Kuala Lumpor sights and tastes extraordinaire

 We enjoyed seeing some of the day time sights lit up at night.

 The modern architecture in the city is all about office buildings and mega shopping malls.

 There are still old Chinatown street shops for snuffling out a bargain and the old Central Market area to explore for cheap and cheerful holiday nick-nacks.

 Never seen a snake fruit before? Click on the pic below and check out the skin of the snake fruit.

 Coconut buns, these are divine, light, fluffy like marshmallow bread, made with coconut flour and then a tiny bit of dessicated coconut caramelized in the centre.....yum!

Batu Caves

We set out early for Batu Caves as knowing it had 370 steps we thought it would be cooler before mid day.

The caves are in a limestone hill, about a 40 minutes by train from Central KL.  There are three caves and the temples are over 100 years old.

The caves themselves and the stalagnites are said to be over 400 million yrs old. The floor of the main cave, Cathedral Cave, is 100 metres to the roof of the cave.

There is a Hindu festival of Thaipusam here in January where thousands of devotees attend. I can just imagine the sounds and colours. It would be amazing.

Did I mention there were monkeys? Hundreds of monkeys and boy were they clever and quick.

We watched them try to take things out of tourists  backpacks. They were super quick and very cheeky but also a bit scary as they hissed every now and then.  They have had years of tourists feeding them snacks so now they help themselves to anything loose they can snatch.

Kuala Lumpor

Buidlings, architecture and heat....KL city centre is a mass of buildings and there are more under development

The Eco Park , jungle right in the city center feels like the green lungs of the city. There are some great canopy walks if you can hack the heat. 

The contrast between the old and the new is wonderful. Will the new buildings stand the test of time so we'll?

Merdeka square is situated in the heart of the city. It was here in front of the Sultan Abdul Samad building (pic above and an absolute stunner of a building) that the British flag was lowered and the Malayan flag was hoisted for the first time at midnight on August 31 1957. At the time it was allegedly the tallest flagpole in the world.  

The  Royal Selangor Club, founded  in 1884, was the social club and meeting point for the  high ranking and well to do in British colonial society.  I think they also played  an bit of cricket here too. 

The impressive Moorish-architecture of the Sultan Abdul Samad building stops you in your tracks, it's pretty impressive. 

Farewell Penang

Penang promises glorious food and flavours and it delivers. Along with food there is such an interesting history, fantastic architecture in all states of repair, photo opportunities galore,  a melting pot of culture and welcoming, accepting locals. 

We are travelling light so it was tough to walk away from some of the gorgeous treasures on display in a Chinese Shop House that served as a living museum with the history of batik and porcelain design.

 We will miss the smell of incense from all the lovely wee temples that are cheek by jowel with hawker stalls.

We will have fond memories of all the wonderful tastes and sights Penang has delivered. I don't think we have ever sweat so much.  The humidity takes some getting used to if you like walking as we do. It's been great.

Penang flavours

Penang is famous for having pretty much every cuisine you could want for within a few minutes walking distance. We have been exploring and tasting 😊

From Little India to Chinatown and all the hawker food stalls in between you will be sure to find something new and exotic to taste. For the less adventureous there are the usual well known restaurant chains and of course 5 star hotels...take your pick.

The hawker food stalls are full of families having shared lunches, it's vibrant and noisy and full of action and it's hard to know what to choose as there is so much choice.

We loved the fusion tastes as well as the traditional hawker street food. Loved the calamari, prawn and squid ink pasta with chilli grilled cherry tomatoes, we went back  several times.

 Dim sum with so many different stuffing choices....mushroom and pork, yum!

We found Laksalicious and tried the traditional Assam laksa as well as coconut laksa and mango spring rolls,  very good😊

 Sometimes it's hard to choose. We tended to opt for choices that were cooked from scratch in front of us to ensure they were fresh.

 We watched the chef below making what look liked yummy omelettes which were then wrapped in a wafer thin roti bread and toasted on the grill one more time....it was delicious, served with finely chopped red shallots.  We chatted to a man in line and he had been to a 'ranch' near Hamilton to buy race horses. This roti omelette is seriously good.

Kway teow and yellow noodles with fresh green chillies....we ate in the street along with some monks having the same for their breakfast.

 The guy at the wee table next to us had this yummy looking chicken. Of course there is no menu and the locals can rattle off what they want in Malay so we did our best but we ended up with chicken feet, oh well, lost in translation 😊.

 Ramen fried noodles with Thai basil, chicken and chilli, yum, yum, yum!

Pan fried or steamed, dumplings are always good.

Lots of lovely drinks to taste as well. We  are enjoying fresh mango smoothies and iced ginger tea. Beer and wine are quite expensive here so we are going alcohol free😊.

Penang, turn a corner and be amazed

Some pics from an early morning walk before it got too hot.

I love the little shrines that have incense burning, outside garages, shops...every where.

Not sure I would like to be down on my luck here, for some it's a hard life.

Lots of bustling activity as the city came alive.

Chicken for lunch, maybe not.