Kuala Lumpur & Penang, 4 Nights

A private transfer from KLIA into the city, about an hour, and check-in from early afternoon. With only two nights here, the evening is worth using: take the train or a short taxi to Merdeka Square to see the Sultan Abdul Samad Building floodlit and the blue-lit River of Life where the two rivers meet, then walk on into Chinatown and Petaling Street for dinner. Brickfields, a few minutes away, is the place for South Indian vegetarian meals.

Half an hour at Batu Caves first, enough to see the golden Murugan and to begin the climb of the rainbow stairway into the main cave temple. Then about an hour north into the Titiwangsa hills and the cable car over the rainforest canopy to Genting Highlands at around 1,800 metres, where it is cool enough for sleeves. The resort at the top is a jumble of hotels, malls, rides and a casino, all ticketed separately; the Chin Swee temple on the slope below is quieter and has a fine view.

An early transfer to the airport for the short flight north, and a driver waiting at Penang. The afternoon is a shared heritage tour of George Town. It starts at Wat Chayamangkalaram, a Thai temple with a reclining Buddha more than thirty metres long, and the Burmese Dhammikarama temple opposite. Then the clan jetties, wooden stilt villages built over the water by Chinese families, and the Street of Harmony, where Kapitan Keling Mosque, St George's Church, the Goddess of Mercy temple and Sri Mahamariamman temple stand within a short walk.

A private morning in the hills behind George Town. The funicular climbs steeply to Penang Hill, the colonial hill station at over 800 metres, where the air is cooler and the view reaches across the strait to the mainland and the Penang bridges. Below it at Air Itam, Kek Lok Si spreads up the hillside: the largest Buddhist temple complex in Malaysia, with a seven-tier pagoda mixing Chinese, Thai and Burmese styles and a bronze statue of the Goddess of Mercy reached by an inclined lift. The afternoon is free for George Town's street art and hawker food.

Breakfast, perhaps with a last plate of roti canai or dim sum from a George Town coffee shop, and then the private transfer south to Penang International Airport, around forty minutes. Onward flights to India generally connect through Kuala Lumpur or Singapore, and we plan the timings with you.