Kuala Lumpur travel info

At nine at night, sit on the steps by the lake in KLCC Park and the Petronas Twin Towers stand right overhead, glittering like foil. When the fountain show ends, people lean back as far as they can, some practically lying on the paving, to fit both towers in one frame. Walk ten minutes to Jalan Alor in Bukit Bintang and plastic chairs fill the street while satay and chicken wings smoke over charcoal.

Three cuisines share every block here. Breakfast is roti canai dunked in curry with a teh tarik at an Indian-Muslim mamak, lunch is nasi lemak at a Malay stall, and dinner is Hokkien mee fried black over charcoal on Petaling Street in Chinatown. The call to prayer, temple incense and Hindu flower garlands are all within a five-minute walk of each other.

You're barely 3 degrees north of the equator: highs of 32–33°C all year and an afternoon thunderstorm on many days. So people move between air-conditioned malls and covered walkways and only spill onto the streets after dark. Food and transport are cheap by big-city standards, and one Grab ride gets you almost anywhere.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA T1 & T2) (KUL)