YouTube: A Village in the City – I Discover a Hidden Area of Kuala Lumpur

VIDEO DESCRIPTION:

Not far away from my current hotel in Kuala Lumpur, I stumbled across a hard-to-spot pedestrian/cyclist laneway that led to almost a secret and hidden village. I thought it was so interesting that I grabbed my Insta360 X3 camera and went for a walk down that laneway and into the surrounding village-like district.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

As the title of this video should say, I just discovered a village inside a city. I’m in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and my hotel is right behind me there. This is the Raja Bot Hotel. And I went out for a walk this morning, and I needed to get somewhere. And on Google Maps, I spotted a small laneway that was going to get me to where I needed to go. So, I just turned down this laneway, very small laneway, and I discovered a village right in the heart of one of the world’s major cities. 

So, if I stand here right now and you kind of look around, you see skyscrapers in all directions. Everywhere you look, I can even see the Petronas Towers from here, tall apartment buildings over there, massive condominium, hotel complex over there. Just all around me is a major world city. And then you walk in this direction, a short distance, and even on my right over there, you can see kind of like village houses, classic Kampung buildings. And essentially there is a village nestled right inside of Kuala Lumpur and we’re on the edges of Kampung Baru. So I think once I cross this road I’ll actually be in Kampung Baru and Kampung Baru of course is famous for being a village inside of Kuala Lumpur. But I had no idea that Kampung Baru stretched this far. 

And right here is the laneway that I was talking about. I’ve been staying in this neighborhood for a few weeks here in Chow Kit and I’ve been walking everywhere and this is the today this morning was the first time I noticed this laneway. And I thought this laneway was so special that I really had to come back and shoot some video cuz look ahead of me right now. You can see it’s not for cars. This is an actual laneway designed for cyclists and pedestrians. And over at the beginning, there are some metal poles there. Most of them seem to be broken, but they’re these metal poles that are supposed to block cars and trucks from coming down this little laneway. I saw this and I was, it just kind of blew me away. It was like I thought I was in Kuala Lumpur and I went down this laneway and I was transported into a Malaysian village out in the countryside. 

So yeah, if you look over here, this little plot of land, very overgrown, but I mean, you could turn that into a garden if somebody wanted to. And just up ahead here on my right is a little spot where you could park scooters, I think, and lock them up or lock up bicycles. I think maybe that’s what those orange things are for. I’m not sure. Over here on my left, if you look over the fence again, you can see some basically village housing, Kampung housing. And right above that Kampung houses, of course, you see the Tamu Hotel and Suites. Just a giant skyscraper over there. And as you go through here, yeah, you suddenly find yourself in a little oasis away from the traffic, away from the skyscrapers.

And at the moment, the only people here are me and the woman going by with a baby in a stroller. I mean, it’s just amazing. And these people actually have access to it from this gate. There’s a little break in the cement and then a gate there. And these people can go in and out of their village house right onto this little laneway which is kind of cool. I don’t know anything about the history of this laneway. I don’t know what it’s called. I don’t know what this particular neighborhood is called.

There is a sign up ahead where I may be able to get the name of this place. It strikes me as a bit odd in a way that we’ve got this laneway and then on the left and the right we’re hemmed in like there’s a cement wall on both sides. So even though this laneway is going through this area which with these houses back there you can’t actually access them from this laneway.

So here’s another kind of a village house over here. This one looks to be abandoned. There’s probably quite a few of these abandoned houses back in here, but it also it can’t be accessed from this laneway. Somehow I thought if you having a village with a path going through it, you would want to be able to go to every house along the path, but in fact, it’s got a cement wall on both sides.

Couple of like benches along the way here just cut into the cement wall which is kind of cool.

And here’s an opening in the wall. So through this opening you can go to the back entrance to these houses over here.

Right up ahead, this laneway hits one of the main roads here in Chow Kit. This is a great road full of restaurants, cendol durian places, things like that. There’s me I am king. I wanted to check that restaurant out for a long time. And then you just walk across this main street and the laneway picks up on this side. When I walked down here this morning, I noticed I think this side of the laneway is a little bit better kept like the houses, things like that than on the other side, but I’m not sure. I do see a lot of cars all of a sudden, cars and trucks and motorcycles up ahead. So this part, this part doesn’t seem to be as carefully blocked to traffic. The other side had metal poles, so you couldn’t drive your car here. But it looks like here you could if you wanted to, and a lot of people have. So now people are using it for parking basically. I guess you got to yeah. I mean, right here’s a little I think I can walk here just for a second. And it sort of takes you down into a village with pathways going in between all of these village houses.

Yeah, I’m sure all these people they know. Yeah, everybody knows their neighbors.

And then from their house, they can just pop out onto this hidden laneway, which I think is supposed to be blocked to cars, but these people found a way around that.

Yeah. So, I guess this is a private property. There’s a beautiful village house up on stilts. A lot of these older village houses were built up on stilts, keep them out of any potential flooding, of course.

I’m approaching the end of the laneway and you can see it ends right at the skyscrapers. There’s the Infinitum Tower and a large shopping mall up ahead. And right here is something quite interesting. This is the Alam Flora company and they’re in charge of cleaning the streets like garbage collection and cleaning up all the garbage and the dirt that ends up on the city streets. I was chatting with one of the staff members there this morning and he was telling me about the work that they do.

I didn’t go down this way this morning, but I noticed it and it looks like this can take us more into the heart of this village area. Again, we’re in technically we’re in Kampung Baru, but it’s a part of Kampung Baru that’s farther away than the famous area that everybody goes to with all of the markets and near the Saloma Link, the bridge that goes across to downtown. That’s what everybody thinks of as Kampung Baru. But here’s an entirely new part of Kampung Baru. You can see all these amazing houses.

If you didn’t see the skyscrapers, yeah, you’d think you were in a village. Another one there that looks largely well, part of it looks abandoned falling in on itself, but I did see somebody in the in the window.

Just has such a different vibe to it. Quiet, away from the busy streets, away from the traffic, and all these village houses up on stilts.

And not surprisingly, you start to see a bunch of chickens, roosters there. Again, you’re more in a village atmosphere.

And even the cars change. You get these classic like this old Toyota Corolla there. And a lot of the original Protons will start showing up. They keep them running for years or for decades really. You see them in the villages out in the countryside. You come to a neighborhood like this and you can see them right inside the city too.

From here you can looking inside this village area with the skyscrapers towering all around gives you the a pretty good visual of what I’ve been talking about. Of course, you can’t stop a city. And the city is encroaching. Looks like they’re building a skyscraper right here. I’ll bet all the land on the other side of this wall. It used to be filled with these older houses just like we’ve been walking through, but apparently it was all bought up by a developer. And this is what they’re building. Armani Kampung Baru. Yeah. Even Kampung Baru can’t hold off development forever.

Yeah, if I can lift my camera over here, maybe I might be able to just make it and we can see the construction going on over there. Building another skyscraper.

Yeah, what a contrast. This really drives it home what this area is like. And I guess, yeah, it’s good. It’s probably going to slowly disappear. It’s all going to be taken over by skyscrapers at some point, but for now, a few of these streets and a few of these houses remain.

I spotted this narrow laneway on Google Maps, so I was just curious where it led. You get a lot of abandoned scooters just rotting away. I guess it takes a special city team to get rid of those. You can’t really take care of them with normal garbage collection.

And I think this laneway just dead ends. I was hoping it would lead into a really nice village area, but I’m not sure if we’re going to get back there or not.

Oh, yeah. It seems to a dead end here. Had a couple of houses. Nowhere else. So, nowhere else to go.

Just to give a a little context for where I’ve been walking, looking out in that direction, you can see the neighborhood area, the Kampung Baru village area, and then all these skyscrapers on the other side of it. And then on the other side, we’re right on the outside of the Raja Bot and Chow Kit Market area. And you can see the Hilton Garden Inn Hotel Towers over there.

The Regency Plaza over there as well on the other side of the road. And this whole neighborhood that I’ve been walking through is on kind of on the right there. We can just sort of sense that it changes. The character of that neighborhood changes when you look over this fence. More like village houses over there, like this one here.

An interesting aspect of this area is that when you’re walking down the main street, you’ll find a lot of these little lanes, little deadend alleyways, laneways, and you pop down here and you’ll suddenly see just a little grouping of houses feel like Kampung housing. I think right down here is very near the Chow Kit market.

I found myself in another part of this neighborhood. It’s kind of like a back alley behind the back alley. As you get into this area away from the main roads, it just goes deeper and deeper. And there’s a lot more around here than you might think. So, I’m just trying to make my way through these very small foot paths. It’s quite interesting.

You wouldn’t know any of this was back here unless you’re on foot and you actually just start looking around. Poking here and there to see where the path leads. There’s a got kind of like a playground back here, which is cool. It’s got all these little houses surrounding it, but then there’s a doesn’t look like anything is still working anymore. It looks like they used to have nets here to play games,

but all of that. And there’s a lighting rig there, but obviously the lights don’t work anymore.

But I see a little bit of a pathway heading in this direction. See where it goes. Once you get this deep into one of these places, you really have no idea where you are. All you can do is come to each little corner like this one. Look to the right. Does that go anywhere? It looks like it might dead end. A bunch of houses down there and a fence. And then looking ahead of me, that also looks like it dead ends, but you just don’t know for sure. Quite often in these neighborhoods, the dead ends up having an opening at the far end, but you just can’t see it till you get there. So, my instincts are telling me that this is the way to go if I want to keep moving through.

Yeah, as I said, these you could probably call these the back alley of the back alley. Check out that scooter with all the cartons, all the coolers piled up on top of it.

Whoops.

Okay. Oo, another little There’s a little bridge here. This would be the back alley of the back alley of the back alley. No, I have no idea what’s back here.

Okay.

Hard to believe you’re like right in the heart of Kuala Lumpur here.

Let’s see if we can find a way out in this direction. I mean, look at all the motorcycles, right? If motorcycles get back here, anybody on foot can get back here as well. But yeah, here’s a little little house here. Little dwelling. Hey, kitty.

Oh yeah. So, this is where we can sneak out, I think.

I have a vague sense of my compass direction. I think I know where I am. Oh, yeah. This is right back on to the road where my hotel is located. Again, I keep the roads all keep coming back to the Raja Bot which I think is just over there on the right. Yeah. So, I’m back on the main street. Actually, my first inkling that this was a special neighborhood came when I spotted these houses on the right. It’s I thought it kind of deadended here and I just I came back and I looked at these two houses and I noticed the distinct village style to them and I got the sense that it used to be a farming village right here and then the city of Kuala Lumpur grew grew up around all of these Kampung houses and they just never sold them to developers and they remain to this day. But now that I’m getting to know the neighborhood a little bit better, I can probably continue back through this way. And I’ll bet it’s a little pathway that may or may not lead to more houses back here. I’m not sure. No, I think this this is a true dead end. Yeah, I don’t think there’s anywhere to go back here.

Hey.

Oops. But but I made a friend. Hey there, kitty. Yeah. One thing I noticed back here is that there’s some squirrels here. Like local squirrels. Very different from the ones I know in Canada. Like Canada, a small city or even a big city is filled with squirrels cuz there I guess there’s a lot more backyards in a typical Canadian city, a lot more trees. And then the squirrels have evolved now that they know how to run around on the hydro wires. So they can actually they’re like tightrope walkers and they travel all over the city by walking along the wires overhead. But there’s enough food for them because there are so many more trees and backyards and things like that. So normally in KL you wouldn’t see a squirrel, but here in this neighborhood I’ve seen a few of them and they look very different from a Canadian squirrel. They’re smaller and kind of like thinner and flatter like their their tails are very wide and yeah, they they look different. But hey, this is a beautiful cat, aren’t you? Yeah, you’re gorgeous. Got a little bell there. Somebody’s taking care of you. Getting you all dressed up. Yeah, good kitty. All right.

Now it’s I can’t make any progress. It’s like blocking my feet. Doesn’t want me to go anywhere.

Oh yeah. I don’t want to step on you. You better hang. Oh, there you go.

Sorry, kitty. Okay, one one more minute. One more minute. I’ll say hi to you, but then I got to go. I might have to run just to get away. Hey.

Oh, if I had room in my backpack, you’d come with me for sure. Hey, hey, you want to come with me? Nah, I think you have a family here. You have a home. You’re healthy. You look pretty good. You look cared for. Sure. You’re okay. Okay. Time to go.

Careful steps.

This is one determined kitty cat. All right. All right. Help. I need help. Okay. This is as far as you go. It’s too dangerous up here for you. You got to go back.

Hey,

there you go.

He saved me. He called over the cat. Yeah, this is like I was looking at these houses from here. This is when I first saw them and this is when I first got an idea that this neighborhood might be special.

I’m back at the main road where the two laneways connect heading in that direction. And this is the very first part of the laneway that I walked down. And I noticed this sign. I I did a Google translate on it. I think it says pedestrian and cycling is prioritized. So, I’m not quite sure what that means cuz it doesn’t when a Google translate doesn’t say only bicycles and pedestrians. It says pedestrians and cyclists are prioritized. So, I don’t know what the actual rule is. Of course, I see a lot of motorcycles and scooters taking advantage of this as a convenient shortcut,

but on this side anyway, they still have barriers, so they can’t park their cars here. I guess the the southern section has been taken over by cars and parking. That’s what happens in the world. Leave any open space. Cars are going to take over if you let them.

Yeah, there’s an area here on my left that I wanted to get down into, but I’m not sure if I can. It feels very villagy down in there, but I’m not sure if there’s any sort of a pathway that leads like a public access.

This here, for example, is a nice little house with some plants and greenery.

And just from outside, I could see all kinds of like village style houses back here, but I wasn’t sure if can come back here at all. Yeah, here’s a interesting house. Again, very much a village style. Oh, yeah. Okay. There’s a little pathway here. Okay. I’m glad I popped down this way.

The carved out laneway that I had been walking on is just is right up there. That cement wall. That’s the actual laneway that cuts through this area. But there’s also this path here, which is very cool. Oh, yeah. So, sort of what I was hoping to stumble across. You can see some village style housing all around me here.

Yeah, this is a great little laneway.

My kind of housing. If I could settle into this little place on my right, this green painted place, very simple. That would be that would be my home right there. Nothing too complicated. Not so many rooms to clean. All I need is one good chair to sit in and one desk for my computer and then I’m happy. Don’t need a living room set or anything like that. Don’t even need a living room. I just need one room to live in. Yeah, this is great.

Even starting to see some kids, which you don’t often see wandering around Kuala Lumpur, to be honest. Oh yeah, look at this little little place here. It’s cool. Little bit of open space for kids to run around, which is nice.

Ah, all right. So, this is where the laneway pops out right back at my hotel. So, we’ve done a full circuit through this this Kampung Baru neighborhood. My hotel is right over there across the street. The hotel Raja Bot and this laneway is right here. I don’t know if this gives the name of this district or not. This yellow sign shaped like an arrow. It looks like it’s pointing towards a settlement. Calls it a Malay agricultural settlement. Maybe that’s its official name is in that sign somewhere, but I don’t really know. Kampung Baru.

So that’s it. Just wanted to go for a little walk, show an unusual side of the city of Kuala Lumpur. More of a a village feeling back there. But perhaps not for long. As the cars move in and start parking, the skyscrapers start going up. It’ll probably disappear in not the not too distant future. But for now, yeah, very interesting part of KL. That’s it. Shutting down. I’ll see you in the next video.