Malaysia Family Travel Guide

Hawker centers are the whole point and they are perfect with children. An open air courtyard, twenty separate stalls each cooking one dish, shared plastic tables, and everyone orders whatever they want from wherever they want. Nobody has to agree. A fussy child can eat plain rice while you eat something with a face on it.

Where to go. Gurney Drive and the Red Garden in George Town, Batu Ferringhi up the coast at night, and the Chinese breakfast places that open at seven and are finished by ten. Shirley took us to all of them and none of them were on a list anywhere.

George Town is a walking town. Clan houses, Chinese shophouses, mosques, a Hindu temple and colonial civic buildings inside about a square kilometer. Since 2012 it has also had a well known street art trail, which turns a heritage walk into a treasure hunt for a seven year old.

The island is much bigger than it looks and the buses are excellent. We rode public buses from the city out to Penang National Park for a few ringgit. Do not pay for a boat you do not need. And do not do what I did and set off for a fruit farm without checking which bus actually goes there.

The Batu Caves are the best half day and they are free. A limestone cave temple up two hundred and seventy two very steep steps, with a gold statue of Murugan at the bottom and a great many macaques on the way up. The monkeys will take food out of a child’s hand. Carry nothing visible and hold the small ones.

Petronas at night is worth the trip out even without going up. The towers were the tallest in the world from 1998 to 2004 and the lighting at night is the whole show. The park below has a free splash pool and a playground, which is what actually saves the evening with children.

Hotels are absurd value. What eighty dollars buys in KL would cost four hundred in western Europe. If your trip has one splurge night in it, spend it here rather than anywhere else in the region.

Royal Selangor is a better museum than it sounds. The pewter works has been going since 1885 and they let you hammer your own dish next to a craftsman who does it properly. I was terrible at it and it is still one of my clearest memories of KL.

Portuguese, then Dutch, then British, then Malaysian. Taken by Portugal in 1511, by the Dutch in 1641, handed to Britain in 1824. All three are still standing on the same square, which is the deep red Christ Church and Stadthuys, and the ruined Portuguese fort gate is a five minute walk from it.

The Portuguese Settlement is still there and most visitors miss it. A small Kristang community east of the center, descended from those sixteenth century Portuguese, still speaking a creole and still cooking their own food. It is the single most surprising thing in Malaysia and it is a twenty minute taxi ride.

Jonker Street, and the durian. The night market runs Friday to Sunday. Adam tried a durian flavored snack that he said smelled like the underbelly of a woolly mammoth and then decided he liked it after a few bites. Let your children try it. The photographs are worth it.

A day trip works, an overnight is better. The town empties in the evening and the riverfront is lovely once the coaches have gone. If you can spare the night, take it.

Malay, Chinese and Indian cultures run in parallel. a mosque, a Chinese temple and a Hindu temple can all sit within a few blocks of each other, each fully itself.

The food tells the same story as the culture. nasi lemak, char kway teow and roti canai each trace back to a different community, all eaten at the same hawker stalls.

George Town wears its trading port history openly. shophouses, street art and colonial buildings layer centuries of Chinese, Indian, Malay and British influence into a few walkable blocks.

Badminton matters here the way football matters elsewhere. Malaysia has produced some of the sport’s best players, and a local match draws a real crowd.

Treat it as a separate trip, not an add on. Sabah and Sarawak are a two and a half hour flight from KL across the South China Sea. Ten days on the peninsula plus four days in Borneo is two trips crammed into one trip. Give Borneo a week of its own or leave it for next time.

What it is actually for. Orangutans, proboscis monkeys and pygmy elephants on the Kinabatangan river, turtles at Selingan, the diving at Sipadan, and Mount Kinabalu if you have a teenager who wants to climb something serious. None of that exists on the peninsula.

The sanctuary question, answered. Sepilok and Semenggoh are real government run rehabilitation centers. Orangutans there are wild or semi wild, they come to a feeding platform or they do not, and you watch from a distance behind a rope. That is what a real one looks like.

What a bad one looks like, in four questions. Can you hold, feed or photograph yourself with the animal. Is there a guaranteed sighting. Are there babies available for cuddling. Does it use the words rescue and show in the same sentence. Any single yes and I would not book it, and I would say why to my children rather than quietly changing the plan.

Understand the palm oil context before you go. A great deal of Borneo’s lowland forest is now plantation, and you will fly over hours of it. That is the honest reason the orangutans need rehabilitating in the first place, and it is a real conversation to have with an eleven year old on the plane.

This is the easiest country in the region to move around. Motorways that work, intercity coaches that are comfortable and cheap, and a north south train line. After Laos and Cambodia the difference is startling. A hire car is viable here, which it is not next door.

Budget flights are the way to cover distance. KL is a major low cost hub. Penang, Langkawi, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching are all short cheap hops. Book them early and check which of KL’s two terminals you are flying from, because they are not next door to each other.

Ride hailing works everywhere and is the right default with children. Metered fares, no negotiation, no argument, and you can request a car seat in some cities. This alone removes most of the daily friction of traveling Asia with a family.

City buses are cheap and usable. We crossed Penang island several times on public buses for a couple of ringgit. Routes are signed in English. Just check that the number you are on goes where you think it does.

The ringgit is straightforward and prices are fixed. Shops, restaurants and hawker stalls have set prices and there is no haggling to do beyond the night markets. Cards are widely taken in cities. Carry small notes for hawker centers, which are cash only.

Malaysia is a Muslim majority country and modest dress matters at religious sites. Shoulders and knees covered for everyone at mosques, and a headscarf for women, which is normally lent at the door. Ordinary streets and beaches are relaxed. This is a small courtesy that buys a great deal of goodwill.

Alcohol is restricted, heavily taxed and simply absent in some places. Not a problem, but do not plan an evening around it, and never carry durian into a hotel or onto public transport. Both rules are enforced and only one of them is a joke.

Fake goods are everywhere and are not a bargain. The night markets are full of them. I bought a knock off handbag and a wallet in Penang and enjoyed myself enormously, and I would still tell you that customs at home take a dim view of it.

Kuala Lumpur is the natural start and end. most international flights route through here, and it connects easily to everywhere else in the peninsula.

Ipoh, the Cameron Highlands and Penang connect well by road. this northern loop covers colonial towns, tea country and Malaysia’s best food city in one drive.

Borneo is a separate flight and a separate trip. orangutans and rainforest are worth the extra leg, but treat it as its own block rather than a quick add on.

Langkawi is an easy beach extension. a short flight from either Kuala Lumpur or Penang adds an island stop without much extra planning.

Penang. Four nights. Georgetown on foot, hawker food every night, Penang Hill by funicular, the clan jetties. We stayed five in 2010 by accident.

Kuala Lumpur. Two nights. The towers at night, the Batu caves at opening, KLCC park for the fountains.

Sepilok and the Kinabatangan. Three nights. Orangutans at feeding time, a river lodge, proboscis monkeys from a boat at dusk.

Langkawi. Three nights. The cable car, a mangrove boat, a resort beach. The rest at the end.

Melaka. One night. Jonker Street night market, the river walk, the Dutch square.

It is the softest landing in Southeast Asia. English is spoken everywhere, tap water is safe in the cities, medical care is good and cheap, the traffic is orderly and nobody hassles you. If your family has never done Asia, start here rather than in Bangkok or Hanoi.

Hawker centers solve the fussy eater problem completely. Twenty stalls, one table, everyone orders separately. There is no negotiation and no restaurant standoff. This is a real, practical reason to choose Malaysia over its neighbors with children.

The real lesson here is the coexistence and it is worth naming out loud. I arrived in Southeast Asia carrying prejudices I am ashamed of now, and Malaysia is where they came apart. A mosque, a Chinese temple and a Hindu shrine on one street, and nobody making anything of it. Point that out to your children. It is the most valuable thing in the country.

Build in the pool and the mall, guilt free. It is thirty two degrees and humid every day. Hotel pools are cheap here and the air conditioned malls are part of Malaysian life rather than a tourist failure. We spent a whole afternoon in one in Penang pretending we lived there, and it was one of the better days.

Monkeys are the actual daily hazard. Batu Caves, Penang National Park, the Botanical Gardens. They are bold, fast and will take food from a small hand. No food out, no plastic bags visible, and do not let a child feed them.

A proper Borneo rainforest lodge. the better lodges include guided river cruises and orangutan viewing that a budget stay simply cannot arrange.

A private George Town food tour. a local guide who actually grew up eating at these hawker stalls gets you past the tourist-facing stands.

A night in a restored Peranakan shophouse hotel. sleeping inside George Town’s history beats viewing it from the outside for a day.

A private guide for the Langkawi Sky Bridge and cable car. skipping the queue and getting the timing right for clear views is worth arranging ahead.

How far a stranger will go. Shirley took us to dinner, paid, refused to be repaid, and then gave up her day off for us. Manfred rerouted our entire trip, drove us round KL for three days and had a chef put a Happy Honeymoon flag on a steak. Neither of them wanted anything.

That rubber is still a serious industry. Manfred’s father in law owns a plantation and took us through it. Latex drips out of a cut in the bark into a little bowl, which we did not know, and the mosquitoes there are the worst I met in Asia.

How big and how green Penang island is. We thought it was a town. It has a coastline, a national park, a rainforest and a monkey beach, and we spent a whole day on a bus finding that out.

A guesthouse can be ruined by one person. Our first Penang guesthouse played Pink Floyd at full volume until nearly one in the morning and then started again at three. We left, found the Red Inn, and found Shirley. Read recent reviews rather than a guidebook entry, and move if a place is wrong.

Penang. Four nights. Georgetown on foot, hawker food every night, the murals, Penang Hill by funicular, the clan jetties.

Kuala Lumpur. Two nights. The towers at night, the Batu caves at opening, KLCC park for the fountains and the playground.

Sepilok and the Kinabatangan. Three nights. Orangutans at feeding time, a river lodge, proboscis monkeys from a boat at dusk. A flight to Sandakan gets you there.