My first arrival in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia, was as a transit passenger via Abu Dhabi in December 1989 coming from my masteral schooling in England.  The second time was in March 2000 with my family coming from Australia as a doctoral student. This time, we went to a hotel at the city proper for an overnight accommodation.

It was only during my third visit that I had a touristic exploration of KL’s City Proper. It happened in June 2018 when I attended a conference about the oil palm industry in South East Asia and Latin America. I enjoyed the hop-in, hop-off circuitous bus ride around the Central Business District. In fact, I had two rounds as I was trying to take photos and jot down notes along the way.

What made this leisurely ride rather intriguing, if not juicy, was when a Filipino ‘couple’ alighted in the upper portion of the double decker. Scanning the crowd first, they sat one extra row in front of me. They were talking in Filipino (Tagalog), oblivious to me given that I was just an incognito chubby stranger – donning Ray-Ban sunglasses, absolutely silent and was wearing an Indonesian batik polo shirt! I shall relay the full story later in my upcoming blog.

It was in Penang Island where I had the most number of trips – at least three times. My former Australian Boss invited me to assist in a coastal program development. What I loved the most to eat here was the fish locally called as siakap. (In Australia, they call it barramundi, with scientific name of Lates calcarifer.) I also watched from the other side of the port Limbang town, the swat of Malaysian territory that separates Temburong District of Brunei Darussalam from its three other districts.