Tag: market

Kuala Lumpur Highlights

We spent five days and nights in Kuala Lumpur and were wowed by its mix of styles and cultures. From huge modern skyscrapers to old-school street markets, Malaysia’s biggest city has it all. It’s also big, busy, and very hot, so we learned to go out early in the morning or in the evening, not mid-day. Our Kuala Lumpur highlights include cool neighborhoods, amazing food, and impressive sights.

Kuala Lumpur highlights, Central Market
We loved Kuala Lumpur’s Central Market

About Kuala Lumpur

Located in the western-central part of Peninsular Malaysia, KL is 40km from the west coast and strait of Malacca. From the south, it’s over 300km from Puteri Harbour and took us a few hours on the train. I mentioned the heat, and we went in late June, the dry season. Temperatures ranged around 32C/90F during the day, and the sun is hot and the streets don’t have shade. I missed Cairns!

Malaysia’s largest city, Kuala Lumpur is quite small compared to Tokyo or Jakarta. With a population of just over 2.1 million people, the city is smaller even than Toronto. It’s also considerably cheaper than Tokyo or Toronto. With a culturally diverse population, there’s also lots to see, do, and eat.

giant rotis at TGs Bistro in Kuala Lumpur
We didn’t try, but everyone was taking photos of the giant rotis at TGs Bistro

Intro to Kuala Lumpur

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What to Do in Darwin

After a year and a half in Australia, our last stop was Darwin. The capital of the Northern Territory, it’s a small city. With a population of under 150,000 people, it’s even smaller than Cairns. This is the Australian tropics, and we felt the heat and humidity daily. Darwin is also home to lots of crocs and croc tours, and seeing the crocs is on our list of what to do in Darwin, Australia.

Arriving In Darwin

For us, just arriving in Darwin was interesting. We sailed there from across the top of Australia, with good wind pushing us west from Thursday island and east. Once we arrived in Darwin, we had to wait to get into the marina because of timing the tides. You see, tides in this part of the world are pretty extreme, with differences up to almost 8 meters. With those big tides, we didn’t want to anchor out and then wait all day to leave or return to our boat.

Instead we made a booking at Cullen Bay Marina. To get into the marina, we had to navigate a lock, which we haven’t done since the Panama Canal. It was a much shorter trip, but still stressful. We put out lots of lines and not enough fenders and got bumped and jostled. On both the entry and exit, the lockmaster was very helpful, but we ended up sweaty from the stress and the heat. Darwin is a hot place!

lock, Cullen bay Marina, Darwin
Approaching the lock exiting Cullen Bay Marina

Getting Around Darwin

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Exploring Cairns Off the Reef

We spent a couple of weeks in Cairns, a friendly city in Far North Queensland. Best known for its proximity to The Great Barrier Reef, we enjoyed exploring Cairns off the reef. There’s a lot to do!

About Cairns

Cairns is a small city with a lot of visitors, who come for its two World Heritage sites: the aforementioned reef and The Daintree rainforest. Although Cairns’ population is only about 150K, compared to Sydney’s 5.5 million, its bustling waterfront and nightlife make it feel bigger.

Cairns has an easy to navigate downtown, which is well designed for the climate. Even in a beating sun or heavy rain, you can walk through the city protected by all the awnings and covered pedestrian pathways.

Cairns Highlights

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