Visiting Kuala Lumpur With A Toddler

It was a trip we had been talking about and looking forward to since booking it. Our big trip to the Far East.  First stop, Malaysia, and its capital, Kuala Lumpur.

This was my third visit to the city. My first as a backpacking graduate, 12 years ago; the second with my future husband, seven years ago and now with my 18 month old daughter.

It was only a flying visit – 2 nights and just over a day there. It didn’t give us much time to explore the city but then a thick, yellowy haze emitting faint odours of car fumes mixed
with public lavatories, had settled over the city – due in part to a three-month drought in the country. The end result was an intense, sticky humidity which made it tricky to wander too far, particularly with a child.

To put it in context, when we flew into KL at 11pm the haze hugged the buildings like a long lost friend and it was 29 degrees Celsius outside.

Air conditioning. How did people ever live without it? To us Brits it makes travel in Asia, especially with a child, bearable. And so the next day we hid from the heat in one of the biggest air-conditioned public places there is in KL, a shopping mall. That must be why they are so popular in Asia, a refuge from the uncomfortable heat. And everything you could want there too. We dived into the first we saw, just across from our hotel. Mrs T loved it. She could run around, get lots of attention from strangers and we could shop and eat too – all under one roof.

In the UK, shopping centres attract a whole host of uninspiring chain and fast food outlets, if you like burgers and pizza you are fine. But in Asia, they contain some of the best restaurants. I remember when we were in Japan, we had the tastiest (and best priced) sushi on the top floor of one of Tokyo’s big malls at lunchtime.

We actually stopped for Japanese in this KL mall. One of many places
serving various cuisines from around the world. Thankfully for us, while she stayed off the raw fish (hubby wouldn’t let me give her any), Mrs T happily tucked into rice and noodles, even attempting to eat them with chopsticks.

It was a mall we also headed to later that evening, taking advantage of Mrs T still being jet lagged and up for eating out late. We had a short wander along the main drag close to the Starhill Gallery shopping mall where Mrs T marvelled at the lights. Then, once inside she found great delight in playing with the water foundation.

It was wonderful to see her take everything in and enjoy seeing different people go about their lives on the other side of the world. We stopped for a drink and ate at a restaurant serving local cuisine before heading back for the night.

The next day we were up and off early for the next leg, Langkawi. This time around in KL we were a bit restricted. Lack of time but also the smoggy conditions. We gave the Petronas towers tour a miss (I’ve done it twice, once when it was still the tallest building). Instead we just viewed the third tallest building in the world (and tallest TWIN towers in the world) from the outside, before having tea at the Mandarin Oriental hotel (Mrs T kept herself amused with the sugar packets).

Perhaps if Mrs T wasn’t with us in KL we may have ventured to one of the markets or spent some more time exploring outside but, realistically, as a fair-skinned British couple, we aren’t brilliant in the stifling heat so I doubt we would have done much different.