Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Concluding With One Of Those Longest Days And Some Irony

We are cooling our heels in the United Airlines Lounge in San Francisco Airport. As is frequently the case returning from Asia, you travel a long time (in this case around 32 hours) but end up arriving the same day as you left because of the time zone differences. 

If you been following our travels in recent years, we are still fighting to find the formula for these long distance trip returns that gives us sufficient rest so we don't get sick. I really thought we had this one figured out as we had our longest leg (9 hours) going overnight through our natural sleep period. And we were flying a really great plane, ANA's Boeing 777 which has one of the largest business class seats around. Ideal set up for reasonable sleep. 

However, fate conspired against us. During the meal service, we encountered extreme turbulence which caused the meal service to be delayed right in the middle by an hour in the middle of it. That was an hour of precious sleep lost. Then for some reason ANA wakes everyone up 2 hours before landing for breakfast. Most other airline wait until an hour or an hour and a quarter before landing. So a bit more precious sleep lost. And for scheduling reasons, we have a very long layover here for the last flight. We will see how this all plays out.

And to add that bit of irony mentioned in the title, we were looking forward to some basic Western fare at the United Club. Nope. Asian. Asian soups, Thai Curry, Chinese Stir-fry. And very mediocre versions of those. Guess will have to wait for home cooking to get our Western food fix.

Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Days Thirty Nine and Forty - A Little Lagniappe From Malaysia

On Monday, we relaxed, packed, had our last (or thought it was our last) Malaysian meal and began preparing ourselves for the long trip home. Today, we used the same service to take us back to Kuala Lumpur. They upgraded our vehicle because they had one in JB for a delivery. It was really nice with captain's chairs that reclined. Very de-I worthy 🤣. This driver drove even faster than the one taking us down. He cut 45 minutes off of the time it took to get to JB. I guess if you fail to make it on the professional auto racing circuit, you get a job with this limo company. 

We are staying again at our 'happy transit place' at the Kuala Lumpur airport, the Sama Sama Hotel. We have a very early (7:15am) departure so we wanted to eat on the early side so we could go to sleep early. We debated eating at the hotel. But it is quite expensive, at least by Malaysian standards, and is a bit pretentious compared to what we've been eating. So we decided to go to the airport itself which is a quick 5 minute golf cart ride from the hotel. There are a myriad of food options (around 20) on the land side part of the terminal. 

Wife declared she had a craving for Chicken Curry Rice one more time. So began the search. The food options are on three different floors and we checked them out...as in checking out each and every one. We found a multitude of chicken curry with noodle options, but no Chicken Curry Rice. We arrived at the very last eating place option, 

 

 A very traditional Malaysian 'diner' type of place as we'd been enjoying during our time in JB. Sure enough, on the menu was Chicken Curry Rice

 

 Wife was so happy. What a lovely little lagniappe for Malaysia to give to her.

Honestly, as much as I wanted to have another Curry Laksa or Curry Mie, my system is suffering from over eating. So I opted for something I wanted to try but hadn't ordered yet, Rojak

 

 This is basically a fruit, vegetable salad in a very thick dressing that was sweet with a chile spicy kick. It took me a while to adjust to the temperature (cold), texture (very crunchy), and flavor but ultimately, it really hit the spot for my over indulged system. I also had a last cup of great, black, Malaysian coffee

Wife then proclaimed that she wished she had ordered one of the places 'famous' egg tarts. 

 

 Which even have their own special section

 

 We ended up ordering a couple to take to our hotel room for later. 

All in all, it was a lovely, unexpected last meal for our trip and even though this was an airport restaurant, we spent no more than we'd been paying in JB (which was about 50 to 60% less than the hotel restaurant would have). We even had a nice kibitz with the buggy driver back about our meal and all we'd eaten and liked in Malaysia. 

And because you are THE MOST WONDERFUL BLOG FOLLOWERS, I offer you one last...

SIGNS OF THE WORLD

During our restaurant search, we walked past the airport police and overheard a lecture being given. Not to the police, BUT TO SOME WOULD BE CRIMINALS!

 

 Evidently these would be criminals are rather inept compared to the professional gangs of China and it has become an embarrassment.

Asia Mega Tour 2026 - MALAYSIAN GASTRONOMIC EXTRAVAGANZA

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I have had the opportunity to eat in so many of the world's great eating destinations. Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand. And I have loved them all, really loved them. But I will put Malaysia up there with them all. 

First, there is the fact that Malaysian cuisine is, in fact, a mixture of different cuisines as there is native Malay, Malayan Chinese, and Malayan Indian. When you go to the equivalent of a Malayan 'diner' you will find elements of all of these. 

But then you have the fact that Malaysia is a major tourist and business destination for people throughout East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East. So, if you are one of the many cosmopolitan cities of the country such as Kuala Lumpur, George Town, Melaka, Johor Bahru, or the tourist mecca of Langkawi, you will find great exemplars of all these other cuisines as well.

And on top of all of this is the price. Restaurant food here is so inexpensive it is almost unbelievable. Wife and I never spent more than $20 for a meal (when we were over buying to bring home the leftovers) and more often were paying $12 or less. Total. Not per person. Total. With this type of quality to value ratio, it is hard to not get excited. 

Here then is a little over a week's worth of eating in JB

 Kopi - Malaysian Coffee

Strong, Dark, Rich

 

Some kind of vegetable salad with noodles ordered by #3

 

 Salmon Belly Sashimi - a first course at a Ramen place

 

Tongatsu Style Ramen made with chicken since this is a Halal place

 

 The just barely cooked eggs were killer

Stir-Fried Noodles - Ubiquitous Everywhere

 

 An interesting dish with Mushrooms wrapped in a thin Beef Wrapper

 

 Deep Fried Chicken on a bed of Rice with a Layer of Scrambled Egg between

 

 A different type of noodle (there are so many types) with Roasted Chicken and Fried Wonton

 

 Compressed Rice Cake with Veg, Deep Fried Tofu Skin, Egg with Sambal in a Coconut Milk, Turmeric Curry

 

 Curry Laksa - Laksa is a classic Malay/Singapore noodle soup

 

 Shaved Ice with Flavorings - These were pretty tame. You can get them with all kinds of (to us) weird things

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Need your Kopi fix and are at your apartment? One cup self-brew sachets

 

 Another version of Chicken in a Curry type sauce. This had a sweet, hot edge. My waiter tried to dissuade me. Lucky for me it wasn't too spicy.

 

 Yet a different version with black pepper and sweet soy sauce

 

 Roti Telur - Breakfast of Champions

A Crepe like Pancake with an Egg cooked inside with Curry sauce, Dal, and Sambal

 

 Accompanied with a piece of Ayam Goreng - Fried Chicken

 

 Hand cut Noodles in Chicken Soup

 

Cold Cucumbers Marinated in a light Soy, Vinegar Dressing. There were a Crap load of chiles, red and green, in the dish, yet it was not that incendiary

 

 

Stir Fried Broccoli with Soy and Chiles

 

 

Classic Fried Rice (with a great Wok taste) and Chicken Dumplings that had been deep fried

 

 

Fresh Coconut Water is the Natural Electrolyte and most refreshing

 

 

Watermelon Juice that was just...Watermelon Juice

 

 

Teh Tarik - Pulled Tea 

They take tea, milk and sugar then pour it from container to container at height to create a foam

 

 

Chicken with Curry on Noodles

 

 

An Appetizer of little cups of deep fried, crispy Wonton wrappers filled with bean sprouts and a spicy dressing. Next to it is a warm dish of bean sprouts in a light soy based sauce

 

 

We went to this one restaurant in the mall near us because they had a lot of good Malay classics, was air conditioned, and open when we wanted to eat. Plus the food was very good. This is the way most restaurants put out the utensils, in a box of some kind. Those are three kinds of hot sauces on top

 

 

Hainanese Chicken Rice - A classic dish here and in Singapore

 

 

Nasi Lemak - Another classic with Rice cooked in Coconut Water

 

 

 

 Malaysians love (what to me are) weird drink combinations with various fruit components, condensed milk, etc. This was a pretty simple one.

 

 

 

 And Last but not Least, another version of Ayam Goreng

 

 

 

 Come to Malaysia and Eat!

Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Day Thirty Eight - One Last Walk Through JB

As it happens with each Eldership adventure, after all the ups and downs, the transits to and from, the good places and not so good places to stay, our time in SE Asia (Now with Special Added Australia!) is coming to a close. Yesterday Wife wanted to cover the area of downtown and old town that we'd done our first day with the 3's to be more able just photograph. 

So we took our Grab to one of the downtown malls to have our afternoon big meal at another branch of the restaurant we visited during our tour day. We also made a decision that we were going to later in the day. That put is in a good place to retrace our steps but going in the other direction. It also meant we missed the hottest part of the day. (In the post-trip navel gaze post, I will discuss our feeling that we need to change our daily life pattern when we are in the tropics like this.)

I was perusing YouTube looking for some guidance on photographic composition when I came across a piece of advice that one should know what one's focus/subject is when one shoots as the underlying guide to your composition. 🤔 I don't think I've ever done that. What did I want to capture on this last shoot? I decided I wanted to give my readers a rather real, unvarnished feel for what central JB is like. Whether I succeeded or not is not as important to me at this point as the process of trying to do it.  

So without commentary let me give you my impression of a Sunday evening going through downtown and old town Johor Bahru 

 

 

 

 BUT STILL

SIGNS OF THE WORLD

Auto Curry is one of the delights of Malay cuisine. But catching an auto to make the curry is strictly limited as many who own cars get quite upset with their being turned into a celebratory meal. You can only fish for autos in certain areas.