Our Month in Malaysia: The Trip That Nearly Became a Move

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Two years ago, around this exact time of year, we were sat deciding whether to go to Malaysia for a month or so. We had been talking, as we often do, about the possibility of moving abroad somewhere, and Malaysia kept coming up as a serious option.

On paper, it ticks a lot of boxes for a Muslim family. It feels modern enough that you never feel like you are “losing out” on anything. The main cities are well developed, the roads are in good condition, and honestly, the cleanliness is on another level. Most places we visited were so well looked after and hygienic that it truly impressed us. I say this as someone who refuses to use a public toilet in the UK unless I am absolutely about to collapse, whereas in Malaysia I found myself using them without a second thought.

Now, before I go any further, I should say that I love this country. I was born and raised here, and there is so much about it I would not trade for anything. The greenery, especially once you get out of the cities, is stunning in a way I do not think I fully appreciated until I saw other places. There is a politeness to British culture too, the queuing, the endless apologising, the “after you” at every doorway, that I have come to properly appreciate. And do not get me started on the humour. Dry, self deprecating, a bit daft, it is such a big part of who we are and I would miss it terribly if it disappeared from my day to day life. So none of what follows comes from a place of not valuing home. It is more that travelling has a way of making you notice things, and I wanted to be honest about what I noticed.

With that said, one thing that struck us in Malaysia was the sense of shared responsibility people seemed to have towards public spaces. It did not feel like it was simply down to funding or infrastructure, though that plays a part of course. It felt more cultural, a real, communal pride in keeping shared areas clean and cared for. Here in the UK, I think we can sometimes slip into more of a “someone else will sort it” mindset, where people are less inclined to clean up after themselves, either because they assume it is not their job or because it does not directly affect them. It is not meant as a dig, more an observation, and one I found myself coming back to a lot while we were away. This is not just those that come from abroad or asylum seekers as some people try to suggest- i’ve seen it from so many different types of people.

So, with all that in mind, we booked a month long trip, five weeks to be exact, at the end of December 2024 with the loose plan of scouting out different places we might want to live.

Before We Even Left

I want to be honest about something before I get into the fun bits, because it shaped the whole trip.

My khala, one of my mum’s younger sisters, was in the final stages of a couple years long battle with bowel cancer. It was an incredibly difficult time for our whole family, especially for her children. I seriously considered cancelling the trip. But I remember her telling me not to. She did not want us putting our lives on hold because of her.

We lost her about a week before we were due to fly out. It was the first time we had lost someone close to us in recent years, and it hit everyone hard, especially watching our cousins go through it at such a young age. They were so strong throughout it all, masha Allah, more patient and resilient than I think I could have been. May Allah reward them and reunite them with their mum in the hereafter.

After the funeral, we finished our last minute packing and got on the plane.

Kuala Lumpur

Jet lag, New Year’s Eve chaos, and a health scare within the first few days. Not exactly the gentle start we had pictured, but then again, when does travelling with young children ever go entirely to plan?

We slept for most of the day and headed out in the evening, taking a taxi into the main area and ended up watching the fireworks since everything was closing anyway. We watched them, then decided to walk back to our apartment because getting a taxi looked near impossible and we did not even have a local SIM card yet.

That decision turned our evening into a small ordeal. As we got onto the bridge leading back to our area, it went from busy to completely crowded, like ants on a hill. We had two little ones and a baby with us. It was hot, stuffy, and at one point people actually started pushing, and of course it had to be a few of our own Bangladeshis causing it, presumably there for work. They got told off fairly quickly. What should have taken two or three minutes to cross took well over an hour.

Once we finally got to the other side, the lift was not working, which meant navigating a lot of stairs with two strollers and three children between two adults. My husband and I had to work out logistics on the spot, who takes who down first without leaving anyone alone at the top in a crush of people. In the end, a kind Bengali stranger insisted on helping and carried Ibrahim down to the first landing, waiting there in our sight while my husband brought a stroller down, and someone else helped with the second. They were rather surprised to learn I was Bangladeshi given how badly I speak it, and even more surprised that my husband is not Bangladeshi at all. A quick thank you and we were finally back at the apartment.

Then things took a proper turn. Yousef, who was under one at the time, became unwell. Fever, a cold, a chesty cough, weak and sleepy, barely drinking his milk. We tried to just monitor him at first, hoping he would come right, following the usual advice you get in the UK, wait it out unless they are not getting better. But as the days went on he only got worse, to the point where we had to wake him up just to feed him, so we decided he needed to see a doctor. Conveniently, or perhaps not, this coincided with our flight to Penang the next day, so we weighed our options and resolved to see a doctor there as soon as we landed.

Amid all this, Kariem still took the older two out to see a bit of KL, the bird park, the Petronas Towers from the outside (we had already seen it on NYE), and a few other bits, though jet lag meant it was always later in the day than planned by the time they left.

A few more KL moments worth mentioning, because the little details are half the fun of a trip like this:

Our first mall trip was to Berjaya Times Square, where we found a fish and chip place on the lower ground floor that was safe for Leyla’s allergies. By the time we got there it was closing early as it was around new year, so it was a bit of a rush.

We tried to buy SIM cards without our passports on us, which, unsurprisingly, did not go well. My husband eventually found a local shop near our apartment the next day that sorted us out properly.

One evening we checked out Pavilion Mall and found a Five Guys, because apparently you can travel halfway across the world and still end up craving a burger. Best part is that it is halal. Afterwards we tried to get a taxi from Bukit Bintang, which was an absolute nightmare, congested and chaotic. We thought walking away from the main area would make it easier. It did not. We ended up completely lost, walking for what felt like forever with Ibrahim needing the toilet halfway through, until we finally found a taxi and got home very, very late.

Penang

ParkRoyal Resort and the Beachfront

We stayed a few days at a beachfront resort here, and this alone cost roughly the same as all our other apartments combined for the whole trip. I insisted on it partly because it fell around our anniversary and I wanted a bit of proper relaxing time.

The slightly funny, slightly sad thing is that we probably only spent about an hour actually on the beach, because Ibrahim was desperate to get back to the pool, and Leyla’s eczema was still quite bad at this point, so she could not enjoy the beach as much as she would now.

The staff were lovely and we had a wonderful time. We found a local restaurant that was safe for Leyla, ordering her lamb shank with rice, very fancy for a toddler, which the kids ended up sharing while we tried other dishes. Some mornings Kariem would nip out for a roti canai while the kids had their usual breakfast, and he would bring me back an iced coffee from Zeus, which quickly became my go to coffee shop out there.

We visited a butterfly farm nearby that also had other animals and insects, which the kids loved. We also made it to the Floating Mosque close to our hotel to pray, where we met a lovely group of elderly women from Indonesia who found our family fascinating and asked for photos with the kids. Normally I would say no to this, but I spoke with them, asked that nothing be shared online, and she assured me it was purely for her own personal memories.

George Town

Our apartment here had, you guessed it, another Zeus coffee shop underneath it. George Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it is easy to see why.

Leyla still talks about wanting to go back to Uforea, a soft play area where she got the full princess treatment: outfit, shoes, jewellery, hair, the lot. She absolutely loved it, though because of her allergies and skin condition they were understandably a bit cautious with her hair, which was quite flaky and greasy from her intensive moisturising routine. It is on the pricier side, even by British standards, which left us wondering how the average local family could afford to go regularly. That said, it was hands down the cleanest soft play I have ever set foot in. Staff were constantly tidying, refreshing and vacuuming, and you could tell how much care went into it.

We wandered the streets admiring the street art, visited Chew Jetty, a waterside village of wooden stilt houses built above the water, and prayed at Kapitan Keling Mosque, which dates back to the nineteenth century and was built by Indian traders. We did not manage to get to Penang Hill because the train was out of service while we were there, which is still a bit of a sore point on our travel bucket list.

We also explored Penang’s Little India, where Kariem picked up some halal samosas that were apparently “Michelin star” samosas, according to their stall signs at least. I did not risk trying them myself, my stomach is far too sensitive for that kind of gamble. Before the trip we had watched Mark Wiens eat Nasi Kandar in Penang, specifically at Deen Maju, so naturally we had to go ourselves. There was a good thirty minute queue, and as we neared the front, the man serving gestured for us to go straight in ahead of others. I joked it was either because Kariem looks basically white, or because we had a visible gaggle of children with us and screamed “tourist”. Either way, it was lovely. It felt like proper comfort food, curries, though nowhere near as spicy as Bengali curry. I even made Kariem do his own Mark Wiens style taste test video for the family, purely for a laugh. Nasi Kandar, if you have not had it, is essentially a pile of different dishes served over rice with various gravies poured on top.

Johor Bahru

Not far from Singapore, and unfortunately we caught it during rainy season, so it is fair to say we did not fall in love with this one.

There did not feel like a huge amount to do, if I am honest. We visited a mall where the kids enjoyed the play areas, and we could see across to Singapore, but the constant rain kept us indoors far more than we would have liked.

One evening I ordered Subway through Grab, they got the order wrong, and I paid for it with some stomach issues the next day. Thankfully it did not last long.

From here we booked a coach to Malacca, which felt like a nice change of pace and a chance to travel a bit more like the locals do. The coach itself was clean and comfortable, though getting a straight answer about whether our suitcases and strollers would be within the weight allowance was surprisingly difficult. On the day we left, a kind stranger helped Kariem get our suitcase into the terminal while he juggled all three children alone. Then, naturally, right before boarding, Ibrahim needed the toilet again, despite being asked repeatedly beforehand and already taken once. The terminal staff made it clear they could not wait, so Kariem dashed off with him while I stayed with the other two, and they made it back with seconds to spare, dragging everything onto the coach in an absolute last minute scramble. Alhamdulillah, we made it. The people on board were incredibly friendly with the kids throughout.

Malacca

Malacca has a lovely, family friendly, historic feel to it, but I will be honest, it was not our favourite.

The one large mall we visited had toilets so bad I refused to use them and held on until we got back to the apartment. Speaking of which, our first apartment there was not cleaned properly at all. Faeces on the bidet and hairs on the bed. Genuinely disgusting. We switched to a different, cleaner place fairly quickly.

I had seen so much praise for Malacca from Saira Haiyati online and desperately wanted it to live up to the hype for us. It did not, quite. I do understand the appeal and there is a certain charm to the place, but we also picked up food poisoning here, everyone except Kariem. It was horrible. We could not work out whether it was something ordered off Grab or the pre chopped fruit from the Windmill Pink Market. We had gone to see the floating market, which was not actually open, so we wandered the Pink Market instead, enjoying the little ride on cars and some fruit. In the end, a few days were lost to being stuck indoors and running to the toilet.

On the better days, we did a river tour, lovely, passing an old 1920s village, Kampung Morten, and a historic mosque, Kampung Hulu, built between 1720 and 1728. We also walked Jonker Street, which I personally think is a bit overhyped, though right at the start there is a shop where we stocked up on snacks to bring home for family, and we found a few quirky little shops for souvenirs along the way.

Shah Alam

Busy and generally nice, though our first apartment here came with an unwelcome number of cockroaches and other bugs. It was a bedsit style place, and we did not last the night before booking somewhere else. We had chosen the first one for its proximity to i-City, an entertainment plaza with rides and an evening scene for the kids, but the replacement turned out to be in a great location too.

In fact, the second apartment turned out to be our favourite of the entire trip. It was close enough to the mall that we could walk instead of relying on taxis, which had a habit of taking forever or simply cancelling on us. There was a small playground nearby as well, which the kids loved and which made leaving considerably harder than it needed to be.

While we were there, we visited Seven Skies, a private Muslim international school, as we were seriously considering it for the children if we made the move. We even had a full tour. The teachers were lovely, but after really thinking it through, we realised we still wanted to home educate, even if we were living abroad.

Putrajaya

Slightly harder to find reasonably priced accommodation here, and the apartments tend to be more family home style than modern, but everything was clean and the people were incredibly friendly.

The place we stayed felt like the kind of home you would be properly comfortable visiting as a guest of a family you knew well. It was set within a block of apartments mostly occupied by local Malay families, which was lovely to see. Out of everywhere we went, Putrajaya was probably where we felt the most at home.

It was, without question, the most family friendly place on our trip. Even something as small as the pavements made a difference, properly stroller friendly with slopes, whereas everywhere else had us lifting the stroller up steps at every turn. The Putrajaya Botanical Gardens are free to enter and have a little cafe if you fancy a drink and a bite. There was just something about the whole area, relaxed, welcoming, unhurried.

One afternoon we were sat on the grass in a park and an elderly couple settled down next to us, speaking to me in Malay because they thought I was Malay. They were incredibly sweet with the children too.

We also visited the Pink Mosque, and it really did take our breath away in person. The colours, the architecture, its position right by the water looking across to the botanical gardens, and being so close to the Prime Minister’s office complex. It felt clean, calm, and properly serene. We hired a car for the day and drove back into KL for a spot of shopping before wrapping up the trip.

Looking Back

Overall, we had a truly wonderful month, and there was a real, serious moment where we considered making the move. In the end it was not meant to be, largely because the distance from the UK made me feel too far removed from our family here.

That feeling only deepened when, just a few days after we landed back home, my nan passed away. Allah yarhamha.

It was a trip full of contrasts. Cleanliness that put many British toilets to shame in one place, faeces on a bidet in another. A princess makeover for Leyla and food poisoning for the rest of us within the same week. Strangers helping us down a packed staircase with a crying baby, and strangers helping us just as easily onto a coach with seconds to spare. That is travelling with young children for you, I suppose. Chaotic, exhausting, and somehow completely worth it.

So, over to you.

Have you been to Malaysia? What did you love most about it, and is there anywhere on this list you think we got wrong?

And if any of you are considering the same big move abroad we once were, I would love to hear how you weighed it up, and what tipped the scales for you in the end.