Kuala Lumpur almost reminds me of a North American city. It was established around the same time many North American cities were first settled. Since it's a newer city that experienced rapid growth huge swaths of the city have sort of a generic appearance with mega mall next to mega mall and gated communities for miles and planed satellite cities like
Putrajaya and
Cyberjaya. That isn't necessarily a bad thing since the city has other strengths. There's enough grit and history that stands out among the sprawling modern high-rises of the greater Klang Valley region that make this city worth visiting.
The food culture is what primarily drew me to KL as one can get very good Indian, Malay, and Chinese cuisine for a very good price in KL. The diversity is spectacular and you feel like you're at the crossroads of the world with the Malay, Chinese, Indian, Commonwealth influence, Middle Eastern, Euro/Aussie expat, Korean / Japanese tourist mix.
I didn't know what to expect upon arriving because I found a cheap flight, wanted to go somewhere with good food and to a country I haven't been to before and KL fit the bill. The only thing I really knew about the city was that the Petronas Towers were there. Malaysia was much more developed than I was expecting. Everything is pretty much to first world or upper middle income standards and improving rapidly. The level of English spoken by the average person in KL is much better than in some EU countries and Bahasa Melayu / Indonesia is not particularly hard to learn if you're good at languages.
Traveling around the city you'd see very many European and Australian tourist but never any American or Canadian visitors. I feel like KL has a lot to offer with very nice people, great food, and so much diversity in terms of everything that you feel like you're getting several countries for the price of one. It's a shame more people from my part of the world don't visit.
Instead of posting music with this thread I will attach the Gayatri Mantra which was playing inside
Batu Caves when I visited and made everything seem so surreal and hypnotic.
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