Yulko Polo Travel Blog

General Info

Country: Malaysia | Language: Malay, English | Currency: MYR/RM | Flag: 🇲🇾 | When visited: Feb.-April & Nov.-Dec. 2023

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🚗 How to commute

The cheapest option to get from KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) is the bus: there are multiple operators and buses during each hour, and price will be as low as 12-15 MYR. Buses here are pretty comfortable, and arrive to the Central Station, from where one can use public transport to commute further 🚌 An alternative option is a taxi, which is more expensive and will cost 65 MYR during the daytime and a bit more during the nighttime, but make sense if you prefer comfort or travel in a group of 3-4 people. The best and cheapest way to order a taxi is to use Grab app, which one can download in advance or using the Airport Wi-Fi 🚕

🏨 Where to stay

There are multiple options available with various budgets. In general, one can find a pretty cheap, but still good place lower than 25 EUR per night.

One of popular option to stay are so-called “condo”: buildings with up to 40 floors which provide various apartments with a kitchen and basic supplies for short and long stay, as well as various amenities such as fitness hall, swimming pool, multiple common areas including small gardens, cafés, small shops, laundry services and so on.

We personally stayed multiple times in Ceylonz Suites @ Bukit Bintang which is close to Kuala Lumpur City Center (KLCC) and features a rooftop swimming pool with incredible view over the city centre including famous Menara Kuala Lumpur and Petronas Twin Tower and is in 20 minutes walk from the very city centre.

🍽️ What and where to eat

There are multiple options such as supermarkets or small convenient stores with ready to consume food, food courts in shopping malls, street markets or sometimes single small food trays, and of course cafés and restaurants of various cuisines 😋 Also, it's possible to order food for takeaway or delivery in most places.

We love Asian food of different kind as well as seafood and fruits, so we tried many various places so far!

Some highlights include:

• Shell Out – a seafood restaurant which has multiple locations around KL and also deliver their incredibly delicious seafood sets and Ala-carte dishes! It's a place with the most budget and at the same time fresh and tasty crabs as far as we know, their Delight Sets are just incredible and are more than enough for 2 people.

• Hotpot Kitchen – a Korean pace where one can self choose various ingredients including vegetables, meat, seafood, noodles and rice, as well as decide on the level of spiciness, and they will be cooked right away in 10–15 minutes. Due to various combination of multiple ingredients, one can have each time something new, but always tasty! There are multiple locations: we've been to Hotpot Kitchen in Lot 10 and Sunway Velocity malls. It's also possible to order delivery via Grab, but there you'll have limited choices to choose from.

• FWF Hotpot @ Fahrenheit is a traditional Chinese hot pot restaurant: you choose soup(s) and ingredients which you cook yourself and enjoy the meal. Incredibly fresh, tasty and fun food! And the atmosphere in this place is also really comfortable and authentic. Location: Jln Bukit Bintang, C1213-G, 55100 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur

• Gindaco – Japanese place with Takoyaki and famous fish-shape croissant Taiyaki. There are also multiple locations (we've been to Gindaco @ Pavilion) and it's also possible to order delivery via Grab.

• STREAT Thai – Thai food restaurant which we have never been to, but ordered from multiple times a week :) They provide a great variety of popular dishes such as tom yam soup, papaya or glass noodle salads, fried rice in multiple options, as well as fried or steamed fish and seafood.

• Ho Ko Hainam Kopitiam – a hainanese cafeteria with great menu for both tasty breakfast and lunch which is open till noon (14:30-15:00) and is super crowdy usually! If go here, please plan that you may wait in line up to 30 minutes before you get in and eat :) They have such a yummy Dried Chicken Curry Noodle and Curry Mee that we even couldn't make a photo and ate it right away (after 20 minutes waiting in the line)

• LOKL Coffee – a small place with international cuisine and “European” coffee, where one can have both breakfast and lunch. We used to eat here Thai Omelette with rice for breakfast and share 1 dish for 2, because it's huge and super tasty!

• Redoor Coffee Cafe one more small place for a great breakfast with tasty and inexpensive coffee. We used to eat a chicken loaf here, which is also huge, and we used to share it for 2 in the morning.

• Back factory a small bakery around the city, with fresh and yummy buns and pastry. One can both sweet as well as non-sweet buns with sausages, cheese, pandan etc. Our vafourite thing here is a Coffee-bun.

• Pavilion Food court provides a huge variety of places of various cuisine to eat for a very budget prices. The same is true for various shopping malls, which all have food streets or courts.

• Cold Storage is a supermarket where one can buy ready to eat food starting from fruit sets and ending with lunch boxes with a well-balanced food including rice / salad or vegetables / chicken or fish and many others things for a budget prices.

• FamilyMart is a cool Japanese small convenient store, where one can buy cool thing to eat starting from sweets and ice-cream to soups! We love their hokkaido cupcake, Belgium Truffle cupcake, Sofuto ice-cream of various sorts, and coffee. Triple cheese corn dog with sausage and their soups are things one need definitely try out too.

• Fruit and fresh juices shop against Timothy cafe is another favourite place of ours, where we bought the best fruits and fruit juices. Our top recommendation is Orange-Green Apple-Kedondong mixed juice, it's not just tasty, but also super healthy!

Our favourite drinks are coffee in Zus Coffee and various drinks in Happy lemon, as well as fruit juices and freshes in a small Chinese fruit shop opposite to Timothy cafe.

👀 What to do and what to see

Of course, Kuala Lumpur can provide activities and entertainment of all kinds and for different budgets. Below are just some popular and highly recommended things one can do here: * visit some popular places in the KLCC: Merdeka Square, Sultan Abdul Samad Jamek Mosque, KLCC park, Petronas Twin Tower, KL Forest Eco Park (Taman Eko-Rimba KL) with canopy walk, Menara KL, Botanical Garden KL, Batu Caves and so on. * go shopping in multiple huge malls and visit various street markets such as Petaling street Chinese market, or Jalan Alor Food street and so on. Don't go to the advertised huge tech malls, they have higher prices than “branded” tech shops in malls. * try different snacks and sweets in Donki, FamilyMart, 7 Eleven, and various small shops like KK etc. * use various services which are much cheaper here in comparison to Europe due to the cheap labour, including: – Massage (check out HealthLand especially during their weekdays Happy hours), – Haircut and scalp treatment (E3 salon near Masjid Jamek station is top, because it's an academy where young hairdressers get trained, and they pay so much attention and invest a lot of time to do a high-quality haircut with washing, massage and so on for extremely small price like 20 MYR), – beauty procedures like depilation, manicure and pedicure, facial procedures etc., * buy English books or watch movies in English for extremely low prices like 15 MYR for a book in a POPULAR bookshop and 20 MYR for a movie in TGV cinemas around the city * swim and do sport with a lovely view on the high floors in a hotel * visit other cities (such as Malacca, Cameron Highlands etc.), islands in Malaysia (such as Penang, Langkawi or Sabah) and other countries like Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam etc. enjoying the cheap flights due to the cheap fuel :)

💡 Some highlights

• as there are people of 3 cultures living together in Malaysia: Malay, Chinese, Hindu, one can enjoy all of them in 1 city. Interesting is that there are dedicated monocultural streets and districts, so just search for what you are interested in using Google search and maps, and check it out.
• due to the colonial history and people of multiple culture living together, English language is super popular and almost every one speaks English here.
• here one can enjoy really cheap delivery services (for food and grocery), taxi, public transport and flights due to the fact that country has its own Oil production.
• one need to know that they have different to Europe sockets, and adapter might be needed (though some hotels already provide sockets with USB etc.)
• we understood that no SIM card is needed even if you stay for a long time, because actually one can easily move around, connecting to various Wi-Fi from malls, restaurants, and hotels.
• it turned out that it's much cleaner and fewer insects here than we expected, and it's great!
• they have a local Coffee (Kopi) and Tea (Teh), served with a lot of sugar and condense milk traditionally, so if you want to have a coffee you get used to in Europe, you'll need to find the right place like Zus Coffee etc. to buy it.

General Info

Country: Australia | Language: English | Currency: AUD | Flag: 🇦🇺 | When visited: Nov-Dec. 2023

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🚗 How to commute

There are multiple ways to come from the airport to the city centre: taxi, bus, train. We used the quickest and simplest way: train, which costs the same as a bus. There is a single line called “Airport line” with a train coming every 10 minutes and arriving to the city within 25 minutes. One just needs to follow the sign to get to the train station and to buy there a ticket for zone 2-4 that costs 5,10 AUD per person. 🚆

🏨 Where to stay

If one want to have quick access to cafés, sightseeing, shops, bars etc. one should stay in one of the central districts such as West Perth, Northbridge or East Perth. There are multiple options of small and chain hotel, where 1 night will cost 200+ AUD for 2 guests. We stayed on the other bank of the river near the Victoria Perk district at the Metro Hotel, South Perth. This hotel belongs to a local Australia hotel chain, provides a bit more modest and cheaper than in the centre, though still comfortable rooms, with a lovely view over the Swan river and Perth downtown.

🍽️ What and where to eat

Oh, there are so many cool options from famous Australian Angus beef to seafood including prawns, scallops, and lobsters among other things 😋

Some highlights include: – Sushi HUB (multiple locations around the city and Western Australia (WA)) where one can eat great variety of supper fresh giant sushi and nigiri, as well as enjoy a sushi train 🍣 – Betty's Burgers having a special lobster burger that is incredibly tasty!

There are also all familiar fast-food chains, and some local food/coffee chains like Red Rooster, The Coffee Club etc., multiple restaurants with Australian and Asian cuisine, as well as ready to eat meal available in Woolworths supermarkets including grilled chicken, sandwiches, salads (especially they like Coleslaw and fruit salads) and so on.

👀 What to do and what to see

In the city * City centre and Elizabeth Quay area including Perth downtown, multiple small churches scattered between huge skyscrapers, The Bell tower, Supreme Court Gardens etc. * Heirisson Island Kangaroo Sanctuary – a small island on the Swan River just between the city centre and Victoria Park district, where one can see wild living kangaroos! :( we've been so stupid and haven't visited this place, even though we were passing by multiple times. We found that there are kangaroos living in the city only on our way back in a chat with a local girl... * Kings Park and Botanic Garden is an incredibly beautiful place featuring flora from all over Australia and multiple birds including parrots and cockatoos. Check here out the State War memorial, Giant Boab, Pioneer Women's memorial, DNA tower, beautiful view over the city and so on.

Not far from the city in WA * Fremantle a lovely port town with great markets street, old architecture and beaches. * Rottnest Island – a place where meme QUOKKAs live! This is one of the best destinations from Perth (via Fremantle). It's not only a place of living of lovely quokkas, but the island also provides a wide variety of flora and fauna, as well as salt lakes, stunning beaches with the best in the world infrastructure and place to see whales/dolphins etc. Other places we wanted to go, unfortunately didn't manage, but highly recommend to check out include Yanchep National Park (with Yanchep Koala Boardwalk), Yanchep Crystal Cave, Swan Valley etc.

💡 Some highlights

• If you are a smoker, it will be a thought trip :) Complications start with a restriction of 25 cigarettes allowed per person on arrival. Then smoking is allowed in a specially allocated areas only, which are sometimes really tricky to find. :) And finally, after your 25 cigarettes gone, you'll have to buy a pack for at least 31,95 AUD (crazy!) only on special counters in big supermarkets like Woolworths or Coles, as well as at a liquor store.
• Alcohol is either sold in bars or in dedicated liquor stores, and prices even for beer are pretty high.
• We were nicely surprised with the local weather: summer season just started and thought it was pretty hot (one day 34 C degrees). Sun is super strong there (with UV level up to 12!), but the cool thing is that around 4-5pm it gets much lighter and a fresh wind appears, so one can walk around with a great pleasure and comfort. In the 1st half of the day the fresh wind is also pretty common, but it is dangerous at this time: it makes it feel less hot, even though the sun exposure is really intensive, and one should always wear a sunscreen and a proper cloth as well as hat going outside for protection!

General Info

Country: Lithuania | Language: Lithuanian, Russian | Currency: EURO (EUR) | Flag: 🇱🇹 | When visited: Oct. 2023

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🚗 How to commute

The best and cheapest way to reach the city centre is by bus. The bus stop is located just opposite the main airport entrance, and there are multiple buses: #88, #1, #2 or #3G which is the quickest (ca. 15-20 minutes to the city centre) and the most frequent one. 🚌

🏨 Where to stay

We haven't been staying overnight. But if we would, we would stay at the “Grand Hotel Kempinski Vilnius”. 😀

🍽️ What and where to eat

The range of inexpensive and tasty food is huge: from ready to eat dishes in the supermarket to cafés and restaurants with local cuisine 😋

Some highlights include: – Narvesen (multiple locations around the city) where one can buy traditional for Baltic countries street food – hot dogs 🌭 – Maxima supermarkets where one can buy pastry, ready to eat salads, meat, fish, vegetable etc. The quality is great, prices are super affordable and it's tasty! 🍰

-Šnekutis (Šv. Mikolojaus g. 15, 01133 Vilnius) local pub with a great selection of the local beer and food 🍺

Of course, there are all familiar fast-food chains, and some local food/coffee chains like Vero caffee, Caif Cafe, Caffeine etc. and it is worth to notice that they have some local menu, like for example coleslaw burger in KFC or Halloween special coffee in Caffeine.

👀 What to do and what to see

• Vilnius Old Town including Town Hall Square, multiple churches and cathedrals, Gates of Dawn, Angel of Užupis, Literatų g. street and more

• Gediminas Castle Tower is worth a visit. It provides 2 amazing experiences: great viewpoint over the whole city, as well as interesting and new experience with the Funicular to the Gediminas Hill, which functions similar to an elevator! It costs just 1EUR, and one need to try it out for sure 😀

• Historical architectural ensemble, including Vilnius Cathedral, Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania and some monuments around.

• Baltasis tiltas bridge and area around on both river banks.

• Lukiškės Square and area around including Interactive Fountains, Church of Apostles St. Philip and St. Jacob, Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Vilnius District Court, Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights and so on.

💡 Some highlights

• It turned out that #1 foreign language there is Russian, so almost all people there speak Russian (or at least understand it).
• The city provides a captivating mixture of historical epochs: one can see a lot of Soviet Union buildings, from houses till Museums, which co-exist in harmony with old buildings common for European cities.
• In general, so many things around remind about Soviet Union: from sweets in supermarkets to buildings and public transport such as old trolleybuses.
• Tasty food, pretty inexpensive products, and a lot of familiar food in supermarkets and cafés from our childhood :)