This summer, my friend Rosio and I traveled around the world in two weeks, stopping in eight destinations, and in each place we tried to see and do as much as possible. There’s no way I could share everything we did in those two weeks, but here are a lot of the highlights! Even the highlights turned out to be crazy long, so I’ve split the post and this is part two of the activities recap, covering Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Maldives, and Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong. The first half of the trip is located here.
If you’d like to see more about the hotels we stayed at and how we got around to the different locations, check out the transportation post and the lodging post.
Singapore
Looking back at everything we did in Singapore, it feels like we lived several days, when in fact it was only one. We landed in the morning and left after breakfast the next day. Somewhere in the midst of it all I snapped one of my favorite photos of the whole trip, as we were walking from the Gardens by the Bay to grab a rooftop drink at Marina Bay Sands.
National Museum of Singapore
We started off with a walk through the city to the National Museum of Singapore, where we spent a thoroughly enjoyable few hours wandering the beautiful building that houses the museum. They had some pretty neat exhibits on display, like the immersive digital art installation in the Glass Rotunda, Story of the Forest. This could have easily absorbed most of a day!
Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple
We visited a beautiful temple dedicated to the Hindu goddess Kali, and we happened to be there during one of the prayer sessions run exclusively by women. It’s one of the oldest temples in Singapore and is located in Little India, where Indian culture can be seen everywhere you turn for blocks on end. This isn’t my religion, but this temple was such a welcoming, positive, and peaceful place to simply exist and reflect, so I’m glad we were able to experience it in the presence of so many other women.
Haji Lane
We went to check out this adorably vibrant and narrow street that’s home to all sorts of funky shops, hip cafes, and beautiful mural art. There was a gorgeous mosque around the corner and then huge skyscrapers further on – I think one of my favorite parts of Singapore was how dramatically different the vibe could be after walking a short distance. Hanging out on Haji Lane was a cool way to spend some time before heading back to our hotel for complimentary afternoon snacks and to kick it in the infinity pool.
Gardens by the Bay
The Gardens by the Bay is probably the most recognizably Singapore destination I can think of, and it didn’t disappoint. We made it just in time to visit the Cloud Forest (my phone apparently decided to overwrite most of my photos of this) and to catch the light show in the Supertree Grove.
Kuala Lumpur
KL is one destination that’s an awesome visit whether you’re there for two days or two weeks. I think we made some good choices about what to see, though I do wish we’d realized the need to book a trip to the top of the Petronas Towers in advance. Even so, we found plenty to explore.
It was also really hard not to buy everything in sight – due to the favorable exchange rate from USD, there was very little that wasn’t affordable. It was a strange feeling.
Batu Caves
It didn’t occur to me that getting to these caves would mean climbing halfway to infinity. It was a LOT, but I’m glad we went. The scale was just incredible. We also opted for a cave tour about halfway up. I have a slight phobia of spiders so walking into a lightless cave and being told that we were essentially surrounded by spiders was quite the experience. Spiders aside, it was a really cool tour that I’m positive I would not have opted into had I more adequately read the brochure in advance, so score one for spontaneity.
Central Market
The Central Market was a cacophony of colors, sounds, and smells. There were beautiful fabrics everywhere, detailed carvings, delicious foods, and everyone wanted to bargain. I escaped without buying too much, but it was a struggle. It did help to know that I only had a tiny carry-on bag and I still had three more cities to go to.
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Petronas Towers
We didn’t get around to a complete read of the KL guidebook until we arrived, so we missed out on going to the top of these towers, but they looked amazing from the outside anyway.
Jalan Alor in Bukit Bintang
I adore food markets and this one delivered as promised. There was soooo much delicious food and none of it was more than a handful of dollars. I had tons of dim sum and an enormous grilled clam that was one of my better life choices.
Zeta Bar
While we were out exploring, my friend Ervin messaged me asking how I could be walking around his city without hitting him up. I’d completely forgotten he was living there, and this is why I usually make it a point to post my whereabouts on social media – someone always lets me know when I’ve overlooked them. As it turned out, our hotel was next door to one of Erv’s favorite nightlife spots, so we joined him for some live music and good drinks before heading off to Maldives early the next morning.
Maldives
Our time in Maldives was all about rest, relaxation, and luxury as we celebrated Rosio’s birthday in style. It was pure resort life, so we took a break from exploration and spent two days getting massages, swimming, snorkeling, eating, and posing for all of the pictures!
We were greeted with fresh coconuts, and we knew the next few days would be perfect.
Snorkeling
We had signed up for a sandbank picnic excursion, but the weather was too iffy to run it so we went snorkeling instead. It was pretty exhilarating, and Rosio found herself swimming with a shark. I think she handled it much better than I would have. And, we were able to rent a GoPro from the hotel to work on our underwater photography skills.
Photo Shoot
Our stay came with a free 30-minute photoshoot that wound up being (unsurprisingly) expensive because the photographer was great and we liked all the photos. But no regrets! Because now I’ve got fabulous photos for daysssss!
#livingourbestlives
Colombo
Colombo, Sri Lanka was only in our itinerary because we weren’t quick enough to snag Cathay Pacific business class seats directly out of Maldives, and Sri Lanka was inexpensive to get to, inexpensive to be in, and had plenty of availability for our flight. This stop turned out to be an unexpected bonus, though, because the more we walked around the more thankful I was that we had the opportunity to visit. And it was equal parts fun and harrowing darting around the city in tiny open-air three-wheelers.
Gangaramaya Buddhist Temple
Gangaramaya is a massive Buddhist temple in Colombo and none of my photos adequately convey the scale of the structure or the sheer volume of items housed within. It’s so big that there’s a massive holy Bodhi Tree growing inside. We hired our three-wheeler driver, Milton, to drive us to the temple and then negotiated a fee for him to take us around for a few hours, and he graciously decided to help us navigate our temple visit while explaining the significance of some of the sculptures and objects we saw.
Rice & Curries
When we asked Milton what we should eat for a typical meal in Sri Lanka, and had the following exchange:
Can you take us to eat a Sri Lankan breakfast?
Milton: I’ll take you to McDonald’s
Noooo, take us to what you eat for your first meal of the day, what do YOU eat?
Milton: Rice and Curry
And then what do you eat for your second meal?
Milton: Rice and Curry
And then for your third meal?
Milton: Bread
We were pretty sure he was joking with us about the third meal, but it was decided that we should be taken to experience Sri Lankan rice & curries. It was absolutely delicious, one of the most memorable meals of the trip, and everything pictured below came to less than $5 USD.
Pettah Market
For our last hours in Colombo I went exploring on my own to see what the Pettah Market had to offer. I’m still not 100% sure that I ended up at Pettah market specifically (I think there might have been several markets in close proximity), but I spent an hour or two walking around a sprawling, chaotic market that went on for blocks and blocks and spilled out of the stores into the sidewalks and alleys. I love to check out the markets wherever I travel, but the size of this one was completely overwhelming, so much so that the only thing I bought was a piece of fruit to eat as I walked.
t-Lounge by Dilmah
Sri Lanka is one of the top producers of tea worldwide in both quantity and quality. There are several tea estates that you can visit to learn about the tea-making process, but there weren’t any located conveniently enough for our time limitations, so we decided on a tea lounge instead. The t-Lounge by Dilmah had a huge variety of teas on the menu, many of which I’d never heard of and are specific to the region. We visited the location near Independence Square and passes a nice afternoon with excellent tea and yummy snacks.
Hong Kong
After showering and eating in the arrivals lounge in Hong Kong, we were ready to see what the city had to offer during our 8-hour layover. Hong Kong is an incredibly dense city, and I appreciated the deliberate efforts that had obviously been made to include lots of green spaces in such a hugely built city.
We caught the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbour over to the fashionable Tsim Sha Tsui shopping district in Kowloon. The Star Ferry was fleet is made up of the cutest old fashioned boats that only cost about 35 cents for the 10-15 minute ride across the harbor (you can also take the metro across – and we did take it back – but how could you miss out on this view?!). I love old boats so even though this was a short ride I had a lot to be excited about.
Kowloon Park
We wandered into this huge urban park on level with the skyscrapers before catching the metro back to Central Hong Kong to explore some of the huge pedestrian bridges, do some intensive souvenir shopping, and to pay a visit to a dim sum spot we’d read about.
Tim Ho Wan
Tim Ho Wan is a casual dim sum food chain that’s had a few of its locations earn a Michelin star, so we had to check it out! I’m pretty sure the location we went to (in Central Station) wasn’t one of the ones that’s Michelin starred, but regardless, the food was on point! A friend of mine told me that, despite the star, the Tim Ho Wan dim sum is not the absolute best we could have found in Hong Kong. He’s probably right – there was amazing food to be had at every turn – but my experience here was solid enough that if I ever see another one you’ll know where to find me!
They had these baked pork buns (the biscuit-looking things pictured below) that were absolutely amazing. I lack the adjectives to convey the levels of amazingness that happened here. Rosio and I have a solid friendship, but if we weren’t so used to sharing food the presence of only three pork buns between us might have caused an issue lol.
Then there’s the fact that we got to try all these foods for about $17 USD! Total. For both of us. #winning
#randsworldtour18
We headed home exhilarated, so full of new experiences that I’m still kind of processing everything. It was truly an amazing vacation, and most of it would have been impossible to do without harnessing the power of award travel. It was a lot of work to plan – we booked the first flight (Frankfurt to Singapore) nearly 10 months before we left, and we didn’t wrap up the bulk of planning until about 8 months later – but I think it was completely worth the effort. Thanks for following along, and check out our hashtag on Instagram if you haven’t already. 😊
