Climbing Mount Kinabalu: overcome with good fortune

Climbing Mount Kinabalu: overcome with good fortune

For a few years in my early twenties, I worked for a travel agency and had access to travel brochures and guidebooks galore. The term ‘bucket list’ didn’t cross my mind but during that time I compiled a lengthy one. Blackwater rafting the Waitomo caves, hiking to Everest base camp, diving in the Galapagos Islands, climbing Mount Kinabalu, taking a train across Australia, meeting the Masai Mara in Kenya, watching

10 Things to Love About Melaka

10 Things to Love About Melaka

Every taxi driver in Malaysia to whom I posed the question, “where’s your favorite place in Malaysia?” answered without hesitation, “Melaka.” After the first two I asked gave this answer and so did two people working in or running guesthouses, I knew I had to get there. Not surprisingly, I wish I had taken the suggestion sooner and spent more time there. In no particular order, here are just 10

A Day in the Cameron Highlands

A Day in the Cameron Highlands

The world’s largest flowers are not particularly pretty. At least, not after their first two days in bloom. And some of them smell like decaying flesh. Yet people pay guides to lead them through jungles to see them. Last week, in the Cameron Highlands of peninsular Malaysia, I was one such person. Squeezing as much as I could into one day, I joined a tour that covered most of the

The Streets of George Town

The Streets of George Town

Penang is often thought of as the food capital of Malaysia but as a vegetarian, that wasn’t what drew me to this island. For me, it was the art and the meeting of Indian, Chinese, and Malay cultures with a British colonial history. While the latter has been interesting to observe, it’s the art that really drew me in. I could spend days wandering around staring at the works lining