Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia, My Favorite City
A-Z Photo Challenge: the letter K
Arriving in Kuala Lumpur in August 1973 changed my life. I was a midwesterner who had done very little traveling. As I completed my master’s degree in botany at university, I applied for and was accepted into Peace Corps to teach at an agricultural university just south of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
I didn’t know then that I would be living near or returning to visit Kuala Lumpur (KL) for the rest of my life. Soon after arriving in Kuala Lumpur, I met the man that I would marry a year later. Since we lived near KL and he worked in KL, we have fond memories of the city and return to Malaysia and to KL often.
We Peace Corps volunteers didn’t often get into the kota (Malaysian word for city) from the university where we lived and taught because we needed plenty of time to get there, complete any tasks we needed to do, and then get back to the university again. It was a long hot walk from the campus to the main road. This was followed by an unknown amount of wait time before an already crowded bus arrived for the hour-long trip into the city. Repeat to return back to the university.
The beautiful building in the photo at the top of the story is the Sultan Abdul Samad Building. We used to view it from the bus window as passed to and from KL to the university. There are government offices there now including the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia and the Ministry of Tourism and Culture. At one time it housed the Federal Court of Malaysia.
One of our favorite Peace Corps places to eat was the Coliseum, a small restaurant near the Peace Corps office in central Kuala Lumpur. Our meals on campus at the university were in the cafeteria with the students or in the local food stall on campus, but every now and then we craved something other than the Asian food we were eating on campus. At the Coliseum we could order a Western-style meal but at very reasonable prices that we could afford on our Peace Corps allowances.
Gerad and I have almost always returned to eat at the Coliseum when we have been back in Kuala Lumpur because it holds such fond memories for me. On our last visit there we had a chance to enjoy the food as usual and we talked to one of the Chinese waiters who was also one of the owners of the restaurant. Sadly, the restaurant is now closed.
My Peace Corps time in Malaysia did not include any visits to the Royal Selangor Club. It was way above my Peace Corps allowance but Gerad was in business in the city and visited the club often. On our last visit to KL two years ago, he arranged to meet an old business acquaintance at the Club. They enjoyed sitting at the bar again for a few minutes and eating lunch on the patio.
Transportation around KL is much easier now than it was in my Peace Corps days. There is a Light Rail Transit system to get around the city. On our trip to KL a few years ago, we took the LRT with our friend, Su Ching, from the station near her house, passing the LRT route that goes out to the university where I taught 50 years ago and arrived in central KL in air-conditioned comfort a short time later. Wow. What a difference.
We are already planning our return to Kuala Lumpur. We will be there in a few months. We are excited about having a booking to stay near an LRT station, so will be out viewing the sites of the city again soon.
I’m not always totally alphabetical. Here are a few of my other photo letter challenges.
H: Hen, Happy, Hungry, Hawkers, Hydroponic Harvest, Healthy, Height, Hibiscus, and Hungry again