Malaysia: Putrajaya

 Tuesday, May 16, 2023, Port Klang, Malaysia

The port building in Port Klang was quite a ways from the ship and temperatures seemed to be getting hot as we traveled east. Thoughtfully they had a nice golf cart waiting to take us to the port building. Like most ports, we had to go through the port building to get to our tour bus or the free shuttle.

Not wanting to spend 3 hours on a bus to get to Kuala Lumpur (and 3 hours back) from Port Klang, we elected to go to Putrajaya, the administrative and judicial capital of Malaysia (Kamala Lumpur is still the legislative capital). Thirty-eight percent of Putrajaya city is green space, hence the moniker “the intelligent garden city.” 

Our first stop was the Tama Botani garden. We enjoyed an interpretive center with boxed displays of butterflies and various bugs. We asked where to see the monkeys but they did not appear that day.

Though having some colorful flowers, some monuments, and a lake, it was large and lovely in its own way, but not breathtaking like the garden we visited in Penang a couple days before. Charlie kept asking for his 9 iron (it resembled a golf course). They use it for concerts and large gatherings. One bizarre thing happened, an older woman who didn’t speak a lick of English (no judgment—we speak no Malay) started yelling nonstop, gesturing for us to follow a particular path. Since we were not complying, she told another young gardener to take us (we got this from her gestures). He rolled his eyes and went about his business. We followed along the path for awhile, but determined we were getting further from where we would meet up with our group, so headed back. We encountered others from the group who had also encountered the yelling woman and were complying. We asked later and there wasn’t anything spectacular along that path.

We next visited a large, lovely mosque (wish I could remember the name). This was not on the itinerary. It was situated by a large circular area with statues and a roundabout for buses, in view of the administrative building. The mosque had robes for those of us who weren’t dressed mosque-appropriately. It was already sweltering and the hooded robes didn’t help. However we were here & might as well look at it. They had a world map with pins that showed all the places visitors came from. No pin for Olympia so with help from the attendant, we put one in.

Our next stop was a photo op overlooking downtown Putrajaya. While photogenic, this planned city seemed a bit sterile, without the grit or spirit of a city that has grown over time. We wrote postcards (pre stamped) on the bus back and left them with our nice tour guide named Naban. We were a bit late getting back to the ship which was leaving mid afternoon.