All tagged Malaysia
Could your idea of a dream Asian holiday be a three-week bar hop visiting some of the best cocktail bars in Asia? If so, here’s an itinerary that you can combine with visits to some of the most exciting cities in Asia, enjoying their cultural and culinary delights during the day, and dressing up for a relaxing evening to sample exquisite cocktails created by Asia’s best mixologists using local ingredients blended with traditional spirits.
Are you a first-time or infrequent traveller to Asia and wondering which countries are the safest to visit? No country is 100 percent safe, but this guide will tell you which are the safest to start with and what to look out for in those countries. The guide is based both on institutional rankings and the personal experience of a long-time traveller who has visited them all.
With its rich history and mix of cultures, Melaka is one of Malaysia’s most popular destinations. Like most cities that rely heavily on tourism, it was hard hit by the Covid pandemic. Although it is well on the road to recovery, now is a good time to visit before the pre-pandemic crowds return. One of the best ways to explore this historic city is on foot.
Booking train, bus and ferry tickets in Asia can be difficult if you are not familiar with the routes and transport operators, but online booking apps and websites can make the task much easier. But with hundreds of such online ticketing platforms vying for your business, how can you tell which are the best ones to use. We take a look at reviews of these sites to determine which are the most reliable.
Asia has many destinations that often exceed our expectations, and when we leave, we lament that we did not spend more time there. Here are seven of those special places that draw travellers back and to which the xyzAsia travel writers believe are worth the time and money to go back in preference to travelling to somewhere new. They are all destinations worth revisiting.
The Thailand tourism authorities have come in for a lot of criticism in recent months for not being able to handle the volume of Thailand Pass applications that were made once destinations were opened to international tourists under their ‘Test & Go’ and ‘Sandbox’ schemes for vaccinated travellers. But now there’s evidence that the backlog has been cleared and travellers are receiving their Thailand Passes within the seven days promised.
Southeast Asia has many colonial hotels with rich and varied histories. There are some that once hosted well known literary figures, stars of stage and screen, and were instrumental in the lives of foreign correspondents whilst covering wars in Southeast Asia. Those travellers who love literature and reminiscences of bygone eras will find these hotels worth a visit.
Asia offers some of the best luxury train experiences in the world with Japan and India leading the field. Travelling by train provides the opportunity to enjoy scenery and sights at a leisurely pace with onboard fine dining and entertainment. Many multi-day journeys offer tours at stopovers to interact with locals and visit places of historic and cultural interest.
Kuala Lumpur’s historic Coliseum Café was preparing to celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2021. Instead, it announced it was closing permanently – a victim of the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that kept customers away. It’s a sad end for a restaurant built at the height of British rule that retained its quirky colonial charm even as Malaysia changed around it.
As many are starting to plan post-Covid travel and look for destinations where contact can be minimised with others, the appeal of remote retreats is greater than it has ever been. Asia has many such escapes along its thousands of kilometres of remote coasts and jungle interiors, especially for those looking to combine luxury with a little adventure.
Asia is blessed with many of the world’s greatest religious sites, some dating back centuries. While the finest of them enjoy near-universal acclaim, others are less well-known, and many people will have visited sites that mean something special to them. Here are 12 of the best to visit ranging from the famous to some lesser known.
Travelling solo in Asia may not be for everyone – especially for older females – but for those who enjoy time on their own, it can be liberating and rewarding. It enables you to travel at your own pace, do what you want to do, when you want, and change your schedule whenever you feel like it. With a few sensible safety precautions, solo travel in Asia can be a safe and enjoyable experience for anyone.
Langkawi is a tropical island waiting for the good times to return. The Malaysian resort island in the Andaman Sea has long been popular with international visitors. When foreign tourism resumes, it will have much to offer those keen to get close to nature and enjoy some peace and relaxation.
With international air travel still out of bounds for most people, many in Asia are turning to domestic getaways instead. But not all are comfortable with the idea of travelling by air domestically. Safety concerns are still putting some off. So what’s it like to take a domestic flight in Asia in the time of Covid-19? Our senior correspondent Alan Williams, who lives in Kuala Lumpur, decided to find out.
Ipoh, the capital of Malaysia’s Perak state, has become a popular stopover for older travellers interested to view its street art which depicts the history and heritage of this once-booming tin mining town with opium and gambling dens and streets where wealthy Chinese kept their mistresses. These days it’s also rivaling Georgetown in Penang as a destination for food and coffee lovers.
Slow travel is a term used to describe travelling at a pace that enables you to connect to local communities and culture. It’s about spending more time in places and discovering the soul of those places through their history, food, language and people, rather than chasing bucket list ticks. It’s likely to be the way in which many older travellers explore the region in the months to come.
