I spent yesterday afternoon with my friend Mekhala in the Chinatown area of KL. What a fun afternoon exploring & chatting! Chinatown is super easy to get to. Its just on the outskirts of downtown KL and its easily accessible via the LRT (use the Pasar Seni stop) and taxis are a plenty due to the area being a bit touristy and chock full of traveler’s hotels (hostels, B&B’s, etc).
KL’s Chinatown is quaint enough to navigate easily, yet still full of souvenir, purses, watches, street-side vendors, florists, & tea shops…and then some! Its actually quite decent, but I think it lacks more charm of the yesteryears of the Chinese culture. I still stand by Singapore’s Chinatown as being the best I have seen thus far (you can check out my last Singapore post here).
Our first stop was for some lunch & shopping at the somewhat mysterious Peter Hoe Cafe & Shop, located at 145 Lee Rubber Building on Jalan Tun H. S. Lee 50000 Kuala Lumpur. Its just around the corner from the LRT station but there are no outside signage so just walk into the building up to the 2nd floor. Before you even walk in the door of the “secret garden”, as I like to refer to it, your senses are blasted with the vibrant colors, yummy smells & soothing sounds of the talented Peter Hoe destination. Here you can feel free to browse around the shop for some fantastic southeast Asian & Indian textiles, home decor, furniture, gifts, more! For a nice break, head over to the corner of the shop to their cafe and sit at one of the plush 10 tables available. You order from a white board behind the counter and all the dishes are amazing!! Well, I only tasted 2 of them, but they all looked to be awesome! We thoroughly enjoyed our chicken & mango salads with a slice of tomato & onion quiche- delicious!! Absolutely lovely lunch:). Sorry I was so busy enjoying lunch that I neglected to take pics of the dishes…
After our satisfying lunch, we headed down to the busy streets of Chinatown. The vendors were out in full force shouting out “deals” as we passed by, which is always fun to experience:). We weren’t looking for anything in particular, so we just strolled about, window shopping.
Once we got our fill of the streets, we headed down the alleyway into the “wet market”. Warning- this is not for the faint of heart! Its dark, its wet, there are live chickens in cages ready to be killed, and pieces of meat hang from the ceiling ready to buy….an experience for sure, but nothing out of the ordinary if you have traveled throughout Asia.
We finished our afternoon checking out some old & beautiful buildings that showed great potential to be more…. they should really be taken care of better! We also noted the vast array of hostels, B&B, & Inns. We finished off the day enjoying cappuccinos at one of the many cafes lining the streets, peeople watching our hearts out!
Happy & Safe Travels!
Kimbra
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