Kuala Lumpur: A city on the move

Reporter·NZ Herald·

25 Oct, 2018 11:00 PM6 mins to read

Lord Murugan Statue at the Batu Caves and entrance to the Hindu temple. Photo / Getty Images

Lindy Laird stands in the contrasting footprints of a city on the move.

The two lazy streams that gave Kuala Lumpur its beginning and its name little more than 160 years ago are not much more than concrete drainage canals these days.

Still, nothing is as it was then.

Criss-crossing the two streams, Kuala Lumpur is a vibrant, thrusting, spreading, multicultural, modern city of almost two million people.

Malaysia's economic and political capital is a city on the move, teetering high above ground with one foot in (and a hand beckoning) the Western world that helps feed this splendid creature. The other foot stands in "the old town" of Malay, Indian and other Asian ethnicities, beliefs and traditions. Those two footprints are essentially Kuala Lumpur.

Lindy Laird at Petronas Twin Towers. Photo / Lindy Laird

The architecture and the skyline is reason enough to visit. Brilliantly lit skyscrapers, gravity defying show-off buildings, multi-level-multi-street malls, the ubiquitous squat, block "house shops", temples, little parks, heritage buildings from the British overlord days — for example, the Tudor-style former officers' hangout aka the Royal Selangor Club near Independence Square — other British civil servant administration buildings, and the grand colonial railway station.

On a steamy, overcast day at Independence Square, on what is my first visit to KL other than sitting at the airport on a journey to somewhere else, my impressions of the place are what I'd always imagined. That colonial architecture, the clamour of the busy city beyond, the park with its regiment of palms inside and shady trees on the perimeter, women using umbrellas for shade as they stroll across the British pooh-bahs' one-time cricket ground in front of the Club.

Mahin, a second-generation Indian- Malaysian, tells me that in 1957 the British administrators left virtually overnight, along with their racist, class-based policies of no non-white membership in the club. The place was immediately claimed by the Malaysian elite, and not one game of cricket has since been played on that dry stubble in front.

Along central KL's labyrinth of busy roads and lanes are blocks of smart bars and clubs, seedy bars and clubs, streets of markets and food stalls and restaurants offering international fare.

On the street or inside charming eateries, I eat some of the tastiest food I've had.

Take a lift up the ultra-cool, Petronas Twin Towers and below, on the other side of what's left of one of those two muddy creeks — and what isn't seen from the city streets — are the older quarters of town, where mainly Chinese and descendants of earlier Malay settlers live.

People in Kuala Lumpur. Photo / Lindy Laird

These villages-within-a-city comprise low-slung huddles of patched-roofed wooden-and-whatever houses, some linked by adjoining walls and accessed by a maze of boardwalks, others fronting on to narrow streets decorated with Chinese lanterns and, when I was there earlier this year, bunting and billboards to do with the general election.

The hungry city is eyeing this quarter for space on which to build more hotels or cheap blocks of apartments.

But there are many people who want to preserve one heritage quarter, the history of which is also the story of how KL came to be.

In 1857, a group of 87 Chinese miners poled their way up the shallow, low-banked Klang stream in search of tin, an ore in huge demand by America and the British to help fuel their industrial revolutions.

At the highest point above the Klang where a tiny creek fed into it, the prospectors built a ramshackle, thatched-roof camp, which would later be named Kuala Lumpur, meaning "muddy confluence". Wet lowlands did their devastating thing and within a month all but 17 of the miners had died of malaria — an inauspicious birth for one of Asia's richest cities.

My introduction to Kuala Lumpur's geography came within an hour of my arrival — and it nearly killed me, or so I felt at the time.

Seventeen kilometres from the city centre, at the edge of the urban sprawl, stands a monument to the gods that seems to have been built by the gods themselves, the Batu Caves. These tall caves are inside a sandstone mountain soaring above the surrounding landscape.

The caves are both a natural and man-made wonder — a stunning natural cathedral carved in the limestone many millions of years ago, and carved more recently by man, adorning the caves with Hindu religious icons and sculptures.

The main cave with its open-domed roof became popular with tourists in the late 1880s. Among them was Indian merchant K. Thamboosamy Pillai, who championed the move to make the monolith a place of worship for the Hindu deity of war, Murugan. The Batu Caves have since become a major pilgrimage site for Hindus from around the world, and a 43m tall golden painted statue of Murugan welcomes every visitor to walk up the steep, divine steps. In physical crisis from 35C midday heat and nearly 100 per cent humidity, I made that 121m climb up steep concrete steps, carrying an obligatory bucket of sand for workers on the Hindu temple inside the highest dome. That ghastly climb is now one of my "I survived" travel memories.

Man standing inside of the Batu caves, Malaysia. Photo / Getty Images

Then, it was into the city for a too-short stay — three days — in a city I want to visit again.

At the comfortable, reasonably priced Parkroyal Serviced Suites in Bukit Bintang, I had a panoramic view of this colourful, friendly city. In my suite I was able to shrug off the travel weariness of the longer trip that was ending in KL. Between voyages of discovery into the city, I bathed, laundered, contemplated cooking (for about two seconds) and slept peacefully far above the streets.

I safely wandered the bustling markets, ate street food, discovered the sensational joy of Malaccan food in a lovely restaurant in the Central Markets, had the occasional drink in a bar, visited vast malls and department stores and chatted with friendly shop assistants who didn't seem to mind that this tourist wasn't going mad over the bargains.

That first visit to Kuala Lumpur has led me to suggest to others a longer stopover in the city might be a good idea when connecting flights on longer trips. Better still, make it the destination.