Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I love this city for the shallowest reasons; it is uber developed; it almost looks like a futuristic movie. The public transportation system is efficient, incredibly easy to use, reliable and cheap. The city is clean. And there are amazing looking buildings, such as the petronas towers along with a few gigantic mesquites. The mix of Muslim, Buddhist and Indian makes it easy to find cultural variety, and amazing food of all kinds, for uber cheap. People are nice. And they recycle. No one hassles you or harrases you to sell you things. Taxi drivers only ask you once if you need a car. They don't keep trying you just in case, out of tiredness, you will suddenly need a ride. And, at least here, most people seem to have a decent quality of life. The social and economical inequalities are not as obvious. There are people sleeping on the streets, and begging, of course. It's not a perfect place. But I haven't seen a single child working on the streets, or starving stray dogs everywhere. In comparison with a lot of south east Asia, Malaysia seems to be doing many things right. My only complaint to this city is that the smog in the air is clearly noticeable, so clearly the efforts to cut down emissions are still insufficient. But with as much visible development going on in this city, hopefully this too will improve.Lue lisää