After almost three weeks in Kuala Lumpur, I’d say these were my all-time favorites and must-visits.

Back in January 2024, I had the incredible opportunity to go back to Asia, for the second time in my life, and go see my cousin and her family in Malaysia. It started out as an impulsive statement and realizing I could afford to do such a thing, and then when I bought the plane ticket, it became so much more real.

After a 25 hour journey from Dulles in Washington D.C. to Kuala Lumpur, I had such a blast spending three weeks in the country. My sister joined us four days after I had arrived, so she could go see Malaysia too, and it was so nice spending time with my cousin and her family. They’re from Iran, so we don’t get many opportunities to see them.

Despite the 40 hour journey coming home, as we flew through Etihad and had a long layover in Abu Dhabi, this entire journey was so worth it. I have so many memories, trinkets, and photographs from our laughter late into the night, or the meals we shared while talking about life.

That said, because we spent so much time in Malaysia for tourism, we had a lot of chances to see the areas around Kuala Lumpur. Here’s what we thought were some of the must-sees from our trip.

Our favorite religious site around Kuala Lumpur was Thean Hou Temple.

When my cousin asked us what we wanted to do during this trip, the top thing that was on my list was to head out to Thean Hou Temple. Now, I’m not Buddhist, nor do I know much about the Chinese branches of Buddhism, but I was fascinated with the architecture of these kinds of temples. And man, this was my favorite spot of the entire trip.

My cousin, despite having lived in Malaysia for seven years, had never been, so we ventured out to see what the temple had when it came to sites. Something to note is that people do come here to pray, so I recommend being respectful in these kinds of places.

That said, we started with the Chinese Zodiac statues that were outside. I knew going into it that my Zodiac sign was a dragon, so we all posed by our respective signs and took pictures. There were also statues of figures in Chinese Buddhism on the outside, then we ventured up the three flights into the temple.

The main prayer floor has a lot of lanterns drifting in the breeze, and there’s a nice observation deck that overlooks the rest of Kuala Lumpur. We started there, taking pictures of the stunning architecture and reds of the temple, then took off our shoes and headed into the main prayer space.

There were beautiful portraits of Chinese opera figures and animals on the doors outside of it, but the inside had a beautiful ceiling and three altars. I don’t know the two on the sides, but I was aware the middle was a giant statue of Guanyin.

After gawking at the design, we grabbed our fortunes. We all got bad fortunes, though, and mine said travel was not good when it came to fortune. Guess my blog is destined to be ruined. There are some side sections you can wander through up here, including a bunch of statues of Chinese mythological figures and what they represented in English.

We headed down after about an hour, and did some shopping at the stores in the bottom. I noticed the same items at Central Market, but here they were much cheaper. I bought a little dragon medallion and a soy milk drink with grass jelly, spending only about 12 ringgits total on these two items.

The Batu Caves were worth visiting at least once.

The Batu Caves are some of the biggest tourist sites in KL, but it’s also a major religious Hindu site as well. There’s a lot of significance to the area, and while we thought we were going to be rained out of visiting, we were spared by the rain. A note for women: you can’t show your knees or shoulders, or they’ll force you to buy a sarong before heading to the top for 15 ringgits.

There are a lot steps to the top, and, to be honest, my knees started hurting on the way down from this. But even if you can’t make it up the steps, there are altars and shrines at the bottom of the caves before you can head up the steps, and these are just as beautiful, too.

These temples are in the southern Indian style, so spot the light pink Ganesh statues and the color designs around all of the figures. Around Kuala Lumpur, if you keep your eyes peeled, you’ll see a lot of these kinds of temples on the side of the road to stop at. My cousin and I went to one randomly one day, and spotted a lot of offerings of packaged milk to the Gods.

At the top of the rainbow colored steps, we bought some waters for 3 ringgits each, then ventured into the caves. There are some temples inside of the caves too, and people actively engaging in prayer. I admit, while the temples were impressive, I was enamored with the natural beauty of this cave. There are also some souvenir shops up here.

Watch out for the monkeys—Batu Caves had the most I saw throughout KL. They’re all over the steps especially, and I watched some get aggressive and open the trash cans for food.

Brickfields had some of the best Indian food I’ve ever had.

My cousin and I ventured to Brickfields solely with the intention to eat, which was totally fine with me in the long run. She told it was a Little India, and we made our first stop at a banana leaf restaurant. There, we ordered chicken biryani, palak paneer, another curry, and some garlic naan. I swear this was some of the best food Indian food I’ve ever had, and I’m still dreaming of that palak paneer.

After that we walked around to burn off the first round of food, and stopped in some of the jewelry and grocery stores. The jewelry stores are pretty big and full of massive jhumkas, and if I had pierced ears and were Desi, I totally would have bought some. They were beautiful!

We finished up our time in Brickfields getting a massive cheese dosa at a random store, which was also delicious. We ordered some masala chai on the side, and while they served it in a way I had never seen (they put the cup in a bowl, then overflowed it with liquid), it was so spicy and soothing for the soul.

Mid-Valley Mega-mall was my personal favorite shopping mall.

Some people joke about how one of the only things to do in Kuala Lumpur is to go to the mall, and that was something we definitely found ourselves doing throughout our time in Malaysia. While we went to all the big and fancy malls that had a ton of foreigners, as well as local ones in Petaling Jaya, my personal favorite was Mid-Valley.

They call this a mega mall, and I see why pretty easily. This place is massive, and we barely wandered into the sections that were luxury stores. I did most of my clothing shopping in Malaysia here in this mall, and we also bought some random grocery items in here to take back home, too.

Not going to lie though, I’m jealous of the existence of this mall. The United States could never compete on this level. And while we were here for Lunar New Year decorations, that made it even more of an experience. Though there aren’t many foreigners at this mall, so I found myself getting stared at quite a bit.

Putrajaya was a fascinating place to wander around.

We were staying with my cousin in Petaling Jaya, and she had a car, which meant we were able to go outside of Kuala Lumpur and that part of Selangor to venture further into Malaysia. And one of the ideas she pitched to us was to go to the Putra Mosque, which we were totally down to do.

And that was how we ended up driving down to Putrajaya, which is the administrative center of Malaysia now. We saw the capital building right next to the Putra Mosque, and spent about an hour there just admiring those pretty pink hues of the mosque. There’s also a little eating area by the water, but we had plans to go to a Vietnamese place nearby.

First, though, we went to a Moroccan style place on the water that was really nice. It was in the style of a riyadh, and was pretty to look and take pictures at, especially by the lake that was there. There was a botanical garden nearby, but it was unfortunately closed when we were in town.

After that we went to this Vietnamese chain in a shopping center by a different body of water. The restaurant overlooked the lake, so we had a nice little view as we ordered. I got a banh mi, which was delicious, but my cousin’s meal of a lemongrass beef noodle was so so good. We headed home after that, but I really enjoyed seeing Putrajaya.

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