Melacca/ Malaysia

Melacca

Next, we made our way to the most historical town in Malaysia- Melacca. Although it was supposed to take only about 2 hours by bus from KL, it ended up taking 4 hours! I think the bus we took was the slow one that made all the local stops. But it was ok, because on our way there we met a little 5 yr. old Malaysian boy and his uncle who played with us and entertained us the entire way. I wrote down our names for him and drew him a picture of a dog for him to keep. We all were eating chickpeas from a small bag that was sold at the bus terminal (a local snack).

When we finally arrived, it was slightly raining but we were only visiting for half a day. We saw many flower covered tuk tuks that all the travelers took for a ride around town. Since the town was very small, we just walked around with an umbrella. We started off near the famous Jonker Street, which is filled with colorful and old buildings. Beautiful architecture! On the streets you can find prayer houses, Hindu temples and many shops. We peeked into the China town shopping area, and tried several foods at the famous food stands and restaurants. We went to Jonker Dessert Café to try the famous Baba-Nyonya and Ice Kachang (shaved ice with fruits). We also walked along Malacca River, and saw the beautiful houses, temples and mosques.

We then walked around Red Square (Dutch square), where we saw the Tang Beng Swee Clock Tower. This was built in 1886. We also saw the Christ Church here, which was built in the 1700s. It is the oldest protestant church in Malaysia. We also saw St. Francis Xavier Church (Catholic church) which an old twin-spired neo-gothic structure Portuguese church.. Everything was so old and colorful. It was a cute little town with lots of history and with a friendly/ safe vibe to it. After a few hours of being there, we caught the 6:00 bus back to Kuala Lumpur. We rested on the bus and went to bed early that night because the next day we had bus tickets to Cameron Highlands, where we planned on doing some trekking in the jungle!

Kuala Lumpur/ Malaysia

From Penang, we took a 4 hour bus (from 12am-4am) to the capitol and the biggest city in Malaysia- Kuala Lumpur (KL). The residence of the Malaysian King is also in KL. Kuala Lumpur is the cultural, financial and economic center of Malaysia. This city also has the tallest twin towers in the world, the Petronas Towers.

In KL we stayed at Alex’s Guesthouse, which we had found online and booked ahead of time. The owner, Alex, has an extra home which he keeps as a guesthouse. It was in a very convenient area…literally right next to the train station, and only 2 stops away from KL. Plus, Alex was so friendly and made sure to sit down, have coffee and chat with us for at least an hour or two each day. We stayed there for 4 nights. It was very comfortable and we practically had the entire upstairs to ourselves. We had a very big room with 2 twin beds, a hot shower, closet and a kitchen and TV. The atmosphere was very clean, comfortable, safe and felt just like home. I would definitely recommend staying there if you plan on visiting KL. It was also great since we were able to learn a lot from Alex about Malaysian culture and the Muslim religion.

When we got in to his place it was early morning (5am??), so we went back to bed all morning. We got up with just enough time to enjoy our afternoon in KL. We first took the subway and went to Batu Caves. It took about 20 minutes to get there. When we arrived we were very confused because all we could see was one huge green monkey face statue and all over the ground there was trash! It stunk pretty bad too. Then later we found out that there was a big festival with about 1,000 people the other day. They had yet to clean up from the mess. Well, once we moved on from that area, we finally found the Batu Caves. We saw an enormous golden Buddha and next to it, there were stairs leading up into a cave. There were 272 steps! I was pretty exhausted and tried hard not to look behind me while climbing up. When we got to the top though, it was worth it because we could see a beautiful view of the city and the golden Buddha. There was also a Hindu temple inside the cave, along with many monkeys! The place was a little dirty and stinky so we didn’t stay for long. We ate some Indian food down at the restaurant near the Batu Caves, and then made our way back on the subway to head to the Petronas Twin Towers.

Since the twin towers is such a popular tourist attraction, the tickets were already sold out to go to the top when we arrived in the afternoon. Instead, we admired the towers from outside and also from the KL Menara Tower. We walked from the Twin Towers to KL Tower (which is a viewing point of the city). We actually liked this view better. When paying for the ticket to go to the observation deck, we were given a coupon to use for the restaurant at the very top of the tower. This was wonderful because the sun was setting and we were able to enjoy free coffee/tea and ice-cream/cake while enjoying the amazing view of the Petronas Twin Towers along with all the other buildings in the city. And the restaurant was actually very fancy and it rotated so that you can see all parts of the city. This also gave us a good map so that we could see how to get to our next destination for the evening.

After leaving the tower, we walked through a mini park. Here we saw many beautiful flowers, plants and monkeys in the trees. We then took a 20 minute walk to Merdeka Square. This field is surrounded by many important buildings and was the place of many historical events. For example, each year they have an Independence parade here. Queen Victoria once held a Diamond Jubilee parade at this same place. This is also the area for the surrender ceremony of the Japanese Red Army. After learning this from some locals, we sat in the square and visualized these events.

Next, we took another 10 minute walk over to China Town. On our way we passed some temples and the Royal Palace. When we got to China Town, we did a little shopping (everything was so cheap!) and we had this chai bubble tea drink that we loved so much! They even made the tapioca there at the stand so it was very fresh and so delicious. We actually kept looking for this little bubble tea shop during the rest of the trip and drank many of these!

I loved the area around China Town/Merdeka Square because all of the buildings were so different and unique. I took a few photos of the buildings that you can see below. One was multi-colored with an ancient look to it, while another building was all gold! Then there was some artistic and colorful spraypaint on another building. It all looked like a painting.

We also visited the KL mall (which was the next stop from Alex’s guesthouse. This is the largest mall in all of SouthEast Asia. Since I don’t get the chance to do much shopping in Korea (they have different styles and very small sizes!), I took advantage and bought a few things from Nike and from Forever 21!


We had actually gone from Alex's guesthouse to Cameron Highlands and then back to Kuala Lumpur for one more day before our flight back to Korea. This ended our trip to Malaysia. We were very happy with our selection of guest-houses, our tours, and the the areas around Malaysia that we had decided to see. Next time, we are hoping to take a trip to the East part of Malaysia, near Indonesia. This area is called Borneo and is a little more wilder. It's filled with jungle and forests. It will be a fun jungle trekking trip!

Thanks for checking out TK's recent travels! Hope you're all doing great and e-mail us when you get a chance! We'd love to hear from you!