Malaysia

Malaysia is two lands in one: a peninsula stitched with highways, highrises and street food stalls - and Borneo, wilder, wetter, older. The cities hum, the jungle breathes.

In Penang, the streets speak in steam and spice. Hawker stalls line every curb, serving char kway teow, roti canai, laksa thick with tamarind and heat. Chinese clan houses sit beside British-built courthouses, all of it weathered, all of it alive. Kuala Lumpur is fast and glassy, but even here the food pulls everything back to earth. Morning markets. Nasi lemak wrapped in paper. Smoke curling up from charcoal grills.

Across the sea, Borneo holds another rhythm. Longhouses. Forests. Rivers that run slow and deep. Orangutans move through the canopy. Rain falls, soft and constant. Malaysia doesn't force a narrative. It offers flavours, fragments, layers. You move through them. And somehow, they hold together.