Selamat Pagi Kuala Lumpur!

Lauren –

After waving goodbye to Ho Chi Minh and our near month in Vietnam we touched down in Kuala Lumpur. The change in infrastructure and wealth was stark from the moment we left the airport. We were already missing the cheap Vietnamese cuisine and coffees.

We were excited to meet up with Jake and stay at his amazing KL pad. I was keen to see his life as an Australian diplomat (as Dave and I will be moving to Papua New Guinea mid next year on a government posting!). We were not disappointed, to say the apartment was huge is an understatement! We felt very lucky to be basing ourselves there for the next 4 days.

Jake was an amazing host, taking us to all his favourite eating spots. We were pretty glad we had free accommodation as the jump up in food prices from Vietnam were insane!

We spent our time wandering the streets taking in the sights. The city was in preparations for Diwali, the Hindu festival of light, so everywhere was abuzz with colour and festivities.

KL is such an interesting place with so much diversity. The established Indian, Chinese and Malay cultures gave the city a really distinct feel. We were amazed by the inner city temples and really enjoyed seeing the locals contemplating their serenity.

We found ourselves in the city aquarium for a couple of hours on a humid and rainy afternoon and actually really enjoyed it! We arrived just in time for the Piranha and Otter feeding sessions!

There was a beautiful park right next to Jake’s apartment with a enticing looking wading pool. Jake had told us about the peculiar park security who for some reason hated tourists going anywhere near the pool, and would incessantly blow their whistles to shoo you away! The two grumpy security guards only allowed children or mothers anywhere near the pool, and I don’t mean actually swimming in it, I mean walking within 10 meters of the perimeter! It was a public park and well, it sounded absurd, so David and I both tested it out…

Out of nowhere this lady appeared! She blew her whistle so loudly until David was a safe distance from the pool

David first temped the park security by casually waltzing through the public grounds. It all looked good and we were wondering what all the fuss was about when out of nowhere we heard an extremely loud whistling. A lady had appeared! She didn’t make any effort to actually walk down to the pool, but instead whistle and shoo David away! Next it was my turn…

My turn! I was a little more antagonizing and even attempted a toe in the water

Within 30 seconds I was ambushed and told to retreat

I made it a little further before being ambushed and told to retreat. We then spent a little while watching other unsuspecting tourists being ambushed by park security and laughed as they tried to work out what they were doing wrong. There were no signs anywhere about not being able to walk through the park, only whistling and shooing. So it was quite funny seeing tourist after tourist confused and shooed.

Some other unsuspecting tourists who faced the wrath of the grumpy park security

All in all we had a fabulous time in KL and really took the time to relax after a pretty full on month in Vietnam. We headed to the local pub to watch England dominate New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup semi final as it poured KL style outside.