Episode 835 – KL at Night: A Very Quick Glimpse – Rose and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

March in Kuala Lumpur is almost uncomfortably hot and humid. The average daily highs range from 32-35°C with a “real feel”of 40-41°C (that’s 104°F) and overnight lows drop to 26°C, feeling like 30°C (86°F).

People who don’t have to be outside during the day either stay home or retreat to the air-conditioned malls, but when the sun sets – even though the humidity still makes every piece of clothing stick – the city’s skyscrapers light up, the neon signs glow, lanterns shine across streets, and the crowds emerge.

After our initial long guided tour day, we quickly learned to be more like the Malaysians and stay inside during the day, and we began to understand why everyone takes a Grab instead of walking even short distances; 15 minutes under the sun and we’d have perspired right through our lightweight cotton clothes.

New routing: around 7:00 p.m., it would be time to venture out to do our exploring.

On our first evening foray we discovered that the night food market on Jalan Alor is the definition of insanity. I’d hoped to make it our regular dinner spot, but the jostling crowds were just too much. We’ll hope that the night markets in Georgetown Penang are a bit more manageable.

On our second evening, we walked to the much less crowded KLCC Park, where families and tourists find seats on the steps surrounding Symphony Lake to watch the Petronas Towers turn to glowing silver as the sun sets, and then enjoy the nightly water and light show on Symphony Lake.

There’s a tiny sliver of moon in the velvet black sky to the left of the towers.

One of the pieces of music that accompanies the dancing waters is USA for Africa’s 1985 version of “We Are The World”.

Ted videoed one of the numbers:

On our third evening, we took a Grab into Brickfields/Little India, mostly for dinner, but also to walk around and potentially do a bit of shopping in the Indian textile stores (I have one more shirt to replace).