Chinatown, The Entrapment Towers and the Harlem Globetrotters in Kuala Lumpur

Carrie and I in front of the Petronas Towers

After leaving the airport and finding a hostel in the Chinatown area of Kuala Lumpur, we spent our first day wandering the city and seeing our first movie in the theaters since leaving the USA: Star Trek, which was awesome! Later that night we spent literally hours taking the subway around trying to find a nice place to take a panoramic photo of the KL skyline at night. We found nothing, but did meet fellow travelers looking to do the same thing. Eventually we just got off at the Petronas Towers and settled for an amazing view and some awesome shots of the twin towers (from the movie Entrapment) at night. They were lit up and more stunning than by day.

The next day was another one for wandering, as we walked through Little India (a sad representation of our favorite country on this trip to date) and around a bunch of residential neighborhoods. Kuala Lumpur is a pretty small city and by the end of the day we felt like we had seen most of it. The skyscrapers are average both in size and architectural style and pale in comparison to the beauty of Bangkok. The subway system takes you everywhere you need to go and traffic did not seem to be much of a problem.

A view of Kuala Lumpur from the Petronas Towers

Sadly, at one point during the day Carrie lost her sunglasses, so we had to head to the Times Square mall to find her a new pair. This place was like nothing I’ve ever seen. Literally, it was 15 stories tall, had an amusement park with roller coaster inside, three movie theaters, multiple food courts and more. After finding new sunglasses and having spent the day walking, we decided to treat ourselves to a cheap foot massage for $6.

Actually, we treated ourselves to foot reflexology, which is apparently very different from a massage as the guy spent 30 minutes putting my foot in more pain than it has ever been before. It was interesting when he identified the areas of my body that hurt (neck, lower back, shoulders) just by finding the knots in certain areas of my foot, but the process of getting said knots out made me grit my teeth and clench my fists at times.

Carrie and I at the Harlem Globetrotters game in Kuala Lumpur

On the way back from the mall we happened to walk by a sign for the Harlem Globetrotters, who were playing in Malaysia the next day. Though we had originally planned to leave, we decided to stick around as we had both always wanted to see them and how random that we would do so in Kuala Lumpur.

We woke up at the crack of dawn the next day and headed back to the Petronas Towers to queue up for two of the 1,400 free tickets issued daily to go to the skybridge on the 41st floor. Our book advised us to arrive early or be disappointed so we got there an hour before go time and found ourselves pretty much at the front of the line and people still coming in and going up hours later. Oh well, we still got to go up on the second elevator ride of the day. The view from the top was spectacular and the light perfect.

Hours later it was time to head out to the Globetrotters. Of course, the arena was in a suburb outside Kuala Lumpur and the 15 minute journey we were promised took nearly an hour and required a cab from the train station to actually get there. We finally arrived 20 minutes late and were thrilled to find a promoter outside who gave us comp tickets.

A reflection of the Petronas Towers

The game, and I use that term loosely, was a farce…more of a comedy show than an actual basketball game. A lot of time was spent with the players teasing each other on the court, pulling fans out to take shots, going through rehearsed taunts against the other team (clearly more actors) and interacting with the fake referees and coaches.

When they did shoot some hoops it was as advertised and totally awesome! The dribbled around, made the other team look like fools, dunked, passed back and forth and did amazing tricks. It was clearly a show for kids, but we had a great time and are very glad we spent one more day in KL to check it out.

The Harlem Globetrotters do all sorts of tricks in the final moments of the game

A view of Kuala Lumpur from the window of a moving above ground subway train

The sights and sounds of a Chinatown street restaurant both in the kitchen and the table area. Look for the guy selling lotto tickets.