After a few days in Brunei, we took a quick flight over to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, my 38th country visited. We booked the Westin Kuala Lumpur as our hotel, and arranged for a car to pick us up from the airport when we arrived. The airport is over an hour away from the main city, so make sure you budget for plenty of time.
When we arrived, we were lucky to get upgraded to an incredible apartment in the residences tower of the building. It was on the top floor, and had a kitchen, living room, and a beautiful little sunroom where we had breakfast every morning.
It was super late when we arrived after spending most of the day in Brunei, so we ate in the hotel at Five Sen5es Chinese Restaurant and stopped for a drink at the 443 Bar before heading in for the night.
For our first day, we got up early and caught a Grab out to the Batu Caves. Grab is another Uber equivalent and is ESSENTIAL for a trip to Malaysia. It’s the best way to get around, and to order any take out/delivery if you’ll be staying for an extended period of time.
Y’all I had looked up the Batu Caves ahead of time, but it in no way prepared me for how incredibly HUGE the staircase is. If you look closely, you can see how tiny the people are as they climb up. We went early to try to avoid crowds, and that, combined with the fact that it was the very beginning of COVID, meant there was very little crowd at all.
The stairs are STEEP and there are a lot of them, 272 of them in fact. It was VERY hot the day we visited, and since it is a temple, I was wearing long pants which made it even hotter. I’d suggest bringing some water with you, or you can buy some at the base of the staircase.
We took a lot of stops along the way to take photos (and catch our breath) as we made our way to the top. Another thing to note, there are a LOT of monkeys at the caves, and they will steal anything they can from you. Make sure you keep all food in your purse or backpack, and even watch out for your sunglasses!
The temple in the cave at the top is beautiful, and looking out into the sky through the openings in the roof is incredible. We spent some time in here cooling down before making our way back down.
Once down, there are more statues, stairs, and caves you can explore in the grounds before heading out. We found a set of all blue stairs that was completely empty and made for some great photographs!
Once down, we called another Grab and made our way back to town to the KL Tower. At the top of the tower you can see incredible panoramas of the entire city, including some close up views of the Petronas Towers. I also loved that in the lobby at the top, they have photos of all of the tallest and most famous structures in the world. It was very cool to see how many I’d already visited on my travels!
If you’re already making your way to the top, I highly recommend checking out the Sky Box, a glass box overlooking the city where you can sit and have photos taken. It was terrifying (I’m very afraid of heights), but totally worth it.
At the bottom of the tower, there are a ton of other attractions, including a mini rainforest, and a huge grassy area that is great for photos.
We thought about taking the tour of the rainforest, complete with a canopy walk, but we were VERY hot, and there was a sign warning against poisonous spiders, and I’d conquered enough fears for the morning.
We hailed another Grab and took the short drive to Jalon Alor, the main market. We got there a little too early in the day and a lot of the spots were just beginning to open up, so we took our time walking up and down the entire street twice before choosing the spot we wanted to eat – Restoren HONG HENG, and got there just in time for a torrential downpour while we enjoyed some food and drinks.
We ordered WAYY too much food per usual, and it was all absolutely incredible. We basically picked the restaurant based on the photos they had facing the road, and the garlic crab we ordered was legitimately one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. I wish I could have bottled the sauce up and taken it with me.
We loved that they gave us these gloves ahead of time to put on while we broke open the shells for our meal. I can’t remember what they called these, but they were essentially MASSIVE crawfish and they were phenomenal.
Once the rain stopped, we decided to walk back to the hotel (and walk off the massive meal we’d just finished). Along the way, Eric found a sneaker shop to stop in while I hit up Sephora to search for all the skincare not available in the US yet.
After buying WAYY to much skincare, we headed back to the hotel to get ready and head out for dinner at Sushi Ryu, a spot in Naza Tower in Platinum Park that came highly recommended. From the front of the building, we had some incredible views of the Petronas Tower at night.
The food was incredible. We snagged two spots at the sushi counter with a reservation, and as usual, opted for the Omakase set menu and a bottle of Sake suggested by the chef. Every single item was delicious. Afterwards we also added on the wagyu sandwich, which was definitely a good choice.
Post dinner, went through a door into Barshake, a speakeasy that is right next door and makes incredible cocktails.
While we were at the bar, we found out that we couldn’t complete the last intended stop of our trip in Japan due to COVID, and had to spend some time re-routing ourselves back to Denver via layovers in Singapore and San Francisco. Since our flight to Singapore left much later than our intended flight to Tokyo, we figured we had time for one last bar before heading to bed.
We took a Grab to the Heli Lounge Bar, which is a helicopter pad on top of an office building that fully functions during the day, and turns into a bar complete with a DJ and nets to keep people from getting too close to the edge at night.
You have to pay a cover to get in, but the cover goes towards purchasing drinks, and we opted for lychee martinis and snagged an awesome table with incredible views of the city and the Petronas Towers.
The next morning we woke up early again, ordered some breakfast into the hotel, and ate in our sunroom before heading out for our last few hours in KL.
We jumped across the street to the JW Marriott Hotel Kuala Lumpur, and to the Donna Spa for incredible massages – little did we know this would be our last massage for almost 8 months because of COVID!
Before heading back to the hotel to grab our things, we stopped at the Pavillion Mall to visit the Laneiege store (YES AN ENTIRE STORE) and bought enough skincare that they gave me a free branded duffel bag to bring it all home in. There were SO MANY products that they don’t sell yet in the US, and of course I had to try it all.
We packed up everything and took a car back to the airport. Unfortunately, we did not know that there are two separate airports in Kuala Lumpur, and we accidentally went to KL 1 when our flight was out of KL 2. There is a train that connects the two, but we didn’t make it in time and missed our first flight. Make sure to check before you go! We were able to find another flight to Singapore thankfully, and ran to the gate just in time.
We wished we could have stopped in Japan, but our layover in Singapore did give us enough time to head back into town to visit an incredible Bar/Restaurant we had missed last time around, and to then spend some time exploring all of the wonders the Changi Airport has to offer (full post on the airport coming soon!)
We can’t wait to be able to head back to Asia to explore more, and hopefully get to spend some time in Tokyo once COVID travel restrictions have passed! Any must see cities/destinations we should add to the list or any questions for your next trip? Let me know in the comments!
