Last updated: 2023-12-01. [Previous post.](https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalnomad/comments/14pby0m/a_malaysians_digital_nomad_guide_to_kuala_lumpur/) This is a highly opinionated piece, coming from a digital nomad born and raised in KL. I have spent a few months travelling through Europe and Latin Americas, and I believe these are the key information you might want to know based on my experiences. ## Outline 1. Pros and cons of Kuala Lumpur & Malaysia vs our neighbours 2. Neighbourhood recommendations 3. How to verify KL condos — Youtuber, discussion forums 4. SIM cards — Buy a number before you arrive 5. Money — Best money changers, e-wallet app 6. Foods — Bingo card to fully experience Malaysia 7. Transportations — Taxi apps to download, good vs bad train lines 8. Nightlife districts 9. Coworking spaces 10. Healthcare 11. Apps and websites used in Malaysia ## Is Kuala Lumpur for you? Comparing against other nomad hot spots such as Thailand and Bali. **Pros:** - Malaysians in general speak far better English than our neighbours except Singapore and The Philippines. You won’t have to purposely look out for restaurants and services catered for tourists and have huge pricing markups. You will be paying the same $ as us local Malaysians, and won’t have much difficulty communicating. - Extremely wide variety of foods compared to other ASEANs, to a point we are often compared to New York City in terms of cultural or culinary diversity. - Malaysia is one of the safest countries you can visit. We are the 19th on Global Peace Index 2023! You are very unlikely to encounter violent crime here. - Luxury condos with awesome view and infinity pools go very cheaply on Airbnb (mid-term stays) and Propertyguru (> 6 months). - Cheap and accessible healthcare, almost all the doctors here are fluent in English. **Cons:** - Malaysia is considerably more conservative. You are expected to dress modestly most of the time except in the nightlife areas. Some public displays of affection like kissing are considered an offence. - High taxes on alcohols and tobaccos. Malaysians tend to buy hard liquors upon arrival at the airport and pre-game with that before hitting night clubs. As such our nightlife is much more muted than in surrounding countries. If you are a foodie and don’t party a lot, you may enjoy KL more than in Thailand, Bali, and other neighbouring countries. You get to live in a developed cosmopolitan city at the same price. ## Neighbourhoods & Buildings to stay in If you only come for 1-2 weeks, just stay in a hotel near inside Bukit Bintang & KLCC area. Avoid dodgy neighbourhoods like Chow Kit, Pudu. If you stay for 1-3 months, do Transit Oriented Developments = Condo on a shopping mall, connected to a train station. ****If you do not possess private transports and want maximum weekday convenience, consider these TOD residences: 1. **Ekocheras Residences at MRT Taman Mutiara** — Connected to 2 malls. 6 MRT stops from Bt Bintang. Perfect for foodies who want to stay close to downtown but not in it. See my Ekocheras neighbourhood guide https://goo.gl/maps/3WhiL7rwiQ16XXhe8. 2. **Sunway Velocity at MRT Cochrane** — Sunway Velocity mall, IKEA, MyTown all linked to the MRT station, as well as Infinity8 & Regus coworking spaces. Only 2 MRT stops from Bt Bintang. Condos: V Residence Suites/2/3. 3. **BBCC at LRT/Mono Hang Tuah** — 2 monorail stops to Bukit Bintang, connected to the new Lalaport mall. Unfortunately it’s connected to 2 bad train lines. Condo: Lucentia Residences. If you stay for 1-2 years, these are where the KL expats usually stay, but most do not come with public transportation, so buy a car: 1. **Mont Kiara.** The go-to expat neighbourhood of KL, plenty of good korean and japanese restaurants, with upscale bars. The best condos are along Jalan Kiara on the same row as Kiara 163, One Mont Kiara. 2. **Desa Parkcity.** More family oriented than Mont Kiara. It has a dog-friendly Plaza Arkadia mall. 3. **KL City Centre & Bukit Bintang.** Downsides are constant traffic congestions, lack of good local food choices, and is overall rather un-Malaysian if you want to avoid something too tourist-oriented. Good condos include: Star Residences, Marc Residences, One KL, etc. 4. **Damansara Uptown.** Surrounded by some of the most famous eateries, high-end bars, and big tech offices in Petaling Jaya. 5. **Bangsar & Damansara Heights.** Also dwelled by wealthy Malaysians, former prime ministers, politicians etc. Personally, I am currently staying at Sunway Velocity, but I found myself driving to Ekocheras 2-3x per week to enjoy the foods and the mall wifi. Hence in this quarter, I recommend Ekocheras as the top airbnb to stay in KL area. ## Verifying KL Condos These days, most of the new condos come fully equipped with gyms, fiber internet, and infinity pools facing the city skyline. Now when you are doing your searches on airbnb, how do you know if the condo is any good? 1. Search “iherng condo_name” on YouTube. iherng is a youtuber that works for an interior design firm and he reviews plenty of the new condos in Malaysia. 2. Find the condo on Google Maps and read the reviews, don’t forget to check the commute time to your places of interest, proximity to transit stations. 3. Search “site:forum.lowyat.net condo_name” to see what owners talk about it. 4. Check with the landlord that they have installed Time internet. Do not stay in units that use TM Unifi, Maxis. 5. Airbnb map sucks. Double triple confirm the property’s location matches their entries on propertyguru and google maps. ## SIM Card **If your phone supports esim:** I highly recommend Yoodo, as of 2023Q4, you can buy 65GB of 5G nationwide cellular data for RM 46 up to 200GB for RM 98 — dirt cheap. Yoodo also runs on Celcom infrastructure, which is almost on par as Maxis/Hotlink, the best telco network in the country. **2 days before your arrival:** 1. Download Yoodo app; 2. Activate SIM > Esim > Customise your high-speed package; (use my referral code **jcnvf6972** to get extra 7GB for yourselves, while I get free roaming credits) 3. Get verified with passport & selfie - This may take 48 working hours ; 4. Scan the esim QR they send over the email. **If your phone DOES NOT support esim:** Buy only Hotlink or Celcom sim card at the airport. Avoid other telcos. ## Spending Money **Payment cards incl Visa & Master** are pretty widely accepted except in mom & pop shops. Use Tng or cash as backup. **Foreigners SHOULD open an account on Touchngo ewallet app.** This is the closest a short-term tourist can get to having a local bank account. This will allow you to make payments to many shops, make DuitNow transfer (the national bank transfer standard sponsored by our central bank). You can reload TnG with your foreign payment cards or cash at certain locations/kiosks. **The cheapest** **money changers** are at Midvalley basement. They often charge a smaller spread than what even Transferwise card offers. You can just bring in a fat stack of your home currency be it USD/EUR/GBP/JPY and sell them here. I know this before I spent some time visiting them and calculating sell/buy spreads when I changed monies for my trip early this year. The most famous changer is [SMZ at The Gardens basement](https://goo.gl/maps/6UFxtdiwVBwfY4hR6), the next best options are the 3 changers near Aeon at the Megamall side across the basement. ## Foods This section can be endlessly long, so I will just explain the metagame instead of showing you any places. 1. If you know any Malaysian friends, just ask them for recommendations, follow your friends’ anecdotal experiences and personal opinions before following the bloggers or “best of category” recommendations. From my experience, the “best of category” usually means the foods prepared differently but not are not something the locals eat daily. 2. Be willing to Grab out of the downtown. Malaysians don’t really live in the Golden Triangle and hence there aren’t a lot of authentic Malaysian foods to eat downtown. So be willing to go to neighbouring towns in Ampang, Cheras, Petaling Jaya etc to find good foods. 3. Look out for weekly night markets (pasar malam) in the neighbourhoods, you can sample lots of lots of foods there. Search ‘pasar malam’ in Google Maps and check their opening hours. If you want a bingo card to truly experience Malaysia hawker fares: 1. Eat at an Indian mamak restaurant. They are usually 24/7, have TVs that play football and cricket matches. 2. Eat at a Chinese coffee shop (kopitiam). Not the ones in shopping malls, go to neighbourhoods and find the corner shops with lots of stalls and plastic chairs & tables. 3. Eat at a Malay tomyam shop. They are usually roadside establishments with colourful fluorescent light tubes. 4. Durian (seasonal) — Buy the Musang King or D24 cultivar. Be prepared to pay RM 60+ per durian though. 5. Buy the cheap nasi lemak wrapped in brown paper and banana leaves, they are sold roadside or in the mamak as breakfast. 6. Drive/Grab up to Jalan Taman Saga in the evening, eat at Saga Highland steakhouse/Rani’s Corner/any malay restaurant along the road, take a picture of the city at night. ## Transportations As of 2023Q4, Grab is so cheap and so convenient it will likely be your primary mode of transport. But you may still want to live close to a MRT/LRT station just for you to have 2nd option to beat the jam in the city. App hailing: - Apps in use: Grab, Airasia Ride (inside Airasia super app), and InDrive. - Grab no longer monopolise KL market, I found it considerably easier to get a ride with InDrive albeit with a higher fare proposed. HOWEVER, Grab and Airasia should still be safer than InDrive due to better compliance. - Grab: If you can’t get any 4-seaters at late night, instead of calling 4-seater plus/premium, just call a 6-seaters. **Street hailing:** Don’t even think about hailing a taxi off the street, KL taxis are daylight robbers and the raison d’etre of Grab. **The best train lines to live next to:** MRT Kajang line and LRT Kelana Jaya line. These 2 pass through the most tourist attractions and business districts. They see substantially higher ridership than all other lines. **The good train lines:** Other LRT & MRT lines like Putrajaya, Ampang, Sri Petaling lines. Their frequency is high and cabins are comfortable, but they don’t go through foreigners’ places of interest. **The bad train lines:** KL Monorail, all KTM commuter lines. Their frequency is too low to be useful. ## Nightlife In Kuala Lumpur, we have several main nightlife clusters: 1. Changkat Bukit Bintang — The original, most popular nightlife area full of small clubs and foreigner-owned dive bars. It’s also a red light district full of working ladies and dodgy characters, so be careful! 2. TREC KL — The new purpose-made complex for nightlife. This place has almost no beggars because its not possible to walk here from anywhere, you have to Grab/drive here. Goers are good mix of locals and foreigners. 3. Jalan Petaling, especially Kwai Chai Hong and Jalan Sultan parallel to it. Famous bars include G-String, PS150. Goers are mostly Malaysians. 4. Jalan Telawi at Bangsar. 5. Desa Sri Hartamas near Mont Kiara. Apart from clusters, some of the most popular dance clubs include: 1. Gēmu Club right behind Pavilion Bukit Bintang — Easily the best pop/kpop dance clubs full of Malaysian youngsters. 2. Pitt Club at KL Life Ctr — Very good lighting and sound system setup. 3. Spark at TREC (formerly Zouk KL) — But I find it too crowded. 4. Kyo at Mandarin Oriental KLCC. 5. CuBar at Jalan Telawi 2, Bangsar — Salsa, bachata, merengue y más. ## Halal Nightlife For most Malaysians, alcohols are either prohibited or prohibitively expensive. So many of us just tend to chill at mamak restaurants. Mamak restaurants are usually 24 hours joints run by Indian Muslims, selling mainly indian and malay foods, with non-alcoholic drinks and TV playing live football matches. They are absolutely the best places to go after you leave the clubs, order a big plate of Maggi Goreng and a cup of Teh Tarik to sober up! ## Coworking Spaces **The best deal in town is WeWork. For RM 459,** you get almost 24/7 access to their 2 locations in KL. The Equatorial branch downtown even serves free barista-made coffees. 👍🏻 Other good coworking spaces: IWG Spaces, Common Ground, WORQ. 👎 Terrible, avoid: Komune, IWG Regus. 👍🏻 Alternatively, hang out at wifi cafes, here is my list along with their speeds: https://goo.gl/maps/LMRwHjftwUE2HY8w8 ## Healthcare Most GP doctors here speak fluent English, and many are trilingual speaking Chinese, Malay too. So you do not need to find specific foreigner-friendly clinics. You can pretty much walk into any Klinik/Poliklinik you see in the neighbourhoods without needing to make appointment beforehand. Search “klinik” in google maps, call/whatsapp them to confirm they are open and speak English, just go. For sexual health, these clinics are known to be LGBTQ friendly. You can get morning after, HIV PrEP/PEP, STD tests etc there: 1. Poliklinik MUC at Jalan Alor, Bt Bintang. 2. Red Clinic at Jaya One, Petaling Jaya. For private hospitals, with their prices regulated by local insurers, some familiar names include: 1. Prince Court at Bukit Bintang — Most famous among foreigners. 2. Sunway Medical Centre at Subang Jaya and Cheras. 3. Gleneagles at Jalan Ampang. ## Apps & web services widely used - WhatsApp — Primary messaging app for individuals and businesses. Use this to talk to any person and business, make restaurant reservations, doctor appointments, etc. - Business discovery & reviews: Google Maps. - Ride hailing apps: Grab, AirAsia, Maxim, InDrive (illegal but can be handy) - Shopping: Shopee, Lazada — Remember to use LazMall and Shopee Mall filter. Your parcels will usually be deposited at the guard counters at your condo. - Preloved item marketplaces: Carousell, Mudah.my. - Property rentals: [propertyguru.com.my](http://propertyguru.com.my) (long term leasing), [ibilik.my](http://ibilik.my) (rooms only). ## Chat Join [KL Digital Nomads](https://t.me/klnomads) on Telegram! As of today we have 174 members and have Shieldy fighting spam bots.