I’m sitting at one of the big circular tables in Hackney Chinese Community Centre, working my way through the menu at a Noyonya supper club run by Guan Chua. It’s come up in conversation that my husband and I know Kuala Lumpur pretty well, and the guy to my left asks what it was like. I hesitate, not knowing where to start. I had the same reaction a while back, sitting opposite a friend in Roti King who announced she was off to Penang and would have a few days in KL. “You used to live there, right?” she says. “What do I need to know?”
It’s hard to answer their questions. We landed in KL in 2014 on our way back to London after five years in Melbourne. We chose the city because we wanted to spend some time in Asia and figured Hong Kong and Singapore would be too expensive and too tricky without work visas. So we rented a series of Airbnbs, got paid cash by a couple of local businesses (along with whatever our freelance jobs in Australia paid into our Australian accounts) and made sure to leave Malaysia every three months – returning from trips to Indonesia, Japan and Taiwan to collect new 90-day tourists visas. I don’t know why we didn’t consider Phnom Penh or Vientiane or anywhere else we’d previously visited and loved. All I remember was we wanted a change of scene and that’s what we got.
Why did we stay there for 12 months? Back then, I submitted an article to the now defunct Unmapped magazine answering exactly that question, in which I’m embarrassed to admit I used the lazy phrase ‘melting pot’ when I should have written about how I loved strolling down Jalan Tun H.S.Lee, where the pastel-coloured Hindu deities stacked above Sri Maha Mariamman overlook the incense-smoke swirls rising from the courtyard of the Taoist temple Guan Di. And that the country celebrates almost 20 public holidays each year, from Muharram (the first day of the first month of the Islamic calendar) and Chinese Lunar New Year to the Tamil festival of Thaipusam, when we got up early to watch devotees – their skin pierced with skewers, hooks hanging from their backs – climb 272 steps to a temple hidden in the Batu Caves.
Anyway, the main thrust of my article was that me and KL resembled an abused dog and its cruel owner. (I’m the dog in this scenario.) It’s a relationship where you get kicked around, but that makes the head pats and tummy rubs extra special. I guess it comes down to my stubborn belief that travel’s only worth doing if it’s difficult, which was cemented in my brain the day a friend and I met a bunch of American tourists in a hotel lobby in Guangzhou, where we’d snuck inside to sit on a toilet and shave our legs in the sink. They were following roughly the same route as us, from Beijing to Hong Kong via Xi’an, Shangai, Wuhan, Chongqing and Chengdu. But while we’d bought ‘hard seat’ tickets on trains and embarked on journeys that lasted for hours, they’d cheated by taking internal flights. My indignation and the words that tumbled from my mouth – “you don’t see China from a plane” – have kept me choosing discomfort over convenience on my travels ever since. Things being too easy is why I have beef with Google Maps, but that’s another story.
As the dog owner analogy suggests, KL can be a challenging place to actually live. I’m talking small-scale challenges – quirks you can overlook when you’re passing through and simply pleased to be along for the ride, but harder to ignore when you’ve got deadlines to meet, tasks to achieve and sanity to preserve. First off, we had to get our heads around being told “can” and “can not” as a response to anything from “Are you open tomorrow?” to “Could you turn down the music?” – it’s an infuriating response when you’re on the receiving end, but a genius way of shutting down a conversation.
More moans: it’s crazy hot but the sun is often obliterated by smog and the air-conditioned cinemas are so cold you need a fleece to sit through a film. There are many soulless, sterile shopping malls (although their food courts are brilliant, especially at Lot 10) conspiring to make you spend whole days in their presence – one has an indoor theme park, another an ice rink. If you want greenery, there are the creepily manicured lawns surrounding KLCC and in Merdeka Square, from which a huge flagpole rises, and Bukit Nanas, a mosquito-filled tropical rainforest from which KL Tower rises. These places, and a handful of other attractions, can be ticked off in a day. And while the sparkly Petronas Towers are stunning, there’s more to see (and eat) beyond what’s covered in the guidebooks. I don’t think I’ve been to any other city so intent on keeping visitors in a contained area. “Let’s give them street art to stand under,” shouts the tourist board, “and distract them with umbrellas suspended above their heads – that will fill their days.” This brings me to my main moan – something we came up against whenever we tried to leave behind the tourist crowds on Petaling Street and travel to the suburbs.
So I tell the guy at the supper club (remember him?) that the pavements are really bad. They have massive potholes and sometimes inexplicably cease to exist and this is particularly frustrating when your favourite way to move around a city is by walking. His date – who’s from Sabah – gets very animated, relishing the opportunity to throw some shade at Peninsula Malaysia. “You can’t walk anywhere!” he confirms. “Even if a place is close, you must dodge traffic and cross a million motorway lanes or take a massive detour to find a footbridge.”
He’s right. Walking in KL requires dedication, determination and probably a fresh t-shirt for when you finally arrive at your destination. I’d set off feeling optimistic only to be forced to admit defeat an hour or so later. Then I’d order a Ryde or a Grab, collapse into the car either sweating profusely or drenched by a sudden downpour and stare disheartedly out the window as we crawled towards wherever I wanted to go.
We were so naive when we arrived and booked a month in a modern duplex in Mid Valley. It was in a complex called Scott Garden, but more easily identified by the huge Tesco in the building’s basement. The location looked good on paper – just a few hundred metres from Pantai Dalam KTM station. Except it wasn’t. You had to cross Jalan Klang Lama, one of the city’s main arteries, which wasn’t too tricky but crossing the River Klang was – well – “can not”. I remember typing my A to B into Google Maps, only to be directed on a 6.7km journey that would take almost an hour and a half to walk.*
[* Writing today, I stand corrected – Google Maps now reveals a bridge has been built that’s so far received one 5-star review from Mohammed Johar, who writes: “This is the first bridge ever built to connect Jalan Kelang Lama [sic] and Pantai Dalam. This enable the public to shorten the route for more than an hour and absolutely save a lot of time.” I sense me and Mohammed would get along.]
When I did make it somewhere on foot – usually a coffee shop from which to work (of my many favourite cafes circa 2014-15, Pulp in Bangsar and Quartet in TTDI are still open, perhaps not surprisingly The Grumpy Cyclist – a coffee shop and bike repair shop in TTDI – has called it a day despite CyclingKL’s efforts to map the city’s almost non-existent bike paths in 2014 and again in 2017) or a press event (I was freelancing for Lifestyle Asia at the time) – I’d entertain people with stories of my two-legged adventures. “You walked from there to here?” they’d shriek, eyes widening, heads shaking in disbelief. Honestly, if you’re a comedian planning a tour of the Klang Valley, here’s a piece of advice: talk about walking. Because simple observations – “Geez, the pavements here are non-existent” or “dodging open sewers, what’s that about?!” – deliver hours of side-splitting entertainment. Actually, just tell the audience you don’t have a car and they’ll lose their minds.
Happily, we made friends with a couple who did have a car and most weekends (when they weren’t transporting us and our backpacks between Airbnbs) they’d drive us to their favourite food places. They’d secure a table, figure out what to select from the menu and wave someone down to place our order. Viv would ask us again if we could ‘take spicy’ (a question constantly posed throughout our stay and one we always answered with an enthusiastic “can”) and Sean would order extra napkins and bottles and bottles of water, just in case.
Sitting on low stalls beneath bare lightbulbs strung up outside a shop in Imbi, they laughed as we politely contemplated bowls of black bak kut teh (literal translation: meat bone tea) while cockroaches scuttled perilously near our flip-flopped feet. One weekend, a gang of us drove for hours to the coast where we cut our fingers peeling razor-sharp mantis prawns in a wooden shack sitting on stilts above the churning water, the table strewn with shells and crushed cans of shandy.
They taught us to ask for made-to-order square roti canai to ensure it moved straight from the hotplate to our metal trays, while their circular cousins cooled and condensed in a pile. We learnt never to drink lukewarm calamansi juice until we’d stirred it long enough with a straw for the ice to melt. When we escaped at the weekends to explore other places, they demanded we try curry mee and Ipoh’s famous beansprouts (lightly blanched, dressed with sesame oil) at Nam Chau and chilli padi candied pork and sour assam curry at Tek Sen in George Town. All of it glorious.
Standing opposite a petrol station on the side of a road in TTDI and ordering fiery rojak followed by refreshing cendol is one of my happiest memories of our time in KL and most evenings ended with ice headaches as we tackled towers of mango loh at KTV in SS2.
Beyond walking and driving, there was public transport, but it took patience, stamina and a very flexible timetable to put your travel plans into the often-ineffective hands of RapidKL, a term encompassing a couple of trains serving the outer suburbs, an often broken-down monorail, two metro lines and a fleet of rickety buses that I’d think nothing of riding for the best part of two hours to eat at Village Park in Damansara Utama. The madness of my endeavour only dawned on me when I forced two friends visiting from London to do the same journey on an even-more-traffic-clogged-than-usual Saturday morning. Turns out I’ll do anything for nasi lemak.
And while it was unreliable, I was obsessed with the monorail – (1) because it felt like a fairground ride (I’m too scared to go on rollercoasters, so my bar for anything that travels above ground and on tracks is pretty low) and (2) because it runs from KL Sentral to Titiwangsa (what a name, worth visiting for the lake) via stops that are close to tasty places, like Raja Chulan for posh Malaysian restaurant Bijan (try the beef rendang, but not before you’ve gotten tipsy on a helipad at – yes – Helipad).
It’s also worth alighting at Medan Tuanku for Limapulo, which was fabulous when we lived there and got a mention in this year’s Michelin guide. The team serve popular Peranakan dishes like kueh pie tee (crispy pastry ‘top hats’ stuffed with caramelised vegetables) and a hit-the-back-of-your-throat spicy laksa – a tangle of chewy yellow noodles, bean curd puffs, fish balls and prawns. There’s also a strangely addictive pearl sago dessert drenched with teeth-jangling gula melaka (palm sugar). Another must-visit in the area is third-generation Hainanese kopitiam Yut Kee, where roast pork is served (unless things have changed) from a wooden trolley that’s pushed between the heavy marble tabletops of a bustling dining room decorated with sepia family photos and stained glass shutters.
Finally, my laptop and I commuted almost daily to Hang Tuah, from where I’d walk 10 minutes (just 10 minutes!) to find flat whites, granola and plug sockets at VCR on Jalan Galloway. But once again, a quick internet search reveals that was then. Now there’s an even closer station – a shiny new MRT station – called Merdeka on the Kajang Line, which opened in 2017. Not only that, there’s a huge, HUGE tower rising from behind the station called Merdeka 118. Completed last year, it’s the tallest building in Malaysia and the second-tallest building in the world. Who knew? Not me.
So between the brand-new bridges and the brand-new buildings, I’ve realised I should stop trying to sum up what I think about the city and go see it again for myself. Perhaps the pavements don’t even have potholes anymore?
When I sat down to write this newsletter, I thought I’d end up ranting about this hectic, humid city, but I’ve been reminded of how much I was willing to endure in order to eat something delicious – and if that’s what you’re after, KL “can”.
If you’re planning a trip to Malaysia, all the places I’ve linked to are still open (to the best of my knowledge) however I might have referenced dishes that are no longer on the menu. While you’re there, check out Guan’s KL supper club, I’m sure it’s just as great as his London one.
If you’re in London, you can get a taste of KL at the excellent Normah’s, Med Salleh, and of course Roti King or Gopal’s Kitchen. For laksa, I head to Laksamania on Tottenham Court Road although I’m keen to try 7 Floor, which Jonathan Nunn called out in the recent Vittles Six of One (£). And sometimes, all I want are stir-fried noodles from C&R Cafe. Leaning on Singapore a bit, curry puffs from Old Chang Kee make me happy, not least because they have a loyalty card. I haven’t been but plan to go here, here and especially here for the daily-changing menu. And if you’re in Melbourne, I remember Mamak being good.
Also, this is a bit niche, but one of the ingredients I was obsessed with in Malaysia was patai beans, nicknamed ‘stink beans’ because they work like asparagus if you know what I mean. Anyway, I found them served at Plaza Khao Gaeng above Arcade Food Hall in London, where they are called sator beans, because Thailand. Please try them.
I’ve shamefully only read books by one Malaysian author – Tash Aw – but can highly recommend We, The Survivors, which explores how social class, education and the inescapable workings of destiny result in a devastating crime, and Five Star Billionaire, which follows the overlapping lives of five Malaysians trying to find their place amid the bright lights and restless spirit of Shanghai.
When I’m next in Malaysia and want to walk, I’ll be heading south for the Singapore Rail Corridor, a 24km route that follows an old train track – thanks to the Nomadic Notes Travel Newsletter for bringing it to my attention!
Years ago, I interviewed the gang at The Alphabet Press and they continue to make amazing letterpress art. If you’re in the market for a bespoke business card or wonderful wedding invites, they are your people…