Traipsing Around: Travel and Psychogeography: Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is s very modern city and a more direct contrast with Koh Samui would be hard to find. It is a city made of glass, concrete, steel and marble, with two tall towers, the KL Tower and the Twin Towers, dominating the city’s already tall skyline and, for someone walking the city, providing a very convenient navigational benchmark. The city is a Cathedral to shopping and it would be very easy to simply walk from one vast shopping mall to another. On the city centre street map I have, there are 32 shopping malls listed. Whilst the roads here are very busy, the air is surprisingly clean and it is pedestrian friendly. Long covered walkways provide relief from the Sun, whilst yet others are contained, cool and air-conditioned, so that one can walk relatively easily across different parts of the city. Although more comfortable, I prefer to avoid these, so my crossings across town are more solitary but somehow more real and authentic, or so it seems to me, anyway.

It was amazing to sit in the restaurant/bar at the top of the KL Tower, some 250 metres high and enjoy watching the Sun gradually sink and the lights slowly come on across the city. It is a bit mad too, that I should scrimp on my hotel and yet blow £70 on vodka martini cocktails, but it was such a civilised and pleasant thing to do. The range of cuisines here is brilliant and so far I have eaten Thai, Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean food. I have no idea what some of it was (I just chose from a range of pictures, mainly), but mostly all of it has been great. The Taiwanese food was an experience, with a platter of various things that you cook yourself on a gas stove in a steaming cauldron of hot, spicy and sweet soup, which was delicious from the outset, but became sweeter and hotter as the various things cooked in the liquid and it became more and more condensed.

I am pleased that my hotel is in the older part of the city, Old Pudu, which is more low rise than high rise and ethnically very mixed: mainly Chinese, but also Malay, Arabic, Thai and Vietnamese. I like the area and its diversity and the locals are really very friendly. On my first night here I strolled around the local area, getting my bearings and after a short while sat down at a pavement café and ordered a bottle of Tiger beer. Before I knew it a group of about 7 people had also sat down at the same table. There were many questions that I was glad to answer and it seemed at every pause there was another toast. It also helped that the owner, who is Chinese, is married to a Thai woman and my few Thai phrases went down well, so we all had a few beers and then a few more! I popped in each evening and whilst the clientele changed slightly (or rather the men that some of the same women were with, changed), the hospitality didn’t, so I had great evenings. I won’t miss the city – not my cuppa, really, but the people have been great!

Now for a 16 hour journey home and a small matter of Swindon at Wembley!