Old Kuala Lumpur
A few days ago, two friends and I took a walk around Kuala Lumpur to take photographs. This was something I’d been wanting to do for a long time- to just walk in KL, chill and make like a tourist.
It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I once tried to write a travel piece about Kuala Lumpur and found it really difficult- I didn’t know what to write. I thought that taking photographs would be easier, but it’s only just marginally so. The thing about trying to see your city through a foreigner’s eyes is that nothing is foreign to you. You’ve seen all these faces and eaten all the food.
So it was interesting that we found ourselves gravitating towards the old parts of the city, not necessarily what you would see on a Tourism Malaysia website.
It was beginning to get really hot so we stopped for a lassi at an Indian restaurant on Lebuh Ampang. That was when I saw these shophouses across the street. The waiter didn’t seem too excited when we told him we didn’t want to order any food, though.
These were painted on the wall of a backpackers’ joint on Jalan Sultan, part of a heritage project in the city. I remembered this road because I’d stopped here to rest while covering Bersih 2.0.
Ask me where I saw this ‘Astrology Centre’ and I wouldn’t be able to tell you the name of the street, but I’ll probably remember the route we took.
There’s something about old doors and windows which I really like. I found this old house round the corner from the Astrology Centre. I hung around for a while and waited for someone to open the door but no-one did.
This was a mural/collection of paintings on a building on Jalan Panggong. I can see the 1998 Commonwealth Games logo somewhere up there.
© 2011 – 2014, Anis. All rights reserved.
Awesome report on KL. I too have problems writing about KL!
I think writing about one’s city works better if one talks about its people rather than the place. I might try that next time. You might know the place but you don’t always know everything about everyone there, so there’s bound to be some interesting stories. That make any sense? 🙂