Christmas spirit and so much more in Kuala Lumpur

Petronas towers

My mission in Kuala Lumpur was simple. I wanted to visit the Petronas towers and gorge on Indian food from street stalls. Mission accomplished.

View of Kuala Lumpur from the KL tower

But there’s so much more to Kuala Lumpur, it’s overwhelming. As I expected, it’s a space age city with endless arrays of some of the tallest skyscrapers in the world, including the Petronas towers, the currently second tallest buildings in the world. To add to the space age theme, the monorail – one of the public transport systems – frequently swishes by.

Enjoying a Carlsberg

Food from almost any imaginable world cuisine can be found either on street stalls or in countless food courts in air-conditioned malls. There are Italian restaurants that advertise live Bollywood music, bars that promote Carlsberg as Malaysia’s favorite beer, Mexican restaurants that offer water pipes. There are Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Portuguese, German, Austrian and who could remember what other countries in addition to Malay restaurants to choose from. As if that wasn't enough, add all the world's fast food chains into the mix. I was so glad I already had Indian food in mind before facing all the food choices in front of me otherwise I don't how I would have made a decision.

Christmas spirit in a shopping mall

The shopping mall under the Petronas towers is decorated with Christmas themed stuff that would feel at home anywhere in the Western world. A choir performed Christmas carols which made the atmosphere even more authentic. I really didn’t expect so much Christmas in Asia.

Teenage girls in multicolored wigs

All day long I kept on running into teenagers wearing electric blue or candy pink or green or orange colored wigs. I have no idea who they were or why they were dressed up that way, the most logical explanation would be that there was some sort of anime festival going on in the city.

Yes, Kuala Lumpur is overwhelming, but in a positive sense. It's hot but there are so many air-conditioned places everywhere it's easy to take refuge from the heat. The traffic behaves nicely. It doesn't even concern me that they drive on the left. In Phnom Penh I have become accustomed to looking all four ways before crossing the street so it's a relief that traffic in Kuala Lumpur comes from only one direction at a time. Now if only I could decide what to eat tomorrow...