After Singapore we continued the journey in Southeast Asia with a brief stop in Kuala Lumpur, Malayasia. (KL). We stopped in KL to see another city and also because it was inexpensive and offered cheap flights on to Siem Reap.

KL felt like a dirty version of Singapore but that's probably not the right comparison to make. Part of the issue is Singapore is such an overtly clean, almost sterile city any other city visited afterwards would feel filthy. (Except maybe Tokyo but I haven't been there yet so I can't say.) KL was also the first place that consistently smelled bad and had garbage piled along the city streets. There was some of it in Bali, but not the volume of KL.

Like Singapore, KL was a lot about food. A bartender we met in Singapore from KL instructed us to eat all over the place, don't go see the towers during the day or bother going to the top; it's a waste of money. Just go see it at night when it's the prettiest. And then he gave us the location of a bar to visit and said to tell them Brandon from 28 sent you.

Sorry Brandon.

We stopped there and the place was closed. Not open on Sunday or Monday. Dang!

We stayed in Chinatown which ended up being a good central location for food, shops and strolling around. We had some success looking for the restaurants locals seemed to gather in and stumbled upon delicious Indian food next door to a temple. Families were out late enjoying a meal together after a ceremony at the temple. I ordered us two plates of vegetarian food with roti. The menu was in Bahasa Malay so we didn't know what it said. The food was delicious and we inhaled all of it! We have no idea what is was; there were definitely potatoes and lentils involved.

This is a giant, delicious crispy pancake thingy smothered in peanuts, peanut sauce and chocolate chips. I did end up sharing some of it with Ryan.

Besides stuffing our faces, KL offered an opportunity to see one of the largest collections of Islamic Art. I was always fascinated by my Islamic Art class in college and was really excited for the opportunity to visit a museum dedicated to it. Islamic Art is very different from a lot of the work hanging in big museum spaces. Since Islamic Art does not depict a human form, is focused on organic shapes with heavy use of geometry and allows for a lot of outside influences depending on the region, it looks a lot different from Western and Eastern Art.

Outside the museum. I love all the colors of blue and the beautiful tiles.

We planned to stop at the museum in the morning but since it's across the street from the national mosque and we've both never visited one, we stopped there first. The mosque has a beautiful court yard and we spent some time walking around admiring the architecture and views generated in the space. Since we are not Muslim, we were not allowed inside the sanctuary.

Ryan and I spent some time talking to a volunteer who studied religion years ago in Vancouver, B.C and spent some time in Seattle. He said he never wanted to live in the United States because he didn't want to become an old person who was put into an separate home for old people. All of his relatives lived together in intergenerational housing and he didn't want to be separated from his family. It scared him when he learned how seniors were housed in America.

Also, after learning we were from the US he asked if we thought Trump could really be the next US President, as it would be very bad for Muslims in America if he were elected. I shared it would be very bad for everyone, including Muslims if he were elected and no, although he gets a tremendous amount of media coverage I don't believe he'll be the next President of the United States. There's a lot of disagreement in America over who the next President should be and Trump while popular in some places, is not popular is most places.

He spent some time with us answering our questions, as he invited us to ask him anything. Naturally I lead with “What's the difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims and what are they fighting about?”. He gave some good insight into the history of the Muslim faith, how there was a more peaceful time between Shia and Sunni however the removal of Saddam Hussein by the US military destabilized the region, also there are a lot of weapons there now. He also gave a good analogy about religion and a car, where religion is the car and you're the driver. The driver takes the car different places, all cars have similar components, but don't mistake the car for the driver.

Also, Muslim leadership believes in human created global climate change. ("Of course!")

Notice the repeated geometric patterns decorating the outside of the mosque.

We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting the Islamic Arts Museum located across the street. The collection includes models of different mosques around the world and it was interesting to see the architectural differences depending on the geography of the region and building materials available. For example, there are mosques converted from traditional Chinese Gardens that still retain a lot of the original building influence. Similar with Japanese mosques as well.

The museum building also includes beautiful domes decorated in a traditional Islamic Art style.

An example of the creative process showing how elaborate tile designs are made.

In the evening based on Brandon’s advice, we traveled to the Petronas Twin Towers to see all the pretty lights. Brandon was right! The Twin Towers are really pretty at night! The building complex and the park surrounding it provides a stark contrast to much of the rest of the KL we explored.

Ryan took lots of pictures and video of the dancing fountains and rainbow lights located in the building courtyard.

The first time we saw the towers at night we said THEY LOOK SO FAKE. The pictures still make them look fake. Maybe they're fake towers?

Rainbow fountains give the fake towers a magical atmosphere.

The magic fountains had a performance set to music. It was fun to watch them and the fake towers in the background for a little while.

While our brief visit ended with the pretty light towers, we did not forget the rest of our KL experience including the smells. I think KL was a good introduction to the much larger, developing country cities we would soon be exploring.

(HINT: Cities with trash laying everywhere and it's really hot, like 106, and smell bad are not our favorite.)