Malaysia

Malaysia, especially Kuala Lumpur, is the best example to prove that various religions can coexist in a peaceful way. Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Taoists and Christians (to name only the major ones) live and influence together the everyday life of Kuala Lumpur without war and terror.
Nevertheless, the people don't seem to be happy with their government, who rules the country since (at least for the majority of the people) too many years.

From Kuala Lumpur we continued to the Cameron Highlands, famous for their tea and strawberries production. We did an interesting hike through the hills and ended on a big tea farm.
We continued to George Town on the Island Penang, where you can literally feel the vibe of the Indian and Chinese trading history as well as the influence of the Dutch and British colonialization. Then we took the night bus to Melaka and spend some days in this nice city built on the shore of a small river.

Throughout Malaysia (at least on the Westside, where we travelled) you can find a lot of Hawker stalls, many small restaurants and some lovely night markets. Everywhere the food is diverse and delightful and should be reason enough to visit this multifaceted country.

In Malaysia people are not happy with their government and during our stay, more than 500.000 people went on the street ('Bersih' movement) to demonstrate against corruption and the supposedly rigged elections of the Prime Minister.

One of the big buffets in the street restaurants of Kuala Lumpur.

The Sultan Abdul Samad Building housed originally the British colonial administration but serves now as the headquarters of the Ministry of Information, Communications and Culture of Malaysia.

The landmark of Kuala Lumpur: The Petronas Twin Towers.

Relaxing in the Central Park in the shadow of a mushroom formed tree.

In between tradition and modernity.

We visited the largest Sikh temple of Southeast Asia, the Tatt Khalsa Diwan Gurdwara, and ate dinner together with the Sikhs. Every Sunday there is a free vegetarian lunch/dinner at the temple, you only have to cover up your head before entering.

Tea fields as far as the eye can see.

Job's almost done.

In the middle of the tea plantation.

 A Gibbon monkey :)

To prevent the fire to take over to the next building, people built a 'fire stopper' wall.

You can either walk or take a train to climb/descend the Penang Hill.

The highly decorated street food artist of Penang Hill while preparing his award-winning pasta seafood dish.

In 2012 the Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic (on behalf of the Malaysian government) created some very fine street art on the walls of the UNESCO World Heritage George Town.

It all started with the street art project 'Mirrors George Town'.

You can find postcards of the street art in almost every store.

Nowadays, those mural paintings seem to attract more tourists than the old city itself.

Relaxing in Melaka, another UNESCO city.