Tag 58: The most beautiful place is between the monorail and Little India

When we boarded the plane to Kuala Lumpur, I had little idea about the city. Images of skyscrapers floated through my mind, but that was about it. Maybe that's why everything that we encountered was so surprising. Kuala Lumpur is different from other Asian cities in many ways. It seems that more diverse people live here than anywhere else. In the streets, you can see Indians wearing turbans, Chinese tour groups, bearded Muslims and veiled women, women wearing saris, trendy people with golden glasses, toothless Malaysian taxi drivers, and girls' soccer groups. Tourists and business partners from all over the world mingle in between. English can be heard on every street corner. Mosques stand next to Hindu temples, and McDonald's is next to vegetarian Indian restaurants. In markets, pig legs hang from the ceiling, and on skyscrapers, you can sip expensive cocktails while dipping your feet in the pool. Kuala Lumpur is everything at once.

In a all-purpose store in Little India, I tried on saris only to realize that they wouldn't work in Berlin.

We had lunch in a food court where you choose your food from small stalls and then take it to your table. A Indian man with a bottle of glass cleaner in his hand had approached us on the street earlier and told us about Wiesbaden and Baden-Baden, where he had worked in hotels during his youth, and then recommended the food court for us to eat. It was a really good tip because the food, which was served in small silver bowls, was delicious and cost only €1.40. While the rain pounded on the roof, we ate a curry made of okra, spicy tofu, and a flavorful soup on plastic chairs.

Shortly after, the rain clouds had moved on and the sun was blazing down on the city with 40 degrees Celsius. We continued walking to the Chow Kit Market, a large market where you can find fruits, vegetables, meat, and spices. Shoppers crowded in narrow aisles and kilos of prickly red lychees were passed over the counter.

We then took a monorail, which runs on a single track, back to Chinatown where our street was filled with fake Nike shirts and Prada wallets.

Beautiful, wonderful Kuala Lumpur.