It’s probably difficult to believe, but after cold and rainy Hanoi, we were very much looking forward to some tropical sunshine in Malaysia’s capital city. It was a flying visit really, a stop in between Vietnam and Bali, and a homecoming for my travel buddy who is half-Malaysian, but we tried to pack as much as we could into our two night visit and I really enjoyed our short but sweet stay.

Kuala Lumpur is such a modern city, I’m not even going to pretend that we didn’t visit a couple of its HUGE shopping malls. The temptation has never been so strong to load up on clothes and jewellery and stationery, but I did resist (mostly) and we also tried our luck at the rather less glamorous Chinatown Petaling Street Market.

It was here that we hunted down a coffee shop I had seen on Pinterest, called Cafe Amo. It does the most amazing 3D foam art, and although I was stupid enough to order the not-so-foamy-and-therefore-no-foam-arty latte, it was still delicious and a welcome air-conditioned indie retrieve in the midst of boiling and busy Chinatown – check it out if you’re ever around!

Asides from shopping, we enjoyed spectacular sunset views of the iconic Petronus twin towers from a sky bar, sampling authentic Indian, Chinese and Malaysian food, and wandering the KLCC Park and Botanical Gardens – a veritable oasis in the middle of the city.

Kuala Lumpur seems like such an interesting, diverse and vibrant city, and from the glimpses I caught, I can definitely say that I would love to return, as well as to see some more of Malaysia.