My husband and I will be on a business trip to KL and Singapore June 1- 12, and in the middle of it we suddenly have 4-5 days free! Where should we go that's pretty close to get to from KL? Anywhere in the region is okay, we don't have to stay in Malaysia. We've been to Bali and Phuket before. Any ideas??

Thanks!

Teresa

How about Bangkok, Siem Reap, or Luang Prabang (sp)? I haven't been to any of them yet, but there are some ideas for you!

You could do Penang and Langkawi, as suggested Siem Reap, it depends how you want to spend that time, whether relaxing, beach, you could also go to Sabah, all kinds of places, there are plenty of flights, Malaysia and Air Asia have plenty of options, places like Chiang Mai, so much choice, depends really on how you want to spend those days (?)

So many choices! My one piece of advise is to choose one place - don't be tempted to do more. You can get the feel of a place in 5 days.

Several diverse suggestions:

1. Penang - stay at the E&O in historic Georgetown. I'd go back just to stay there! And hawker food is legendary. If this interests you, read my trip report from November, 2006. Do a search on Penang and it will come up.

2. Siem Reap, Cambodia for the temples at Angkor. Stunning.

3. I don't know whether you could get to Luang Prabang easily from KL or not. It's a lovely, atmospheric place.

3. Bangkok! My favorite city in the world - wonderful hotels, fabulous sights, great food, incredible shopping!

4. Kuching, Sarawak. Our time in Sarawak was much too short. It's on our list for a return trip. A charming small city, it's one of those places that make you say "I could live here."

You can see photos of all of these places at www.marlandc.com Photos may help you decide.

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'm leaning towards Penang, although my husband was there years ago. The pictures on your trip report were lovely, Kathie! We've been to Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Siem Reap, so I'll check out Sabah, Kuching and Luang Prabang. If you had to pick one of those, which one??? Sorry to be so dithering about this but my husband says I have to make a decision today!

Teresa

langkawi is quite nice and would be a total rest/hang-out experience....

I've never been to Langkawi - but believe it to be a fine place for R&R - all resorts and such stuff.

Penang is not a place to go for beaches but Georgetown is a fascinating place to wander around.

Kuching - aahh - loved it, and that's somewhere you can get a bit of beach if your idea of beach is one that is totally unoccupied and you have to walk to it.

Luang Prabang or Siem Riep - why not?

It really depends on whether you can fly there direct (hey four days is not very long).

If you can then it depends what you want. Anghor is like nothing else anywhere on the planet. Luang Prabang is nice (but if you have never been to SE Asia before you could probably make that "amazing" - it's just that I have).

Sabah is somewhere you could get the biggest variety. Kuching is interesting and you can go to Baku NP. The journey involves a trip by boat, and I am not sure if there is any lux accommo there. I stayed in a cheap n cheerful. But once there, you can swim and there are walks that take in a huge variety of different ecosystems. And yes - there is that beach with nobody on it. A rougher sort of destination.

Probably the exact opposite of Langkawi.

Your choice.

They will all be wonderful in their own way.

hi, i am just back from borneo - malaysia. you could do that. fly into kota kinabalu (KK) from KL. spend a day there. if you are keen on diving/snorkelling you can do it from KK or else take an internal flt to Sandakan and go to the wild life camps - you can get to meet the 'old man of the jungle' - the orangutan. its truly amazing.