Blogs from Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia, Asia

Singapore is famous for its street food and Unesco has decreed that its hawkers centers have special cultural significance and are now on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. According to Unesco, community dining and culinary practices in a multicultural urban context is present throughout Singapore. Hawkers prepare a variety of food for people who dine and mingle at the centers, which serve as ‘community dining rooms’ where people from diverse backgrounds gather and share the experience of dining over breakfast, lunch and dinner. Activities such as chess-playing, busking and art-jamming also take place. While Singapore is not one of my favorite places in SE Asia, the hawker stalls are a great experience. It can be a little overwhelming on the first visit. Too many choices, too man... read more

The Aloft Hotel, which we’d stayed at before, is super convenient for KL Sentral as you can access it from inside the shopping centre. Go up the escalators and look for the little sign pointing to the right and follow the walkway round. Reception is on the ground floor but this way you arrive on the first. We could have our room straight away and it was on the 26th floor with a view over Brickfields, the Indian area. The last time the rooftop infinity pool had been full of Aussie schoolgirls with all their hand luggage and clothing so we couldn’t get near it. This time we had it to ourselves for a while and the views are so nice from up there. We relaxed for a while and had some overpriced coffees. Our reason ... read more

December 14, 2019. Moving on from George Town, we had one last delicious breakfast of French Toast and ice cream before heading to the airport for our short and cheap Air Asia flight to Kuala Lumpur. The airport is about 55km from the city center and it was significantly cheaper to get a GRAB taxi rather than take the train. Plus we got delivered right to door of the Verdant Hill Hotel in the Bukit Bintang district. The weather gods had finally deserted us. The further south we travel in Malaysia, the worse the weather forecasts seem to be with thunderstorms and heavy rain predicted for every afternoon. So far we have mostly experienced (only) short lived monsoonal downpours, but today the rain appears ready to stay a while. One of the reasons we chose the ... read more

After 3 years finally we were on the way to our absolutely favourite city in Asia: Kuala Lumpur. For those of you who follow us since quite a while, it is nothing new that we really like Malaysia, its people, nature and: Kuala Lumpur. It was already our 4th visit to this town. But let's start from the beginning. From Istanbul we flew Fly Dubai to Dubai - if you can avoid to fly with this airline - avoid it! You will get nothing but water on this 5 hour flight and it is more than cramped and unpleasant. So it was such an amazing surprise when we entered the A380 of Emirates. The flight was completely booked but we were lucky enough to get the ermergency seats. So, lots of leg space and no neighbours, ... read more

Apart from a couple of trips to Turkey and six confusing hours in Bangkok - about which I remember very little other than getting hopelessly lost and tasting some sort of unidentifiable fruit - I'd never spent any time in Asia, much less the classic backpacker destination of Southeast Asia. But since Linda and I were in desperate need of a travel fix without wanting to spend too much money, we decided to split the difference between the two great backpacking meccas of Bali and Thailand and instead go somewhere ever-so-slightly off the beaten track: Malaysia. And since we would be flying into the country's capital city, Kuala Lumpur, and I had always wanted to see the Petronas Towers close-up since first seeing a picture of them twenty-odd years ago, it was only natural that we ... read more