Mini Tour of KL (Part 2)

To continue our mini tour of KL, we now go into Jalan Tun Razak. Jalan Tun Razak is one of the major roads in KL. I suppose it would be safe to say that it is the equivalent of Gatot Subroto in Jakarta. Or EDSA (Epifanio de los Santos Avenue) in Manila.

Turning into Jalan Tun Razak, you can’t help but notice this tall white building on the right, with huge red letters that spell out ‘UMNO’. It’s pronounced as ‘am-no’ and is the acronym for United Malays National Organisation, Malaysia’s largest political party. Yup, yup, you guessed it. The building is called ‘Bangunan UMNO’ or ‘UMNO Building’ and houses UMNO’s headquarters.

Traffic’s still pretty heavy but, at least, it’s moving.

Notice the car plate numbers? The car on the left was registered in the Federal Territory — KL, Putrajaya, and Labuan — because its plates start with the letter ‘W’. On the other hand, the car on the right was registered in Johor because, you guessed it, its plates start with the letter ‘J’. Now this gives me an idea for a future blog post — I can write about the other letters used in car plate numbers one of these days.

A notable landmark along Jalan Tun Razak is PWTC or Putra World Trade Centre. It’s right next to Bangunan UMNO. It’s not just for exhibitions and conventions — its function rooms can also be rented for wedding receptions or Hari Raya Open Houses.

What follows next is a portion of Jalan Tun Razak that is quite notorious for being a bottleneck. This is because the four-lane carriageway splits into 3 different directions — to the extreme left in order to go to PWTC, Bangunan UMNO or go back towards the direction of DBKL, the middle lane which will lead to Jalan Ipoh (not to be confused with the town of Ipoh) or Jalan Sentul, and the right lane to goes up a two-lane overhead bridge to go to Jalan Pahang, Jalan Gombak, Jalan Genting Klang, Bulatan Pahang (Pahang Roundabout) to go or to go to Jalan Tungku Abdul Rahman and other older areas of KL, Jalan Bukit Bintang, Jalan Ampang, Jalan Sultan Ismail, Cheras, Seremban, and all the way to Singapore. (Told ya driving in KL is tricky!)

We went up, by the way. That’s a billboard for the new X-Men movie on the left, the one whose unedited copy has been leaked on the internet. In the background, just behind the billboard, is a building that has recently resumed construction after having been abandoned for a good number of years owing to the original developer’s financial troubles.

The road will now go down and merge with two other lanes coming from Jalan Ipoh. In case of heavy rain, please, please, PLEASE avoid passing by this part of KL if you can because it’s prone to flooding which, in turn, causes massive traffic jams.

And, by the way, that’s the Titiwangsa station for the KL monorail that you see up there on the left. The monorail will take you into Jalan Tungku Abdul Rahman (locally referred to as ‘Chow Kit’), Jalan Sultan Ismail, all the way to KL Sentral (KL Central Station), where the monorail, all LRT lines, the KLIA Ekpres (express train to KLIA) converge.

Oh, and notice the lighting sans ugly overhead wires? Most streets in KL don’t have overhead wires. Everything’s buried under the streets together with telephone cables and other sorts of cables. It can be quite a nuisance because one day, they’ll cut the asphalt to dig up telephone cabling, then cover it up; a week later, someone else will cut up the same portion of the road to fix the electrical cables, then cover it up. This can cause quite a disruption in the traffic. Worse, the coverup job is almost always not good enough, resulting in uneven roads.

Anyway, back to the tour… As you drive further along Jalan Tun Razak, the Petronas Twin Towers will soon come to view on your right hand side. Drive anywhere into KL and you’re bound to see it, tall and imposing. That is, if the skies are clear and free from haze.

We were going quite fast once we got past the bottleneck so I didn’t manage to get nice pics of the attractions along Jalan Tun Razak, which is quite a lot — Istana Budaya (’Cultural Palace’), Blood Bank, Muzium Senilukis (’Art Museum’), Hotel Putra/Hospital Pusrawi (a unique concept of a hotel connected to a hospital, run by the same management), the National Library, Institut Jantung Negara (’National Heart Institute’), among others. One day I’ll write a separate post entirely about the attractions of Jalan Tun Razak. I just don’t know when that will be :P

Anyway, if you continue to follow Jalan Tun Razak, right after the National Library, there will be an overhead bridge. If you go up, you’ll find yourself at this intersection. If you go straight, you can go to Jalan Ampang, Jalan Sultan Ismail, go to KLIA (KL International Airport), even drive all the way to Singapore.

[NB: Construction has considerably slowed down ever since the Great Recession started, but there's still construction going on.]

If, however, you turn left, you’ll go into the Ampang-KL Elevated Highway, also known by its very lame acronym, AKLEH. But first, you must pay toll at Keramat Toll Plaza. Toll is pretty steep for the average Joe — a fixed RM1.50 — whether you’re going to nearby Keramat and Wangsa Maju, or Middle Ring Road 2 (MRR2), or all the way to Ampang, hence a lot of people still use congested Jalan Ampang.

This is what it looks like up once you’re on AKLEH. To be honest, this photo puzzles me because, as far as I know, motorcycles are not allowed on AKLEH. Perhaps the rules have changed without my realising it. Anyway, the more important thing is that both the motorcycle driver and his pillion passenger are wearing helmets, as required by law.

We conclude our mini-tour of KL for now with this message from a billboard along AKLEH:

Hope the rest of your week is beautiful, as well.

Click here to see Part 1 of the mini-tour, in case you missed it the first time.

Tags: KL