Reliving Kuala Lumpur

There exists a lot of stories around us, stories of struggles, some of achievements and rather some of failures. All around this world, there are a lot of villages, cities or places narrating some of these stories to you, which become the identity of that place. Stories not just define us, but they also define these places and cities. I was in one such city, a city with a long history alive in its streets! I was in the city of KUALA LUMPUR, the capital of Malaysia which is considered one of the biggest and important cities of Asia.

Malaysia flag

I started my wanders from the old parts of the city, a place narrating its history to me. i feel that when you understand the history of a place, you start interacting with the place better and you start connecting to everything around you, you start loving the city more knowing the bitter past of it. So this city was discovered because of the tin this land had, people started settling here, mining and working on this metal which helped establishing this city. But it lacked a leader, in its old times and thus because of the chaos this city was soon dead, made to be born again by Yap Ah Loy who became the Chinese Kapitan of Kuala Lumpur and succeeded to establish law and order in the city in just a few years.

I saw two different kinds of architecture in the city, one being the old architecture, where the buildings were made of bricks and had domes with both Islamic and Hindu influence and on the other hand the modern architecture with all those skyscrapers and twin towers.

The most famous building of KL, the Petronas towers also known as the twin towers is the tallest twin towers of the world and also was the tallest tower till 2004. You can sense the grandness of it when you stand under it, the whole area around that towers have a lot of twin towers, making that place just really modern, alike and luxuries.

I loved interacting with the contrasts, one where I could relive the past and one where I could sense how far this place has developed.

I visited the king’s palace and understood the importance of the monarch in the country. Malaysia is a successful constitutional monarchy, there are 9 states in Malaysia and all of them have a ruling family from which each one king is elected for a term. We were not allowed to visit the palace from inside; in fact nobody is in the state. The palace was huge and of course the treatment provided to them was amazing.

One of the most important tourist places in KL is the national monument which was sculpted in the memory of those people who died in the Malaysian struggle principally against the Japanese occupations and the long Malaysian emergency which lasted from 1948-1960.

I loved this city a lot as it did have a fast life or rich life like Abu Dhabi or a slow and corrupted life. It had parts of all the things. You find rich people, you also find beggars. You find skyscrapers, you also find bricked buildings, you find joy and sorrow. You find good and bad people both. It was just a lively and a decent city, giving you beautiful experiences and making you a part of it real soon.

To get a more holistic view of the city we went to the top of the KL towers, which is basically a cable tower which gives you an enthralling view of the whole of KL. It was the time of the sunset, and that day the weather was just perfect. It was cloudy, not at all sunny or humid but pleasant. The sunset made the sky even more beautiful and the top view was just perfect because of all of it. You could see everything I just described about the city in one go. You can also see the chaos and also the peace this city had.

After buying some souvenirs as a ‘formal’ memory of this place which would adorn my house, I was happy that the real souvenir of this place will always be in my heart as a memory and as a beautiful experience.

keep smiling

Manasvi Shah.

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