It's a hot and stuffy morning in Kuala Lumpur, and I’m about to do what my mother always warned against – walk into an alley around Chinatown. When you have lived long enough in KL ...

Johor Bahru once had a reputation as a seedy town that shivered in the shadow of Singapore, its most famous neighbor just across the Johor Strait.  It seemed that way when I first visited the place ...