🇲🇾 Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur (KL — "muddy confluence" in Malay, named for the meeting of the Klang and Gombak rivers where tin miners settled in the 1850s) is one of the most dramatic skylines in the world: the Petronas Twin Towers (the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004, the defining image of Malaysia's emergence as a modern nation) rise from the heart of a city of 1.8 million (7 million metro) that is simultaneously Malay, Chinese, Indian and colonial British in its character — the most diverse capital in Southeast Asia. KL's food scene is the finest in Malaysia: nasi lemak (coconut rice with ikan bilis, peanuts, egg and sambal — the national breakfast), char kway teow from a Chinese hawker, roti canai from an Indian mamak stall, and banana leaf rice in Brickfields (Little India) — all within a 10-minute walk of each other. The city also has some of the most extraordinary religious architecture in Southeast Asia: the Batu Caves (272 steps to a Hindu temple inside a limestone cavern above KL), the Sri Mahamariamman Temple and the Masjid Jamek (at the original muddy confluence, 1907).