A Month in Malaysia

Written by Sofia

This blog post will be about the month we spent in Malaysia in March. We arrived in the capital of Kuala Lumpur and spent 10 days there. We spent this long because we needed time to get our China Visa there (we will be travelling to China in May). After Kuala Lumpur, we headed north to the towns of Cameron Highland, Ipoh, Taiping and finally George Town. Each place was a few hours away by bus or train.

Kuala Lumpur

I really enjoyed our time in Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia overall. Malaysia has a fascinating history, which I won’t attempt to explain, but it’s a melting pot of Malaysian, Chinese and Indian culture. This is evident in the shops, food and languages you see and hear walking around. There are mosques, Buddhist, Hindu and Taoist temples, and churches all nearby each other. Malaysia is majority Muslim, and a few days into our stay, Ramadan began. It was special to be there during such an important month for so many people. The mosques have guides who volunteer their time to share about their religion and answer any questions. It was fascinating to learn more about Islam and the guides’ lives.

Our airbnb was a small apartment, which had laundry in-house, and there was also a pool with a view of the city! It also had a little kitchen so we could cook and store food! This came for $23 a night.

City Sights

Independence Square:

Petronas Towers:

Merdeka Tower at night:

A shopping street:

Immersive art show on the history of Malaysia:

Street art:

The food

The food was delicious! In addition to its own local cuisine, Malaysia has a lot of Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern food.

There are a lot of night markets. It was fun to try a lot of different foods:

Siu Mai (chinese dumpling):

Laksa, a traditional Malaysian dish:

Steamed buns:

Squid:

Religious Sites & History

The National Mosque of Malaysia:

Batu Cave (with Hindu temples inside):

There were so many monkeys. I loooved watching them!!

Cameron Highlands

Next up, we went up north and up in elevation to Cameron Highlands, known for its tea plantations. They were beautiful and we also got to learn about how tea is made at one of the tea factories.

We did a fun day hike that turned out to be much more adventurous than we anticipated!

Written by Bruno

Ipoh

After Cameron Highlands, we would stay for 2-3 nights in a series of smallish towns for the rest of our stay in Malaysia.

The next stop was Ipoh. Ipoh is a small, low-key town where we mostly wandered around, exploring the various sights and eateries. We also spent a few afternoons catching up on our “laptop” tasks.

Here are a few of our Ipoh highlights:

A funny sign I saw while trespassing walking.

Sam Poh Tong Temple (buddhist temple), known as the biggest cave temple in Malaysia:

Nam Thean Tong Temple (taoist temple):

Taiping

After Ipoh, we made our way to Taiping, another small town on our way to northern Malaysia. We didn’t really know what to expect with respect to Taiping, but we both really loved it.

Our highlight in Taiping was the huge park in the center of the city: Taiping Lake Gardens. The park contained about a dozen very small lakes, with the land connected by cute bridges. With tons of wildlife and a very serene atmosphere.

There were a lot of monkeys in the park, here are a couple of photos:

There was also this other group of monkeys (affectionately), taking pictures of birds:

Around the lakes were exercise machines, here we can see the beautiful Sofia working out:

While in Taiping we did a day trip to the tiny village of Kuala Sepetang. There, we did a boat tour, visited a fishery and explored a charcoal factory:

We also saw some big lizards:

George Town

We finished our Malaysia trip with a stay at a fancy beach resort. This was my gift for Sofia’s 27th birthday back in October. It has been really nice to upscale our stay for a few days each month, it’s a way to reset and re-energize for the rest of the travels. Here are some of the highlights:

View from our balcony:

First plate of many, at the buffet:

We also did some jet skiing, but I forgot to take pictures 🙁

Reflections (from both of us)

• The food was delicious and varied!
• It was cool to see so many families gathering in the parks around 7:30pm, with their food ready in front of them, waiting to break fast. A bell (this probably has a specific name) would ring exactly at 7:30 and everyone would start eating!
• Money goes a long way for housing.
• The only negative was crossing the street. The traffic is not super busy and it seems relatively organized but cars do not stop, slow down or move to the side when we’re crossing the street at a crosswalk. Somehow crossing the street was much more difficult here than in India where the traffic is much more hectic.
• Overall, Malaysia was a very pleasant place to travel to, with very kind people and a beautiful mix of cultures.