What I Saw When I Walked From Sentul to PJ

I did this stunt back in 2000, where I walked for 4.5 hours from Sentul back to my house in Petaling Jaya. The main reasons this idea came up were due to my interest in seeing Kuala Lumpur on foot and the curiosity I had on my patience level and sustainability. At that time, bringing camera was not a trend, and therefore, I could only capture the moment in memory and share out in this blog mostly in words.

The journey started with an LRT ride from Masjid Jamek station of the STAR LRT line (currently known as Ampang line) heading north towards Sentul. I had not been to Sentul prior to that, and I got off at Sentul Timur station (last station). It is located at a residential area, where the surrounding consists of mostly apartments, squatters and schools. All I knew about Sentul was that it used to be one of the main train depot centre in KL, apart from Brickfields, and this is evident from the depot-like KTM Komuter Sentul train station, or when you view it on Google Earth.

I started my walkathon at 9:00am after alighting from Sentul Timur LRT station, and walking eastward towards Jalan Pahang. Nearby along Jalan Pahang, there was a Roman-styled building by the name of Kompleks Galleria but it seemed like an under-occupied and under-utilized building. What a waste to this beautiful building. I'm not sure how it is now, either still standing there or it has already transformed. The famous SRJK (C) Chong Hwa (chinese primary school) is located just further down the road.

> Kompleks Galleria

The walk along Jalan Pahang was interesting on a weekend morning, as I saw cars zoomed past me at high speed. On weekdays, Jalan Pahang is a very busy road, and it is choked with cars each day especially at Bulatan Pahang that serves traffic to/from Jalan Pahang and Jalan Tun Razak. It used to be a tolled road, with the toll booths located near Tawakal Hospital that collected RM0.50 from motorists heading back to KL city centre.

It also has one of the earliest drive-thru McDonalds restaurant. Towards the end of Jalan Pahang, I walked past the Hospital Kuala Lumpur (General Hospital) and also the tallest hotel in KL, Grand Seasons Hotel.

> Grand Seasons Hotel

This road met with Jalan Ipoh and Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman at Chow Kit area. Chow Kit was not a new place to me, as I had passed this area very often during my school days when Bas Mini Wilayah still existed on KL roads. With my slow walk that day, I reached Chow Kit at 10:00am.

I took a break at the Chow Kit market, which was located off Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman and had some Malay kuih and Sirap Bandung. I got my first experience in tasting Sirap Bandung with Pink Cendol here. It had a slight tinge of salty taste from the santan, but the sweet rose taste of the sirap made the drink very flavourful. I did not stop at all while strolling along Jalan TAR, knowing if I had stopped to shop at Pertama Complex or Sogo, I would surely abandoned my plan to continue the walkathon.


Then, I proceeded straight along Jalan Raja Laut towards Dataran Merdeka and Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad, and connected to Jalan Sultan Hishammudin where the Masjid Negara (National Mosque) and KTM Main train station were located nearby. The old National Art Gallery (formerly known as Hotel Majestic) was situated right next to the KTM head office, and it was closed down and shifted to the current one at Jalan Tun Razak in 1998. Meanwhile, the KTM Main train station still functioned at that time, acted both as train and express bus hub. However, KTM Main train station had later handed over its main transportation hub role to KL Sentral.

> National Art Gallery

> Main train station

It was a lonely walk along Jalan Damansara, Jalan Travers and Jalan Bangsar, as I did not see people walking along with me at that time. I saw the majestic Muzium Negara (National Museum) at Jalan Damansara, and I had an urge to visit it. But I chose not to, as I was determined to complete my mission first.

> Muzium Negara

By the time I reached Pantai it was already 12:30pm. I took the shorter route in going through University of Malaya from the KL gate. Within UM, the quickest would be going towards 1st College and then 2nd College, and exit through PJ gate at Jalan Universiti.



On the more familiar Jalan Universiti, I only took 40 minutes from UM to reach my house and ended the journey at 1:30pm. All in, the walkathon took approximately 4.5 hours,and I was lucky the sun was not at its peak at that time. Until today, I still think this was a big achievement.