingchoks crawling around our bedroom, we did come across a massive lizard swimming down the river. Our hostel owner could barely suppress a laugh when I asked him if what we'd seen was an alligator. He explained that it was a monitor lizard.

"How can I sneak you through customs?"

Melaka is such a beautiful place. Pam and I have enjoyed walking the streets and talking with the friendly locals who take such pride in their town. The small shops are kept immaculately clean, the restaurants owners always seem delighted when you come to eat their food and the rickshaw drivers decorate their vehicles in flowers and tinsel and attach speakers to play music to their customers. Basically, Melaka is a vibrant version of Georgetown.

So, leaving Malaysia on a high, we now head to Singapore.

James