Pieces and Shards of Kuala Lumpur

I experienced Kuala Lumpur in pieces, as though lit by a strobe light or seen through a zoetrope. 

I was in and out of the city constantly over my two weeks in Malaysia. I stayed in three hostels, plus my friend Azali’s house. My base shifted, my internal compass recalibrated, and KL came to me in flashes.

It’s not a particularly walkable city, though I tried. Kuala Lumpur is a big, modern metropolis and it favors machines: cars, buses, motorcycles. The humidity and the heat help to drain away a walker’s resolve. I was saved many times by Azali’s car, or by the free GoKL buses with their cool air and WiFi. My poor sense of direction was continuously twisted by window views. I learn a city with my feet.

Connecting the map of KL in my mind was not easy.

No matter. These shards of Kuala Lumpur made a mosaic.

Some flashes, disconnected bits of my experience in Kuala Lumpur, partial illustrations that create a whole:

There’s the alley full of fresh-made street food I found on Jalan HS Tun Lee when I was desperate to escape the tourist-saturated Petaling Street. In my eternal awkwardness, I couldn’t seem to figure out how to get the food I wanted, but a lovely Malaysian woman not only got my order for me, she ate lunch with me and paid. The hospitality blew me away.

I found the Islamic Arts Museum, an oasis of cool and quiet in the middle of the sticky city. My favorite exhibit was of contemporary abstract calligraphy artists, who are trained in the traditional forms but push the swoops of each letter into weirder and wilder patterns. The pictures were mesmerizing.

The sprawling park of orchids in the botanical garden next to the museum adds color to the humidity. It was a perfumed tranquility; the landscaped grounds burst with flowers and the entrance is free.

Dizzy from the heat, I wandered around the National Mosque of Malaysia, with its sharp angles and modern lines—a hugely different piece of architecture than the Istanbul mosques I’m familiar with.

I stood with Azali and his friends on a roof’s helipad, drinking fancy cocktails and cold beers and watching the hazy glow of sunset fall over Kuala Lumpur. The edge of the building dropped away sharply, but we stood as close as we were allowed anyway. We were never in any danger, but the city still felt like a gift at our feet.

The National Monument of Malaysia is full of pomp and symmetry; the curves pleased my photographer eye and the fountains cooled off the hot pavilion.

Every mall blends together. I was in and out of them, grateful for the coolness and ease of the generic spaces, repelled by the universal mall geography that exists everywhere: I could be in Istanbul or Boston instead of Kuala Lumpur. Yet malls are part of life here, part of the fabric of the city. I drank bubble tea as girls clattered by in heels and men in sharp suits murmured into smartphones.

From their base, the Petronas Towers seem unbearably tall. In the evening, as the fountains around the towers erupt with color and families stroll with shopping bags and small children, it seems like the center of life in KL. I sat in the gathering dusk and watched the world of Kuala Lumpur go by.

My impressions of Kuala Lumpur are built from these slips of memory, these pieces of a vast puzzle. KL wasn’t a coherent place for me; the steamy city is stitched together in my mind. I enjoyed Kuala Lumpur. Someday I will return and add more shards to the mosaic.