This is it! This is the culmination of southeast Asia, Part 2. It was somewhat surprising that we were never in Singapore last year at all, given that like Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, it is a practical hub for all sorts of flights in the region. But we have made it this time, and purposefully placed it at the end as a bit of a treat. Singapore is worth more than a couple of days, and so we were relieved that we had in advance booked 4 nights. We made the lan...

Clare's aunt had spoken so highly about her time in Melaka back in the 1980s, especially about the vibrant colours of the architecture, and so we were very much looking forward to this stop. Melaka has a George Town (Penang)-esque quality to it for sure, with stunning street art, and plenty of agreeable side streets to stroll down. What it didn't seem to have much of in stark contrast to George Town, was space! This charming little city felt very crowded and c...

Not mentioned in the previous blog posts is that just before leaving Thailand, Troy discovered that his camera had decided to become not properly responsive. Unsure about what to do about this so close to the end of our trip, he reached out to Olympus Malaysia to see if they had any ideas. We were shocked when they told him that upon arriving in our first Malaysian destination, Penang, he could meet up with an Olympus "Visionary" who would lend him a camera for...

We clearly enjoy spending time in these hill stations because we have found ourselves in another one - this time the heavily visited Cameron Highlands area. Hill stations were established during colonial times for the specific purpose of a minibreak (to borrow a great British term) to higher elevation to escape the heat of the cities, and the Cameron Highlands actually delivers in terms of providing a much appreciated respite from the hot Malaysian temperatures....

A return to Malaysia was a must for Troy, as he fell in love with the food last time we were here, particularly because he felt this was one of the only countries in southeast Asia that would make it spicy enough for him. As well, last year we only visited the Malaysian side of Borneo, and the city of Kuala Lumpur, so there is still much of peninsular Malaysia to be explored. Penang (pronounced more like, "Pee-nang", and not so much like the yummy Thai "panan...