Malaysia

Malaysia gives a sense of being in the middle of rapid but uneven development.  In every major city, there are modern high-rises and shopping malls standing within a hundred meters of rows of colonial-era shop-homes fronted by open sewers.  The contrast is most striking in the capital of Kuala Lumpur.  Like Singapore, Kuala Lumpur is a highly stratified city, but while Singapore's lower-class and wealthy districts are separate and hidden from one another, in Kuala Lumpur the two are everywhere interwoven, and one can't seem to get away from either.

But while there are visible economic tensions, there is much to love about the country as well.  The old colonial districts of Melaka and Georgetown are beautiful despite their age, and mostly still serve as the homes and workplaces for the residents of the cities, nodes of a local economy largely unconcerned with tourism.  There is also a vibrant culture of street art particularly evident in these colonial areas, most famously in Penang but also evident in Melaka and KL.

Also like Singapore, the country is extremely ethnically diverse.  Wherever I went, there seemed to be almost as many Chinese and Indians living and working as there were Malays.  This has the happy side-effect of making Malaysia's cuisine marvelously diverse as well.  This is similar in many ways to that of Singapore, but with more traditional Malaysian dishes in evidence, and a much bigger culture of street food (I suppose selling food from a cart is probably illegal in Singapore). Georgetown in Penang is best for this, with dishes I've seen nowhere else as well as many of the best examples of national favorites, like Cendol, a shaved-ice dessert with coconut milk, red beans, and green rice noodles.

On the topic of food, the fruit in Malaysia is also very good.  Though not the most flavourful I've ever eaten (that honour still goes to Ghana), the variety is unmatched.  I actually discovered a new favorite fruit at the roadside markets here, the mangosteen, a largely-seedless, easily-eaten fruit that tastes like a combination of a mango and mandarin orange.

The countryside in Peninsular Malaysia is beautiful.  Much of it is flat farmland or palm plantations, but as you head north you begin to see massive, sheer-sided stone hills jutting hundreds of meters up out of perfectly flat surroundings.  The Cameron Highlands is a particularly beautiful area, high in the rainforest-covered mountains, and its altitude makes its climate a welcome respite from the sweltering equatorial heat of the rest of the country.  I found that taking inter-city busses rather than trains gave the best views.

For more detail, I will as always direct you to my photo albums:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152150647895879.1073741842.514945878&type=1&l=6a9a2c6c78
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152187924925879.1073741843.514945878&type=1&l=1875559549

I'm writing this from Chiang Rai in Thailand, a destination that I hadn't considered until about a week ago, and I'll be flying to India in less than a week.  Thoughts on Thailand will come next, so stay tuned.