Tag Archives: tourist

Making the Streetscape Walkable

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Response to Let’s do more for tourism in JB

I agree, JB has much to offer tourists and room to improve. Making locations like Jalan Tan Hiok Nee attractive to tourists is important. That location can provide a distinctive JB feel (not just one of 1,000+ malls all over SE Asia that really are all basically the same). Peppering it with small shops and art galleries and food and museum and street art is great.

And obviously what is desired is a nice walkable place that has history. JB is trying to do the same with the new “riverwalk.” But if you then allow people to park cars and motorcycles and vendors to block the sidewalk you severely degrade the user experience. You can retain those that hate malls and will put up with anything to avoid malls. But if people can’t walk without dodging all sorts of obstacles they will just go to malls and go to other cities. They won’t tell their friends about this nice old town they should visit.

Building up tourism often doesn’t take very brilliant ideas. What it does take is attention to detail; and continued effort to create a great experience. You see wonderful drawing of what new developments will be they always have people walking on clear sidewalks. Then go walk around downtown JB and you will find sidewalks are often blocked. Still JB is much better in this aspect than Penang. A big reason I decided not to live in Penang is you couldn’t walk around with ease.

Patience and a desire to make an effort to follow up and keep streets walkable is something most locations don’t have. And it is one big reason malls do well, they make it easy for people to walk around (though actually KSL mall has jammed in so many vendors in some narrow locations they even mess up walking inside a mall which is not easy to mess up). But if JB (or other locations) pay attention to making the experience enjoyable for tourists they will benefit.

The current economic conditions make tourism even more important for Malaysia. Tourists bring in foreign currency, buying the Malaysian Ringitt (and thus supporting the currency which has been getting crushed).

Related: The Present and Future of Iskandar – Salahuddin Bakery on Jalan Tan Hiok Nee – Urban planning for walkable communities – Elevated Bicycle Circle: Innovation in Urban Transportation

If You Visit Kuching Eat at Tribal Stove

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Tribal Stove is absolutely wonderful

Yes it has great food, which thankfully there is a a great deal of in many place. What makes Tribal Stove someplace not to miss is it is the rare combination of great and generally inaccessible food.

I often find great restaurants in tourist destinations. And sometimes it is even local in a sense – but nearly always (not all, but almost) I can get very similar good dishes in any large city across the globe.

Tribal Stove had truly distinctive dishes that were also great. They have quite a few dishes, some of my favorite are wild jungle salad and tapioca leaves. The restaurant serves cuisine from Kelabit Highlands in Sarawak.

photo of great Kelabit Highlands food

Maybe my all time favorite meal. The 3 sample items were great.

The set menu (photo above) of tea, a meat dish with 2 vegetable sides, soup and rice that was US$5 (15 MYR). It was amazing. It would be great at $20. I happened to be lucky enough to get my favorite vegetable there with my first order.

The meet dish in the triple was very good, the rice I didn’t care for. But the two vegetable dishes were amazing – truly great. One the right is Lamud Busaq Keluduh (Bario Wild Flower Salad) – wild ginger flower, petai and wild chives flavored with Bario Higland salt. I believe the dish on the left was Udung Ubih (Wild Tapioca Leaf) – cassava or tapioca leaf pounded and shredded and cooked to perfection over a slow heat. The middle dish was, I believe, beef with crisp vegetables.

Menu - Tribal Stove, Kuching

I have been trying other dishes which are also great but those 2 are not to be missed (you can get “small” dishes of those for $3, see photo below – two pretty easily make a meal in my opinion). If the prices triple this place is still not to be missed.

There is no restaurant I recommend to travels more strongly than I recommend Tribal Stove. If I could have one restaurant transplanted to my location so I could eat their in my home town it would be Tribal Stove. There is nothing remotely close.

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11th Annual Johor Bahru Arts Festival 5 September to 4 October

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The 11th Annual JB Arts Festival is presented by The Johor Society For The Performing Arts. Once again a wide variety of artists will perform, providing many opportunities for fans to enjoy new artists and past favorites.

There are also new additions this year including the white box (The Art Gallery will not only features framed art and installations but will also feature artists at work) and black box presentation spaces at Danga City Mall. These spaces include many workshops for attendees.

See the full schedule of schedule of events. The embedded webcasts in this post showcase some of the performers scheduled for the month long festival.

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Street Art, Large Mural on Jalan Tan Hiok Nee in Johor Bahru

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Large view of the mural including door

September 2013

A large mural has been taking shape on Jalan Tan Hiok Nee for over a year. The first photo shows it near the beginning, September 2013.

photo of large mural street art

March 2014

Large paintings have also been added along Jalan Tan Hiok Nee near the mural. It is quite a nice addition of street art to the historical JB walk. A new post with photos of those will be added soon. (Update: In turns out it was a temporary display, the paintings are not there now).

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Treehouse, Permai Rainforest Resort, Damai (outside Kuching), Borneo

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I very much enjoyed the treehouse cabin at the Permai Rainforest Resort. The reviews on Agoda for the ground level lodgings there were not great, but I was extremely pleased with the treetop cabin I stayed at. The Permai Rainforest Resort is in Damai, about 30 km outside Kuching.

photo of Treetop Cabin, Permai Rainforest Resort

The treehouses all are along the forest edge where it meets the beach. You hear the wonderful sound of waves crashing and winds rushing through the forest trees.

photo inside of the Treetop Cabin, Permai Rainforest Resort

The rooms have a full bath and electricity.

They were quite cool, with the shade and wind, but also offered AC if you wished to use it. The cafeteria wasn’t anything fancy but offered tasty food and a decent wifi connection (no wifi is available in the rooms).

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Wonderful Hiking in Bako National Park

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Bako National Park offers a network of trails through jungles, scrub environments and to beautiful beaches. The post includes spur trails which I took as part of a loop off the Lintang Trail. I slept in Kuching, hiked during the day in Bako National Park and returned to my hotel at night.

On the Pandan Kencil Path

photo of view from plateau on Bako National Park Pandan Kencil path

Great views from a plateau. And the plateau also had large numbers of pitcher plants.

photo of pitcher plants

Then there is a short spur off the Pandan Kencil path to this wonderful beach overlook (Besar):

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Bako National Park, Sarawak, Borneo

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Bako National Park is a wonderful location less than an hour outside of Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo. The park includes rustic cabins (for overnight stays) and a visitors center that serves food. To reach the park you must take a 20 minute boat ride.

view from boat dropoff for Bako National Park

When the boat dropped us off here in the morning they said they would pick us up on the beach. I couldn’t really understand why, but this photo shows the tide has made the path to the stairs impassable, which explains why (I should have figured that out but my brain doesn’t always work as well as it should).

photo of sign showing Bako National Park trails

I only spent a day in the park. There are several intersecting trails. The “small” loop trail includes the Lintang trail and intersects with Pandan Kecil path, Pandan Basar path and more. I hiked through several trails and completely exhausted myself, actually. It was a wonderful hike.

There are probably enough trails to keep you busy for 2 days of hiking though I think you can get a good feel for the different settings in 1 day.

photo looking back at Bako National Park from the boat as I leave

Looking back at Bako National Park from the boat as I leave (the visitor’s center is just off to the left).

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Johor Bahru Chingay Parade

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The Chingay parade is held of the 21st day of the Chinese New year. In 2014 that will be February 20th.

Here are my photos from 2013 Chingay afternoon parade. The afternoon parade starts at 11 AM or so on the previous day – so on February 19th this year) as deity statues from the Old Chinese Temple are carried out to get ready for the evening parade.

Photo of kids playing gongs at the Chingay Parade in Johor Bahru

The biggest parade is the night parade but there is also a parade during the day. The evening parade covers 10 km and starts about 7 PM, I believe; it will finish after midnight.

photo of costume at Chingay Parade, Johor Bahru 2013

The Johor Bahru parade is also called The Parade of the Deities as the Temple deity statues are taken on a journey from the Temple to bless the city with peace, prosperity and harmony (the Chingay parades in Singapore and Penang are non-secular as I understand it).

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Hemmant Trail, Fraser’s Hill, Malaysia

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Hemmant Trail is a short (1 km) trail located inside Fraser’s Hill (just a short walk from the clock tower, the trail is next to the golf course).

photo of Hemmant Trailhead

The entry to the trail is difficult to see if you come from the north, though it doesn’t look like it would be from the photo. If you walk to the start from the clock tower it is much easier to see the trailhead which is will be on your right before your reach the Mosque.

photo of Hemmant Trail Fraser's Hill

The trail is quite nice and fairly easy.

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Street Art in Malacca

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Malacca (Melaka) has a beautiful historic district; it is even designated a world heritage city (by the United Nations – UNESCO). The atmosphere encourages artistic thought and expression. And that is shown in art as you walk around the city.

photo of art on the Tang house, Malacca, Malaysia

art on free opinion - text: everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression...

Text: everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression…

Some of the art is maybe not what we normally think of as art. But the painting of walls and shutters gives very artistic views as do arched walkways and other elements of the urban architecture.

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