A Semester in Singapore: Journey to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

So, Malaysia. The weekend for the Thaipusam Festival, there were a ton of different exchange students going to Kuala Lumpur to experience it. We went from January 24-27. Going around the city my group saw a bunch of different NUS students that we knew, which was pretty cool. Even in our hostel, Fernloft KL @ Chinatown, mostly everyone in our 20-person dorm room was either from NUS or NTU.

The bus from Singapore to KL was great, I will definitely be using that form of transportation again. The seats were big and comfortable, and it really didn’t take that long to get there (probably because of the crazy bus driver). We ended up arriving at around 12:30am, and could not find our hostel. It was supposed to be a 100m walk, but the extremely unhelpful law enforcement there took us the completely opposite direction. So, after walking past homeless people and sketchy puddles of water/urine, we finally found it! It was a nice nook in Chinatown, right next to the Central Market. Fernloft was in the greatest location; it was walking distance to mostly everything, and what was not walking distance an LRT (metro) stop was right there.

Rooftop of our hostel

Right next to the Hindu Temple where the Thaipusam procession started

I also just have to mention the food very quickly. In Singapore, there is mostly Malay, Thai, Chinese, and “Western” food. So, although the Malay food here was similar to the food in Singapore, it was so different in how they made it. It was definitely much more “authentic” in the fact that they did not have the technology that Singapore did to make some of the food. It still tasted great.

Food stand in Chinatown

Assortment of food at a food court

The city during the day was bustling with activity, although very very dirty. Throughout the trip we walked through Chinatown, the Central Market, Botanical Gardens, Petronas Towers, Malaysia’s National Museum, the National Mosque, a few Chinese temples, and just walked around some markets in the city.

Chinatown area

Sin Sze Si Ya Temple in Chinatown

Chinatown

Petronas Twin Towers

River running through KL

Moving "temple" that leads the procession to the Batu Caves

Packed street of people for Thaipusam

Outside of National Mosque

National Mosque

Inside of National Mosque

Sultan Abdul Samad Building

Nice view of Kuala Lumpur

We also went to the Batu Caves, which is on the outskirts of the city (around 8 miles from the city center) where the Thaipusam festival procession ends. Seeing it during the weekend of the festival was really cool, and walking up the 273 steps to the caves with evil monkeys hissing at for food was definitely an experience. We were also lucky enough to see someone making the journey to the top of the caves with the different piercings all over his body. He had hooks all over his body, some with weights attached to them. It takes another form of strength to walk that far and up the steps with those needles in your body.