Mainland Malaysia and back to Singapore

After a fantastic wilderness adventure in Malaysian Borneo, I flew back to Kuala Lumpur (known as KL) for the second time, to meet my old friend Jodi. Both of us studied at McGill University together in Montreal, but it wasn't until New York that we became friends. Jodi is also traveling solo around the world and we figured it would be fun to meet up and see some of Southeast Asia together.

I wasn't that excited to be back in Kuala Lumpur. I had spent two nights in the Malaysian capital before flying to Borneo, and you can really do and see everything in only two days. On my first visit I stayed in Chinatown, and spent my time visiting the iconic Petronas twin towers, the KLCC shopping center which puts other high end malls to shame, the botanic gardens, and the famous night market on Petaling Street, where you can buy every fake designer shirt, watch, and handbag brand. For my second time in the city, we stayed in the Golden Triangle neighborhood, in a fantastic hostel called the Red Palm. The place felt like a family home that opened their doors to tired backpackers who needed a little TLC.

With another two days, we basically checked out the same sights as I did on my first trip, but added a visit to the Batu Caves, which blew my mind. These Hindu caves are about a forty five minute bus ride from downtown. From the entrance gate, you then need to walk up two hundred and seventy-two stairs, dodging frisky monkeys, to get to the start of the caves. There are two large caverns with huge ceilings and mini temples inside. I had my first puja (blessing) done since India in 2001. I hadn't really seen a good religious site since Bali, and although the temples inside aren't that special, the caves themselves are what really impressed me.

Another thing that impressed me, was the abundance of good food in KL. Jodi is a foodie, so it was nice to have some company while we explored all the hawker stalls and restaurants around town. We did fight a little on cuisine style since she could eat Chinese food all day, everyday, but we also ate fantastic Indian food, and a myriad of soups, dumplings, noodle and rice dishes. And this brings me to the city of Melaka.




Melaka is a foodies' heaven, located about two hours Southwest from KL on the coast. We headed to Melaka on the Diwali holiday long weekend, so it was extra crowded, but probably more fun than normal. The city was a famous trading port, with lots of Portuguese, British, and Chinese architecture, and there is a canal that reminded me a little of Venice. So you can imagine the cultural blend. For the first time in a while I was inspired to take more photos than normal.



We stayed in Chinatown, right in the heart of everything. The city was packed with Malay and Singaporean tourists and the night market on Jonkers street, was one of the best I had seen. I ate everything I could get my hands on. The city has a unique style of food called Baba-Nyonya, which is basically Chinese food with a Malay twist of spices. We ate some excellent spicy curry soups, and chicken rice balls, which are their specialties. The night market complimented this with stalls selling waffle hot dogs (no joke), and pancakes. Melaka was a nice break from all the moving about I had been doing, and we just rested and ate for about four days before heading back to Singapore.



My favorite day of the year is Halloween. I'm totally serious. For me, it's like New Years but everyone is in really fun costumes. I would even choose Halloween over my birthday. Being so far away from family and friends, and the fact that New York city has the best Halloween celebrations in the world, I had to find somewhere fun to spend the holiday. Last year I was in Banos, Ecuador, and we didn't even dress up. This year I was determined to go all out...as much as I could with a limited wardrobe and budget. So, we headed back to Singapore to see our friends.

It was also convenient that Halloween in Singapore coincided with the first Asian Youth Energy Summit, hosted by the National University. With a little help from friends, we arranged some passes for the two day conference all about renewable energy and sustainability. I had read a great Time magazine issue about their heroes of the environment, and they had profiled Joachim Luther, a leading scientist on Solar energy, who spoke at the summit. It was a really thought provoking two days for me, and we sat in on some amazing panels. It felt good to learn again after more than a year on the road. Thanks to the Garag3 crew of Justin and Bjorn who took us out to karaoke (with google), and let us crash on their office floor for our four days, and to Mohan who hooked us up with the conference passes, and showed us a crazy Halloween night.



As for the Halloween festivities, we partied for two nights, and realized that Singapore is an amazing spot to celebrate this holiday. On the night of the 30th, we met up with my friends Taylor and Lee and crashed an INSEAD party at a bar with the best live cover band I have ever seen. The lead singer looked like the actress Tia Carrere (from Wayne's World), and we danced all night to American rock anthems. For Halloween night, we went to the Butter Factory club at Robertson Quay. I had never seen so many clever and intricate costumes in one place. I felt a little inadequate in my basic cowboy costume, but I've got some good ideas for next year! I honestly can't do justice by describing the costumes at the party, so you'll just have to see the photos. They're awesome.

Here are my photos of Kuala Lumpur and Melaka, and Halloween in Singapore.

Singapore: Warning, eat before you read this.

Food, food, and more food. We spent our two days in Singapore eating. And why shouldn't we? In case you are wondering, the small island country of Singapore is located on the Southern tip of the Malay peninsula, next to Malaysia and Indonesia. The country is a mix of people originally from China, Malaysia, and India, so you can imagine the cultural blend. Four languages are spoken and are on all official signs. They are English, Malay, Tamil, and Mandarin.

This post is kind of a tribute to one of our travel heroes, the infamous chef Anthony Bourdain. If you haven't seen an episode of his show No Reservations on the Travel Channel, you've probably been living in a hole. And if you have been living in a hole, please watch so you know what we're talking about. He brings attitude and a love of food, to traveling. So in honor of Chef Bourdain, we ate, and ate, and ate our way through the city. We also took his suggestion that the best food always seems to be wherever there are plastic tables and chairs, and where the street dogs hang out. The local food stalls.

We started in Chinatown, near where we were staying at Tajong Pagar. On a side note, we stayed in a strange hostel that was basically a residential apartment. There are several like this in Singapore, so watch out if booking online.

Singapore was a great introduction to Asia for us. It was a little crazier and more authentic than the Chinatown or Little India in New York or Toronto, but it still had order to it. Ah order, where to begin. I'm sure you have heard stories of people getting fined for spitting, or smoking in public places. It's true, they even joke about all the fines on the tacky tourist tee shirts. From what I can recall, you can't eat or drink on public transport, no spitting, no smoking in public, traffic signals are followed by both pedestrians and cars, no demonstrations or disagreement with the current government. Basically, it's the complete opposite of New York City. I do like my political freedom, but I'll tell you, being in Singapore for two days made me want to move there. It's clean, safe, friendly, and did I mention it was ridiculously clean? Although, it did lack a certain bit of edginess which I love about New York.

Now back to eating. Where to begin. We started in Chinatown on our first day and visited several areas of food hawker stalls. The first stop was the Maxwell Road Food Centre, then on to the Cinatown Complex. Picture a giant food court, but each place is tiny, and specialized. There's the curry stalls, the noodle places, the stalls dedicated to the famous Hainanese Chicken Rice dish, which is a famous dish of steamed chicken over steamed rice. Basic, but really damn good. There's the vegetarian stalls, the Laksa noodle stalls, the the Halal food stalls, the fruit juice stalls, and of course the vendors selling mouth watering items such as pig's brain and fish head curry soup. We ate dumplings, we ate curries, we ate chicken rice, we drank the freshest fruit juice. Julie also had her Starbucks fix of an iced caramel macchiato, since you could find every American fast food chain.

We did manage to do a lot of walking as well and saw some beautiful Chinese buddhist and Indian hindu temples, as well as two old mosques. The Sri Mariamman and Thian Hock Keng temples were stunning. The layout of the city was a good mix of East meets West. Hawker stalls and electronic malls mixed with skyscrapers, and chains such as Hooters. Yes, they even had a Hooters restaurant right on the waterfront at Clarke Quay.

I should quickly go back to electronics. If you ever want to buy the latest gadget, being a computer, mobile phone, or mp3 player, come to Singapore's Sim Lim Square. It's a massive department store of five levels selling everything you can plug in or run on batteries, and it's half the price as it is in North America.

Our second full day was spent wandering around Little India, and I can tell you, it smelled and tasted like India. I visited India in 2001 and I felt right at home eating vegetarian Thali with my hands. Oh, I got right in there with the locals without shame. Thali, in case you are wondering is a plate of rice and lentils, and mixed with either meet or fish, and something like six or so vegetable sides with amazing degrees of sweet and spicy. The town was gearing up for Deepavali, the festival of lights, so there were banners and colors galore. Many travelers choose to stay in Little India, especially at the ever popular hostel called the Inn Crowd. So next time I might pick this over Chinatown, depending on what i'm in the mood to eat!

For our one big night out in the city, we were lucky to have locals show us a good time. My friend Noah put me in touch with his friend Justin, and we started the night at a great local Chinese Seafood restaurant with two of his friends from their cool tech company Garag3. After dinner they drove us around the Formula One track for the upcoming night race that was to take place in two weeks. As if the night could not have gotten any better, it turns out that I had two friends studying their MBA at INSEAD's Singapore campus, and there was a birthday party for our friend Lee. We danced, and drank, and caught up with old friends.

So after three nights and two days in Singapore, and our bellies full, we headed off to meet our friend Tal in Bali, Indonesia. We flew from Cairns to Darwin, and then on to Singapore with Jetstar Airlines, Qantas' low cost carrier.

Here are our photos from Singapore, so you really can see what we ate.