KL is warm in many ways.
Kuala Lumpur sits in near the middle of Peninsular Malaysia, just about at the equator. It’s one of Asia’s few truly multicultural cities, with Indians, Chinese, and local Malay (Bumiputera) people all laying the historical foundations of what is today Malaysia’s capital city. KL has experienced a sort of economical and societal breakthrough in recent decades, with the efficient monorails, the two new airports and the iconic skyscrapers serving only as physical evidence.
KL is often compared with Bangkok, its sister capital city some thousand miles to the north. And while Bangkok is bigger, and certainly more historic, it could be argued that Kuala Lumpur is the friendlier, more sensible city. With almost 8 million people in the Klang Valley around KL, it’s certainly not small either, but there is a near universal warmth in the people of this diverse city. It can still be chaotic, but we found there’s almost a homeliness about KL that is rare to find so far from home.
Like many cities in Asia, some of the best parts of town are the bustling markets where locals and tourists alike congregate to shop, eat, and gather at almost any hour – day or night. Hawkers and street-side restaurants call out that they have the best chili pan mee noodles, or the freshest seafood, or the cheapest designer purses, top quality! But these are also the markets where locals by wholesale goods, and congregate after work hours. These markets are the fabric that makes up the city of KL, with icons like the Petronas Twin towers, providing lovely inflections.
Kuala Lumpur is a city of great and varied food, and great and varied humans. Humid mornings and humid afternoons. It’s a city where you can still find a tiny bit of that rainforest that stood there before the city ever was. This is KL, and it is warm in many ways.
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