Category Archives: Kuala Lumpur

Visit of Yolanda & Math

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In 1976 , at the age of 32, I became a physics teacher, and Yolanda was one of my first students. After she graduated we kept in contact and have been friends now for almost 50 years. She and her partner Math have been traveling all over the world, but never in Malaysia. Until this year, when they first visited Sarawak, Sabah and Bali, before staying a few days at our place in KL They arrived in the evening and after a beer , we took them to 1 Utama for dinner.

We bought an ice cream cake for her, as it was her birthday!

The next day I went with them to the KL city center (KLCC).

The park has impressive ficus trees, but of course the main attractions are the famous Twin Towers.

It was a hot day, so after a short walk in the park, we went inside the shopping mall, to the top floor, to my favourite coffee shop in the Kinokuniya bookshop.

I considered having lunch in the mall, but when I saw the crowds queuing for the restaurants, I changed my mind and suggested taking the metro back to Pasar Seni. Aric had mentioned a popular mamak, where we had a simple lunch.

After our lunch, we first walked to the historical city center, passing the beautiful Friday Mosque. Designed by a British architect and built in 1909. Now overshadowed by skyscrapers.

It was getting very hot, so we shortened our walk and took only a few pictures. Three architectural landmarks. In the left picture the former headquarters of the Federated Malay States Railways (1905). In the center the Dayabumi building (1984). The right picture shows the Merdeka 118 tower (2023).

When you are interested in architecture, have a look at this blog post: KL Heritage,

Yolanda and Math are planning to visit Taman Negara. Here she is asking information at a travel agency. The other picture shows a nice piece of street art.

It was my plan to finish the trip with the KL Mural Art. But I could not find them, only a few normal ones. Click here to see what we missed.

Walking back to the MRT station, we passed the Sri Maha Mariamman Temple. We were back home around 4 pm for a shower and a rest.

We had dinner at our favourite seafood restaurant, where Aric and I are regular customers.

The second day of their visit, Aric took a day off from his laundry shop to drive us around. First we had breakfast, with Roti Goyang, soft-boiled eggs on toast. A favourite of mine, here the “shaking eggs” were put on garlic toast.

Our first destination was the Batu Caves. The temples inside the cave are dedicated to Lord Murugan, and his huge statue is visible from far away.

It is a popular tourist attraction, but also a place of devotion for Hindus

You have to climb 272 steps to reach the entrance of the caves. We did it slowly to protect our knees.

As we climbed higher, the views of KL became better, although it was a bit hazy.

Many long-tailed macaques are watching you, looking for food. Don’t carry it in a bag, they will snatch it. Almost at the top of the stairs there is the entrance to the Dark Caves. Nowadays, you can only enter on a guided tour. I was lucky to visit them in 2003 with my caving friend Liz Price. The Dark Caves, the first year I used a digital camera!

I have visited the Batu Caves many times, but every time, the huge cave with the temples is fascinating and impressive.

Decorations everywhere. The peacock is the transport animal of Lord Murugan.

Math is a tall guy, had to be careful not to hit his head. Both of us have a knee problem, so we very happy that we could climb up the stairs (and later climb down again).

The caves have a few levels, with Hindu temples. Sunlight enters through an opening in the roof.

After the main cave, we visited a few more caves at the bottom of the stairs, not much climbing required. You reach them via a zigzag bridge.

Many live peacocks and peahens. Two elephants guard the entrance.

The cave has many statues and paintings from Hindu mythology. An orgy of colours.

We skipped the last cave, only took a picture of Hanuman, guarding the entrance. Before leaving, we bought some peacock feathers.

Our second destination for the day was the National Art Gallery. It was my third visit, I lke the museum very much.

During my first visit, I found that the museum had a cafe, but I never tried it. This time we did. Not cheap but excellent coffee and nice food.

I wrote a blog post about the museum it with many photos: The National Art Gallery.

On the upper floor there was a temporary exhibition of digital art.

We spent some time here, creating our own museum artworks. Fun!

A very useful digital artwork at the entrance. The whole museum collection is on this wall, as thumbnails . When you point to a thumbnail, it will be enlarged with details about date, artist etc.

We went home after a tiring day, took a rest, and went out later to SEA park to an open air eatery, specialising in nasi lemak bumbung

The next morning Math and Yolanda left for Melaka.

KL Lake Gardens

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When my hiking friend Pek Foong invited me for a drink at the Royal Lake Club, she suggested that we could combine it with a walk in the Lake Gardens. Have you ever visited the Tun Razak Memorial there, she asked. I told her that I didn’t even know it existed. Oh, then I will show you the house where Najib grew up, she said.

At 4 pm she picked me up from home and we drove to the Lake gardens where she parked her car near an attractive building. This was the private residence of Tun Abdul Razak, the 2nd PM of Malaysia. He lived here with his family from 1962 until his death in 1976.

It is now part of the Tun Razak Memorial. Free access, after registration, open until 5pm.We noticed one guard only, probably there will be CCTV. We were the only visitors, I am sure that also many Malaysians are not aware of this mansion.

It is an elegant building of two storeys. The ground floor has spacious living and dining rooms , upstairs there are bedrooms for the family.

There is an attractive courtyard. Pity that the pond was empty.

There are several display cases, one with krisses and another with walking sticks. Did Tun Razak collect them? We used the reflection in the glass for a selfie 😉 .

The first floor contains bedrooms. Left the master bedroom, right the bedroom of their eldest son, Najib Razak, the sixth PM of Malaysia, now enjoying accommodation in the Kajang prison because of his role in the 1MDB scandal.

The bedrooms of the other boys, Tun Razak had five sons and no daughters.

The house looks like a (luxury) private home. There is a home trainer and the safe is a sign that the family had money.

A traditional ironing table. On the ground floor there is a Quran recitation room. Not clear why there is an extra bed in that room. The story is that Najib had to pass the recitation test before his parents gave him permission to go to the UK for his studies.

From the house there is a nice view of the Merdeka 118 skyscraper. The other picture shows the second building of the Tun Razak Memorial, which we did not visit.

We walked from the house to the Orchid Garden.

Here is a collection of orchids that we saw during our walk.

The gardens are well designed. Although the rocks are fake, the fish are real.

We could have continued our walk to the Lake Club, but Pek Foong decided to drive there by car. Here is the main entrance of the Royal Lake Club, a huge complex, not far from the Lake Gardens.

For many parts of the club there is a dress code, but not for the Sunset bar near the swimming pools.

There we met Peter Leong, another hiking friend, for a couple of beers and nice food.

Here is a GE image of the Lake Gardens. I have marked the places where we have been, and also the location of the Royal Selangor Club, the other club in KL. For orientation I have also indicated the Pasar Seni.

It was a nice outing, I am looking forward to a repeat.

A New Passport

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My Dutch passport expires in July this year, but it includes an MM2H visa which expires already in March.. So I decided to apply early for a new one. Dutch passports used to be valid for 5 years only, but nowadays they are valid for 10 years. Usually, you return your old passport, when you get the new one, but in my case, they contained MM2H visa, so I kept them after they had been made invalid.

The procedure is simple: you must download and fill out a form and then make an appointment with the Dutch embassy. I went there on 16 December.

You have to submit a recent passport photo. There are strict guidelines and that made me worry a bit. Glasses are allowed, but your eyes must be fully visible. Mouth closed, expression neutral, head not tilted, etc. I did my best and this is the result ;-). When I presented the form and photo to the friendly embassy staff, they were accepted without any problem.

Faster than expected I got an email from the embassy that I could come to collect my new passport. I decided to go by public transport and asked our UK friend Rodney, to join, so we could have a look at the CNY decorations in KLCC.

We walked from the LRT KLCC station through the park to the Naza Tower, where the consular section of the Dutch embassy is located. The weather was beautiful and the Twin Towers impressive. The Naza Tower is a modern skyscraper. Launched in 2012, it has an interesting helical shape.

It took only a few minutes to receive my new passport. Before walking back, we decided to have coffee and cake in the lobby of the Naza Tower.

Nice street art around the Naza Tower.

And of course CNY decorations. Like in Machap,visited a few weeks ago, many colorful flowers, but all artificial.

Opposite the Naza Tower a spectacular new building is under construction. The provisional name is Lot M. In the (far?) future a 700-meter tall skyscraper may rise on top of this building.

We walked back through the park. With the very blue sky, the KL skyline was breathtaking. It was a hot day, the wading pool in the park was popular for children and adults.

Kuala Lumpur can be proud of a beautiful park in the center of the city.

In front of the shopping mall, a huge CNY decoration has been constructed. Here Rodney took a picture of me, taking a picture 😉 .

Probably I took this picture. Inside the shopping mall another huge decoration.

This year is the year of the Snake, but where are the snakes? Last year, the year of the Dragon, there were dragons everywhere. Not a single snake here! Probably because many people have a phobia ffor snakes!

The walk through the park had made us thirsty, so we went to my favourite Kinokuniya cafe for a refreshing drink. Then we started looking for a suitable lunch place. I was thinking about the Asian Food Court. On our way, I noticed that there were long queues for all the restaurants.

I expected that it would be difficult to find an empty table in the food court. Then we found one restaurant with many free tables. So, for the first time in my life, I had lunch in a TGI FRIDAYS! We ordered the so-called Hangover Burger, a substantial meal.

Then we went back back home, where we arrived just before a downpour started.

The Saloma bridge

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The Saloma Bridge is a pedestrian bridge crossing the Klang river and the AKLEH highway. It connects KLCC to Kampong Baru and was opened in 2020. Here is a Google Earth screenshot.

The bridge is walking distance from the Kampong Baru LRT station. The left picture shows the bridge from the Kg Baru with the Twin Towers in the background. The right picture is from the KLCC side, the bridge ends at an extensive Muslim cemetery, an elevated walkway leads you around it

The bridge is brightly lit, it has become a tourist attraction, especially in the evening. The colors change all the time. No wonder that all visitors take many photos.

Here is a video of the bridge with the changing colors.

More photos. THe red color is the most brilliant, The light patterns on the bridge change all the time, sometimes showing the Malaysian flag.

Here is a video with the flag. Notice how the flag is waving 😉

Walking in the “tunnel” of the bridge is also interesting.

After a last picture we crossed over to the Kg Baru side, where we had dinner in a Malay stall. Nice food, chicken, sotong and veggie plus drinks RM 32,

A recommended excursion!

KL Cemeteries, part I

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Five years ago, on CNY 2014, I visited with my friend Joe Yap a number of Houses of Worship in KL. This year I decided to visit cemeteries in KL on CNY day. Not with Joe this time, but with my Dutch friend Paul.

And not as “exhaustive” as the 2014 trip. There are many cemeteries in KL of course, often on the outskirts of the town, we visited only two major ones this time, the Kwong Tong Chinese Cemetery and the Cheras Christian Cemetery.

The Kwong Tong cemetery is huge, split in two parts by the Middle Ring Road 1. There are sign boards with information about interesting graves, but only in Chinese.

From the sprawling cemetery. you have a nice view of the imposing KL skyline.

It is a beautiful cemetery. In two months time, at Cheng Beng, it will be crowded with people cleaning the graves of their loved ones, now it was very quiet and serene. I like cemeteries 🙂

There was one grave in particular I wanted to visit, that of Yap Ah Loy, generally considered to be the founder of Kuala Lumpur. With the help of the very informative Malaysia Traveler website of my friend David, I had found the approximate location, in part C (see the map). Walking around we found without problem the marker stone at the beginning of a small lane leading to his grave and those of a few relatives. Beautiful flowers.

Near his grave a plaque gives information about his life

His grave is nice, but not especially impressive. In case you like to visit yourself, the GPS coordinates are 3° 7.31’N 101° 42.05’E .

Left the inscription on Yap Ah Loy’s grave, right the inscription on the grave of his wife.

Some of the graves nearby are much more impressive.

We visited two memorials. This is the Kuomintang Cenotaph, erected in 1947 as a memorial for the Chinese who repatriated to China to fight against the Japanese. I guess they went back after the start of the Second Sino-Japanese war and the Nanjing Massacre in 1937.

The other memorial is for the victims of the Japanese occupation in World War II. Click on the right picture for background information.

There will be many more interesting things to see in this cemetery, but you really need a guide who is fluent in Chinese.

Next we visited the Christian cemetery in Cheras, also with a nice view of the KL skyline.

A nice part of this cemetery, probably Roman-Catholic, has beautiful graves with statues of Jesus, Mary and angels.

Part of the Cheras cemetery is a war cemetery, immaculately kept by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. It contains the graves of military personnel, killed during the Malayan Campaign and the Japanese Occupation, but also of those killed during the Malayan Emergency.

Also in this cemetery I was interested in one grave in particular, that of Henry Gurney, the British High Commissioner, who was killed in 1951 during the Emergency. We found it without much difficulty, next to the war cemetery proper. GPS coordinates are 3° 6.38’N 101° 43.95’E . The tombstone was put in the center of a separate compound and well kept. Not far away another tombstone with “Here lie buried” with illegible names. I was struck by the difference …

The tombstones of Henry Gurney, and two servicemen, one English, the other one Gurkha. All three killed during the Emergency.

War cemeteries are impressive because many of the people buried there are so young. They gave their lives, so others could live.

Several of my friends feel uncomfortable in a cemetery, but I don’t. Maybe because I don’t believe in an eternal soul or an afterlife?

I am planning to visit more cemeteries in KL. Next on my list is the Ampang Muslim cemetery, where I will try to find the grave of P. Ramlee. There is also a small Japanese cemetery.