Kuala Lumpur

Admiral Marina at Port Dickson was another good stop. Once again, good staff, and a great pool! A lot of yachties use PD as a base to leave their yacht for a few days, and go inland to visit Kuala Lumpur and Melaka. We were no different, and so after two days at PD we set off. Public transport is VERY cheap in Malaysia, so we used the bus for the 2 ½ hr trip to KL. The trip to KL – for both of us – cost 16 ringitts, about $NZ6.

Kuala Lumpur means ‘muddy confluence’, and the city began at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers in the mid-19th century. It is now a bustling city, with many diverse cultures and distinct areas. We booked in to a hotel right in the middle of Chinatown, in Jalan Pentaling. At night the street is full of stalls selling pirated DVDs, handbags, shoes, and all the other stuff that you find in markets in Asia.


At dusk on the first day in KL, we went to the Petronas Towers. When first built in 1998, they were the tallest buildings in the world. (Although they are no longer the tallest individual buildings, they are still the tallest ‘twin towers’.) They are two mirror-image towers, and each has 88 stories in its 1482 feet of elevation. The towers are connected by a ‘sky-bridge’ at the 41st and 42nd floors 558 feet above ground.

The towers were a sight to behold. Given their exterior construction is stainless steel and glass, the towers looked like two crystal columns reaching high in to the sky. Shane was mightily impressed, and that takes a bit these days!









KL has some other fantastic architecture – one building that we both thought was spectacular is the Moorish styled Sultan Abdul Samad building. It was built in 1887, and now houses the Malaysian Supreme and High courts.











We also took the time while in KL to visit a couple of mosques – the National Mosque and Masjid Jamek (the oldest mosque).

Given our dress – we were both wearing shorts and to go within a mosque area ones legs need to be covered – we had to don lovely lilac capes at the National Mosque. We weren’t allowed in to the actual mosque itself. We all look like a swarm of ghosts floating around!!




On our first full day we got up early to go and stand in line for tickets to go up the sky-bridge at the Petronas Towers. The tickets are free, but they only let a certain number of people go up every day, so you have to get there early. We booked to go up late in the afternoon. The views from the sky-bridge were nowhere near as great as we thought they would be. Maybe it was because although KL has a population of 1.4 million the city isn’t as spread out as say Auckland or Sydney, or maybe it was the lack of a harbour, but after seeing the towers lit up the night before, it was a little underwhelming.

That night we ate in Chinatown; great food from a street stall. Good for people watching too!


We left KL the following morning, but not before we visited one last mosque, and went past Merdeka Square. It was there that the Malaysian flag was raised for the first time on August 31 1957, replacing the Union Jack, signifying the end of British rule over Malaya. The flagpole in the square is the tallest one in the world, according to something I read while in KL.

After two days in KL it was time to jump on another bus. We headed for Melaka, the port city on the Mellaca Straits (we still aren’t too sure about the two variations on the spelling!!)