KL Sentral Layover: Kuala Lumpur Bird Park
Part of the full Kuala Lumpur in One Day: The Twin Towers
More than 3,000 birds fly loose under a single net at the bird park two kilometres from KL Sentral, Kuala Lumpur’s main rail hub, with the 1963 National Museum and the Little India of Brickfields closer still.
Kuala Lumpur Bird Park keeps 3,000 birds under one net
Kuala Lumpur Bird Park occupies a wooded valley inside the Perdana Botanical Garden on Jalan Cenderawasih, and the whole valley has been roofed over with mesh rather than divided into cages. Around 200 species live under it, most of them flying between the trees and across the stream at the bottom, so the walk through is closer to a forest path than a zoo aisle. Hornbills get their own enclosure at the far end, and the free bird show in the amphitheatre runs at 12.30pm and 3.30pm.
The park opens daily from 9am to 5.30pm, and admission is RM90 for a non-Malaysian adult against RM50 for a Malaysian, which is the steepest single ticket anywhere near the station. Admission with a one-way transfer from the city is sold in advance through a tours and activities platform, which covers the last climb up from Brickfields as well as the ticket queue. The Butterfly Park and the Orchid Garden sit along the same road if the day stretches.
The National Museum wears two Italian mosaic murals
The national museum, Muzium Negara, opened on 31 August 1963, six years to the day after independence, and its front is two long panels of Italian glass mosaic set into the wall on either side of the entrance, under a steep Minangkabau roof with upswept gable ends. The building sits above Jalan Damansara with a paved forecourt in front of it and a Class 22 steam locomotive parked in the grounds.
Four galleries inside run from prehistory through the Malay sultanates and the colonial period to independence, which is about an hour at a walking pace. Admission is RM5 for an adult, it opens daily from 9am to 5pm with the last ticket sold at 4.30pm, and the one thing worth knowing in advance is that volunteer guides run a free hour-long tour in English from the lobby at 10am, Monday to Saturday, with no booking and nothing to pay beyond the ticket. Turn up at the counter a few minutes early and join it.
The Torana Gate on Jalan Tun Sambanthan was a gift from India
Brickfields got its name from the kilns that made the bricks for early Kuala Lumpur, and it has been the city’s Tamil quarter for well over a century. The Indian government gave the district a torana in 2015, a carved sandstone gateway 10.4 metres high and 7.3 metres wide, modelled on the first-century BC stupa gates at Sanchi and cut in India from twenty-four relief panels before being shipped over. It stands on a traffic island where Jalan Tun Sambanthan meets Jalan Rakyat, which is an odd place for it and also the only place in the district with enough room.
The streets around it were repaved and hung with coloured arches when the area was formally designated Little India in 2009, and there is a brightly painted fountain with elephants on it partway along. The row of sari shops, flower stalls and banana-leaf restaurants between there and the station runs late, and none of it costs anything to walk through.
Kisho Kurokawa’s station hall sits under a roof of white sails
KL Sentral opened on 16 April 2001 to a design by Kisho Kurokawa, under a run of curved white roof sails, and it is the only building in the country where intercity, commuter, light rail and airport trains all land in the same place. The concourse floor is a single wide hall with the platforms below it, which is why it reads as an airport terminal more than a railway station.
What it does not do is put everything under one roof. The metro platforms are in a separate station, Muzium Negara, reached by a 240-metre underground walkway with fare gates at both ends, and the monorail is in a third building on the far side of Jalan Tun Sambanthan, reached through the NU Sentral shopping centre. Those two transfers cost real minutes with a suitcase in tow, and they are the transfers most itineraries here actually use.
Both airport trains from KL Sentral charge the same RM55
The KLIA Ekspres and the KLIA Transit leave from the same hall on the station’s upper level and cost RM55 either way for an adult to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL), so the only real choice is speed: the Ekspres runs non-stop and reaches Terminal 1 in 28 minutes, Terminal 2 about five minutes later, while the Transit calls at three intermediate stations and takes 39 minutes to Terminal 2. The Ekspres goes every 20 minutes, first train at 5am and last at midnight. A Transit ticket is valid for 90 minutes between entering and leaving the gates, which matters if you are tempted to duck back out for something.
Malaysia Airlines and Batik Air both run check-in desks and bag drop inside that same departure hall, from 6am, closing at 8pm and 6pm respectively, with a cutoff two hours before departure. The rest of the city is a different proposition from this corner of it: the full Kuala Lumpur route runs east across the centre to the Petronas Twin Towers and needs a good deal more of the clock than the Lake Gardens do.
Pick the bag up on the way to the platform rather than before the last stop. The storage points nearest here sit around the station itself, which is where the airport train leaves from anyway.
Frequently asked questions
What should I do during a layover near KL Sentral in Kuala Lumpur?
Three things sit inside a two-kilometre radius of the station. Kuala Lumpur Bird Park keeps more than 3,000 birds loose under a single net strung across a valley in the Lake Gardens. The National Museum, opened in 1963, carries two Italian glass mosaic murals across its front and charges RM5. Brickfields, immediately north of the station, is the city's Little India, with a carved sandstone gate from the Indian government on a traffic island in the middle of it. Four hours covers the bird park and one of the other two comfortably; the park is the only stop that needs booking, and the museum and Brickfields both work as a shorter version if you are tight.
How long does it take to change trains at KL Sentral?
Longer than the platform map suggests. The commuter, intercity, airport and light rail platforms are all inside the main building, but the metro line runs through a separate station, Muzium Negara, reached by a 240-metre underground walkway with fare gates at each end. The monorail is in a third building across Jalan Tun Sambanthan, reached through the NU Sentral shopping centre rather than at street level. Allow ten minutes for either of those on top of the walk to your platform, and more at the evening peak.
Is Kuala Lumpur Bird Park worth timing a layover around?
Only if you can land inside its hours, which are narrower than most city attractions: 9am to 5.30pm daily, with the free bird show in the amphitheatre at 12.30pm and 3.30pm. Arriving after four in the afternoon leaves too little to justify the RM90 non-Malaysian adult fare, and there is no evening opening to fall back on. If your gap lands in the morning or early afternoon it is the strongest thing near the station, and admission with a one-way transfer can be booked in advance through a tours and activities platform, which also solves the last uphill kilometre.
Is there anything free to do near KL Sentral?
Several things, and they are the reason this stretch works on no budget at all. Brickfields costs nothing to walk: the Torana Gate, the painted elephant fountain and the temple frontages along Jalan Tun Sambanthan are all on the street. The Perdana Botanical Garden, which the bird park sits inside, is free to enter on its own, as is the walk up to the National Mosque at the top of it. And the guided tour of the National Museum, run by volunteers in English from the lobby at 10am, is free on top of the RM5 ticket, with no booking.