The flight into Kuala Lumpur from Yogyakarta was a pleasantly short 2½ hours. The photographer snapped a photo as we approached from the south. Malaysia is the world’s second largest palm oil producer, and over the years, we’ve watched the jungles and forests be replaced by palm plantations.As we were driven from the airport, we noted how the number of residential towers in the districts between the city center and the airport had nearly doubled since we visited two years ago. Razak City in Sungai Besi is one such mega-development – just short of 6,000 units in a forest of 44-floor towers.We stayed in our favorite KL hotel, the Mandarin Oriental, right on the central KLCC Park and next to the Suriya shopping center. The fountains in the park played nightly, with lights, music, and coordinated squirting. As it so happened, MotoGP was launching its second season in Kuala Lumpur. It’s the motorcycle version of F1 and seems to have replaced F1 on the streets of KL. On the day of the launch celebration, the red MotoGP tent set up in front of the fountain was packed, with lines of people waiting to get in snaking deep into the park.The 50-acre park itself, with its jogging and walking paths, kids play areas, splash pool, green spaces, and views of the Petronas Towers, is perfect for evening constitutionals.As fate would have it, we were upgraded to a suite again, and for the same reason as last time: the air conditioning in our preferred room was lame. Apparently, AC in that stack of rooms, with its southern exposure, is an ongoing problem. We still got our sunrise view of the park …And a bonus view of the iconic towers next door. We had no real plans for our time in KL, we just like the city for its food. It did turn into a kind-of dental tech stop, though. We both needed some dental maintenance work. In the US, we were quoted about $2,200 for the treatments. The photographer had the brilliant idea to see if we could have it done while in Kuala Lumpur. We ended up at Teethos Dental, above a spicy hotpot restaurant near Petaling Street. They were well recommended and serve mostly foreigners. They did incredibly professional work. The bill? About $360 USD. Not surprisingly, we ran into a couple at the hotel, from the UK, also having some opportunistic medical work done.Central KL is a crazy place to walk or drive. Streets and sidewalks twist and turn and seem to change names every 100 feet. Fortunately, elevated pedestrian walkways can get you most anywhere (above and below).One of those most-anywhere’s is Bukit Bintang Road. Shopping and restaurants and people and shopping and restaurants …And squares and shopping malls.We stopped at Don Don Donki for some durian candy with the plan of torturing the kids back home.Also on Bukit Bintang Road is Lot 10 Hutong; hutong means alley, and it’s like a basement hawkers center with Malaysian street food. It used to be a wonderful place, standing room only and great food. This trip, the place was nearly empty and both our meals were weak (below). Things change.Pork Rib Soup and Kuey Teow Soup. Our only mediocre meal in KL. Our favorite place to eat, though, is in the opposite direction from KLCC Park, the Dharma Realm Guan Yin Monastery …And their all-vegetarian dharma buffet. For a couple of dollars, you can get an incredible variety of dishes, all of them seriously tasty.The diners are mostly young workers from the area. And two tourists. On Fridays and Sundays, the buffet is now free. We went on a Thursday.It’s silly how many good restaurants are in the area. At Madam Kwon’s, we ate Char Kway Teow – flat noodles and seafood stir fried with dark soy sauce. And Nasi Lemak – rice cooked in coconut milk and pandan, in this case served with curry chicken …And for dessert, Ice Campur – shave ice with rose syrup, sarsaparilla, condensed milk, black jelly, palm seeds, green worms, and peanuts.For some meals we mixed it up. At a restaurant named Dome, we had a Chicken Pot Pie and Curry Mee. One Malaysian dish, one not.And at Restaurant Sakana, we sat outside and ate Japanese.At Little Penang Kafé, we had dessert first. Pretty much every sit-down restaurant in KL uses virtual menus and you order the food yourself on their app. So the only time you see a server is when they drop your plates. Pay at the cashier on your way out. Little Penang is kind of like that, but old school, like Penang itself. We had to write our order on a notepad, and we forgot to add a note to bring the dessert after. Oops. Our Ice Kacang Cendol came with our beverages – Lime Juice Sour Plum & Assam Boi (a salted dried plum beverage). We couldn’t let our dessert melt, so we ate it.When our order arrived we ate it, too. Mee Goreng for the blogger and Chicken in Dark Soy Sauce and spices with Kerabu Pucuk Paku (a spicy fiddlehead fern salad) for the photographer. One afternoon, the photographer braved the permanently long line for Oriental Kopi’s egg tarts. Wow. Better than any we had in Portugal. Or the ones we had in Macau. Most mornings after breakfast, before the day warmed up too much or we headed out someplace, we’d spend a couple of hours by the pool. One of those mornings a thunderstorm swept through. It poured. Then it was gone. Just about every evening brought thunderstorms, but this was the only time it rained during the day. Dry under our umbrella, we had the pool to ourselves. On another morning, a raucous game of pickleball on the courts behind the pool deck got our attention. Pickleball in Malaysia. Huh. The foursome before this one played in full hijabs. Toss a beanbag in any direction and you’ll hit a mall. Suria, the one next door, was our go-to. It’s big enough to get lost in and always busy. Conveniently, it connects to the LRT under busy Ampang Road, which in turn connects to Avenue K, another mall. So we could get to the salon where we got our hair cut without leaving a shopping mall. Thank god. Kuala Lumpur is just another city, but for some reason we like it. Go figure.
