Raja Laut

Jalan Raja Laut is one of the busiest stretches of roads in Kuala Lumpur. Literally translated, Raja Laut means ‘sea king’ in English but the origin of its name is not related to the sea at all. Raja Laut was in fact the name of one of Sultan Mohammad of Selangor’s sons. On any given weekday and even weekends, Jalan Raja Laut would be choked with thousands of vehicles inching their way to get to other destinations in the city. Forget about making it on time through rush hour whenever there’s a minor accident because the whole place would come to a standstill. Starting from the junction near Dataran Merdeka, Jalan Raja Laut goes down until it reaches the junction which takes you to Chow Kit Road on the right and Jalan Ipoh on the left.

Lining Jalan Raja Laut would be government agencies such as the Kuala Lumpur City Hall, MARA and Sime Darby headquarters, amongst others. There are many low-rise shophouses further up the road as it reaches Chow Kit and quite a number of schools as well. One of them is the Batu Road Girl’s School that was opened in 1962. There is also another school with the same name here, the Batu Road School which was built in the early 1900s. Some say that it was used as a Japanese garrison during World War 2. You may find it interesting to take a leisurely walk from the City Hall up to end of the road just to see these historical sites in the middle of the city.

As one of the major areas in KL, finding food or even to shop is not a problem at all. There are always the local mamak restaurants for some spicy food, or coffee and toast at the quaint Chinese coffee shops and of course, food courts in shopping malls such as Sogo. Sogo, incidentally is accessible from both Jalan Raja Laut and Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman, and is quite popular with the locals. Otherwise, you can always venture further to Chow Kit Road for bargain stuff or ‘bundled’ clothings.

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