Day 9 - Kuala Lampur, Malaysia (the 1st long day)

I was soooo excited for this day, because instead of flying to Malaysia, we opted for a full day of comfortably riding there in a private van. Our driver Eugene (probably a fan favorite from all our trips, as he loved to talk) arrived promptly at 7:30am to get us loaded up and out of the city. And his Vellfire van was super pimped out. So comfortable!

Eugene told us he was a Chinese-blooded Malay who worked in Singapore/Malaysia as a full-time private driver. 

The drive to the border from Singapore to Malaysia wasn't that far, perhaps an hour or so. Eugene told us that all the card/motorcycles heading toward us from Malaysia were all of the night workers getting off shift, and returning home. They number about 120,000 folks per day. 

Once we got to Immigration, we did not need to exit the vehicle. We simply showed our faces from our seats, and then did it again a few minutes later once we entered Malaysia. The drive was a lot nicer than I'd expected- a very smooth, uncrowded roadway with rubber /palm oil trees alongside both sides of the road. We learned Malaysia is one of hte larged exporters in the world of both.

We drove about two hours until we got to Malacca, our first stop in Malaysia...as it's a UNESCO-designated town. We were dropped off in the center of Old Town to walk up a small hill to the ruins of a church (St. Paul's), for a nice view of the city and the sea. 

What Malacca is most affectionately known for is their themed trishaws (part tricycle, part rickshaw), which are garish and outlandishly decorated, and typically have blaring music/flashing lights.

We split up from my parents shortly after this photo, so we could cruise the Old City and have lunch. It had strong Dutch influences architecturally, as it once occuped by the Danes.

Rich, Ry and I chose to have the city's famous 'chicken rice ball' which is not actually one entree. It's two, the chicken balls are eaten alongside tiny circular rice balls. They were delicious! We went to a famous restaurant there that specializes in them.  I think we spent about $12 for the three of us.

Eugene picked us up a few hours later, and we drove another two hours to our final stop of the day...Putra Mosque! We could see the massive pink dome of the mosque soon after we passed by the Prime Minister's Building next to it. We quickly donned the required cloaks to enter, and haha, the boys had to wear one too (this was a first). So we all got to look like Hogwarts graduates for an hour as we slowly cruised around in air conditioned splendor. While we there, we even tgo to hear a call to prayer. The mosque was large enough to accompany about 15,000 worshippers. Malaysia has about 2/3 of its population identify as Muslim, and the remaining as Buddhist or Catholic. The mosque was pretty beautiful, I have to say! Unusual in that it was pink, but lovely.

After we left the mosque, we got to our hotel that evening...and it was pretty darn cool. I loved our hotel there more than the others! It was called something like the Kuala Lampur Journal, and it was mostly pretty awesome- amazingly central location among high rises, malls, restaurants, train stations. We also had a floor to ceiling glass plate window that overlooked the city lights, which I loved! We quickly spied a Japanese department store (Isetan) that we hit up near daily for good food/snacks. It was also right next to a Don Quixote, which was the official supplier of half our meals on this trip!

Defiintely a grittier city compared to Singapore/Tokyo, but still a lot more urban than I ever would have imagined. Lots of bright lights and large screens, a la Tokyo or Times Square. The cascading shower was also lovely!

The rooms were large, modern, and had a fun vibe, but a hair run down/shabby around the edges. My parents even had a room with a view of the Petronas Twin Towers! The hotel had a beautiful rooftop pool I was certain we would hit, but we never had the time! We did get to enjoy amazing daily breakfast buffets daily though...something we hadn't had at the other hotels.

The surrounding area was hopping! Lots of loud music blaring, folks crammed on the sidewalks...it was a very active vibe.

This was NOT a photo we took- it's a photographer's photo of the twin tours at night...which we failed to capture well as we only travel basic iphone cameras.