On the way back from Europe I stopped off in Kuala Lumpur to do a little camera shopping and recover from jet-lag and it really caught me. Although Malaysia doesn't have the tourist pull of Thailand or Vietnam, the relaxed atmosphere, great hostels, spectacular food and cheap Air Asia flights make it an ideal base if you are considering travelling in Asia.
Kuala Lumpur offers a relatively gentle introduction to the chaos of an Asian capital. Everyone is fluent in English and the slick transportation network allows you to hide in modern shopping malls and fancy hotels while working up the courage to cross the road - typically a six lane affair with at least two cars or four motorbikes per lane. The Other Side offers frantic open-air markets and whole blocks of restaurants selling delicious fare from all across asia at miniscule prices.
Although bonafide tourist attractions are few I spent one afternoon visiting a butterfly farm and asia's largest aviary and came away with hundreds of awful photos of flying beasties. At least now i'm well aquanted with the 'delete' function on my new camera.
Next I munched my way down to Melaka. I became a breakfast regular at a tiny restaurant which made amazing Laksa for A$1.50 a bowl before blowing my dinner budget on a Pakistani feast. Approximately twice as much food as we could eat cost A$10. Being a little bitOne advantage of getting off the beaten track is the people you meet tend to friendlier and more interesting. In Melaka I met some very cool people both locals and other travellers.
The local radio is worth a mention. Firstly because it Rick-Rolled me and secondly because of the 30 second government funded motivational advertisements which run every 10 minutes. The topics are all pretty amusing but my favourite was one which simply encouraged the locals to smile more. If you ask me they're running the ads in completely the wrong country.
