Jalan Raja Bot, Kuala Lumpur

Jalan Raja Bot, Kuala Lumpur (15 June, 2017)

Jalan Raja Bot is a busy street in Kuala Lumpur. It runs from Chow Kit in the west to Kampung Baru in the east, connecting two diverse neighbourhoods in the city. The largely working-class street is almost impassable on the Chow Kit end, where it links with Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, due to stalls spilling over the sidewalk, as it is on the northern edge of the Chow Kit Market. On the eastern end it is across jalan Raja Abdullah from Jalan Raja Uda.

Jalan Raja Bot was named after the son and heir of Raja Jumaat of Selangor¹. Raja Boat (1849-1916) got involved in the tin mining business. He distanced himself from the Klang war that erupted between two factions of the Selangor court, even though he did not in the same camp as Tunku Kudin. That puts him on the other side from Sultan Abdul Samad, who had thrown his weight in support of Tunku Kudin. When the sultan established a joint council, he was appointed to it along with Tunku Kudin, enabling the sultan to keep peace with both factions.

Jalan Raja Bot offers a glimpse of how rural Kuala Lumpur looks like, before the arrival of the skyscrapers. This is one of the places where you can see kampung houses. The area is technically part of Chow Kit, although it bears a character that is more to neighbouring Kampung Baru.