I spent a few days in Sabah state. When they joined Malaysia, they agreed on broad autonomy and other perks. But things didn't quite work out that way, and the center only selectively honors those agreements. A region with major oil reserves gets just 5% commission from oil production (the rest goes to the state-owned Petronas) and remains one of the poorest in the country.

Besides Malays, many local tribes live here. Compared to Chinese and Indians, their situation is slightly better, but they face challenges too.

The local tribes weren't always friendly though. Not so long ago, they hunted people, and a random traveler could be killed before even reaching a settlement. Only by the early 20th century did the British manage to put an end to these bloodthirsty customs.

Today, tourists are drawn to cultural villages like Mari Mari. It's all done really well: tribe members are on display, they tell you about their customs, and they even let you try traditional food and drinks. Nobody actually lives in the tribal way anymore—it's just a job people do for money. But they do capture the atmosphere well.

If you think food prices in Kuala Lumpur are a bit steep (I definitely do), here's a pro tip: on Fridays and Sundays, you can grab a completely free breakfast at a Chinese monastery called Dharma Realm Guan Yin. People online say they invite you to join a service after the meal, but either I showed up at the wrong time or something else happened—anyway, I missed it. Would've been cool to check it out though.

Volunteers cook everything and all the dishes are vegan. They claim they don't use white sugar or MSG in their cooking. The latter is a popular flavor enhancer across Asia. If you watch videos by Uncle Roger (a Malaysian Chinese guy, by the way, though he moved to the States), he's always pushing MSG because it makes food taste better.

The selection of dishes is impressive, and they were genuinely delicious. What's interesting is that some of the dishes clearly attempt to mimic meat. But this isn't some trendy modern thing—these recipes have been around for centuries.

When I was looking for housing in Kuala Lumpur, I couldn't find anything better than the Chinese quarter. I settled on the busiest street with a market. During the day, rivers of people flow through it, and closer to midnight, some vendors literally cut their stalls in half. Silence only comes around 2-3 AM. But overall it's bearable.

In Malaysia, almost 23% of the population is Chinese. The last major wave of migration consisted of those fleeing communists after the revolution, some came here thanks to the British for mining operations, and others were brought by the Dutch for various construction work back in the 17th century. Historically, Chinese people were economically better off. This was partly why, since independence in 1957, relations with Malays were not the friendliest. In 1969 it escalated to a massacre with hundreds killed (exact numbers are unclear, with estimates ranging from a few hundred to a thousand people). Thankfully, there haven't been any major violent escalations since then.

Singapore also suffered due to ethnic tensions. In the mid-1960s it was a Malaysian state. The ethnic makeup there differed from the rest of the country in favor of the Chinese, so Lee Kuan Yew was particularly active in fighting for equal rights for all citizens. He came up with the slogan Malaysia for Malaysians (not to be confused with Malays). It all ended with the federal government seeing this as a threat to its power and expelling Singapore from the country. Perhaps one of the rare cases where a region didn't want independence at all, but was forced to have it.

Today tension still exists, but mainly stays in the political realm. For example, the Malaysia slogan is present in the charter of the party representing Chinese people, and they're regularly called upon to remove it. People get along with each other reasonably well; some Chinese even speak Malay better than Chinese. But it feels like the situation is still quite fragile. One random spark could easily cause a fire.

Alright, let me tell you about Malaysia and the surrounding areas.

What really stuck with me is that in Malaysia, people voluntarily sit in freezers just for fun. I saw freezer chambers with -15°C inside in a couple of places. At the entrance, they give you warm clothes and you can sit inside until you turn blue.

For just 5 US dollars per person! Surprisingly enough, there were actually people inside doing it.

Of course, I understand that in cold countries, people came up with the idea of paying to warm up in baths and saunas. But to pay to freeze? That's something my brain has a hard time wrapping around.

Happy New Year! Wishing you peace, travels, and plenty of magic!

I unexpectedly ended up in Kuala Lumpur (can you believe it: a ticket from Istanbul and back popped up for just ~$200).

In Malaysia, they don't limit their celebrations to just the calendar New Year: they widely celebrate the Chinese, Islamic, and Tamil new years too. But everyone came out to watch the fireworks anyway.

I'd like to believe that people will continue to find ways to get along together peacefully.

Thank you for commenting, reading, and simply sticking around ❤️

I sometimes write about various cemeteries here. Let me finish my Argentine story with the most famous cemetery in Buenos Aires — Recoleta, where the city's wealthy residents were buried. Many of the crypts and tombs have their own stories, but the case of Rufina Cambasares is what stuck with me the most.

According to legend, a nineteen-year-old girl was getting ready for another social outing when she suddenly dropped dead. Three doctors diagnosed that Rufina died of a heart attack. Her relatives organized the funeral. Everything went as it should. But a few days later, cemetery workers noticed that the coffin had been moved and dents had appeared on the lid. As you can see in one of the photos, coffins aren't buried underground here, so it's easy to notice changes. Back then, people often tried to rob the graves of wealthy individuals. To make sure nothing had been stolen, they opened the coffin and allegedly found traces of the girl's unsuccessful attempts to escape. Gogol's worst fears came true in this story.

More than a hundred years have passed since then. And no one can say for certain what in this story is true and what isn't. But it's a beautiful legend. And there are many like it here.

Before the trip, I read through a bunch of discussions about safety in Buenos Aires. On the streets, I tried to stay alert and didn't flash my phone around too much. But it felt way more peaceful than what those discussions made it sound like.

I met up with a buddy who moved there a couple of years ago. He says that in all that time, nobody's ever tried to rob him, even though he doesn't live in the fanciest neighborhood. Though he did see a couple of dead bodies when he was wandering around late at night :)

There's Messi advertising all over the country. He's literally everywhere. At the airport, at store entrances—especially sports stores—and just on billboards everywhere.

PS. Turns out I left all my camera photos at home. All I've got on me is what's on my phone. I'll add some decent pictures later.

Argentine food is really good. Prices are about the same as Belgrade. But you have to get used to the menu: the local pesos are marked as $, and when they ask for $5000 for a cup of coffee, it feels weird. Though that's around 3 euros.

The coffee is excellent. Even in sketchy places it's pretty decent. Though sometimes you order an espresso and they bring an Americano instead. And they're surprised when you point out it's wrong. In places that serve real espresso, they'll warn you 10 times that it's a very small portion.

The famous steaks were sometimes just so-so. Depends on your luck. The prices are reasonable, but expectations were different. Though this place had one of the best steaks I've ever eaten. Highly recommend it.

And I really loved the empanadas. They're kind of like chebureks. Guess I got a little nostalgic.

Restaurants often bring you a bread basket and add it to the bill. Not always for reasonable money. And it doesn't matter if you actually tried the bread or not. Of course, they don't warn you about this beforehand.

At a couple of restaurants with Russian roots, you could pay with crypto. The owners claim they even pay taxes on it :)

In stores you often find condensed milk (it's very popular here). And beer in liter glass bottles. I didn't even know those existed.

Compared to the north, Argentina's southern towns look very... well, northern. There's something Nordic about it all. Reminds me of Sweden :)

Back at the start of the 20th century, these areas weren't really settled. The climate here isn't great for living. These days people only live here to make money off tourists.

I was planning to do some hiking in El Chaltén (and it's not for nothing that it's considered the hiking capital of Argentina), but honestly didn't see much of anything. There's supposed to be a massive mountain in the second-to-last photo, but it just vanished into thick fog. Guess I'll have to go back again.

While the north of Argentina is scorching hot, the south is not just cool—it's literally a glacier. Perito Moreno. Even though it's a pleasant +15°C outside, the massive chunk of snow and ice doesn't fully melt. The photo only shows the upper part. There's even more ice underwater, and it reaches all the way to the bottom.

The glacier has completely blocked the lake several times. This caused flooding on nearby farms. In 1939, the military even bombed the glacier hoping to unblock the lake, but it didn't work. Eventually, a few months later, the ice retreated and water levels returned to normal.

This is one of the most accessible glaciers in the world. For a reasonable amount of money, you can walk on it. They'll bring you by ferry, give you a guide, crampons, and explain how to walk properly. You can't go far—they only take you along the edge. For a hike several kilometers deep, they charge a lot more. I chickened out, even though I really wanted to do it.

The guide told me that in recent years the glacier has melted significantly, and the current edge is dozens of meters short of where it was a decade ago. It doesn't look like this trend will change anytime soon.

Before my trip to Argentina, I was convinced that the local Germans were mostly descendants of Nazis who fled after World War II. But that turned out to be completely wrong.

Today, the country is home to around two million ethnic Germans. More than half are descendants of immigrants from Russia. In the late 19th century, Volga Germans massively migrated to South America. They lived in isolation outside major cities, engaged in agriculture, and spoke an archaic dialect from the time they left their historical homeland. Other German settlers had trouble understanding them.

In the 1930s, a wave of opponents to the Nazi regime came from Germany. Estimates vary, but up to 50,000 people arrived—though not all were German. They settled in Buenos Aires, had little contact with their Volga-German counterparts, but actively maintained their culture and published anti-fascist newspapers in the spirit of Argentinisches Tageblatt. They sometimes published lists of war criminals who had reached the country. But there were also regime supporters here, with pro-war newspapers. It was sort of a standoff.

After World War II, up to 5,000 regime collaborators made their way into the country via rat lines. In the grand scheme of things, that wasn't much. But the anti-war wave certainly wasn't happy about it. Tensions simmered for many years, with occasional murders and assassination attempts. And not just against Germans. For example, Serbs shot at Ante Pavelić, the leader of the Croatian Ustaše, in 1957. But the assassination attempt failed, and Pavelić escaped to Spain, where he died two years later.

As it happens, I randomly stopped for a bite at a former railway station called Alemania, which inspired me to dig into this whole story.

The little towns in northern Argentina look simple but charming. It's nice to wander around here.

But here's the weirdest thing I came across—near the Argentine town of Cachi. Back in the early 2000s, a Swiss guy named Werner Jaisli started building a landing pad for UFOs. He claimed that aliens contacted him telepathically, gave him exact coordinates and construction details. They said they'd definitely come if he built the pad.

The whole thing took 10 years to build, and now it's all set to welcome guests. Trouble is, nobody's actually shown up yet. Maybe we just need to wait a bit longer.

From the ground, it's honestly hard to tell what this thing even is. But the main point is that it needs to be visible from above. From a drone, you can see it just fine.

I was really struck by the cemeteries. In northern Argentina, there are many indigenous people. That's how they do it.

You're driving down Argentina's Route 40 and you keep running into llamas, alpacas, and all kinds of vicuñas. I'm not really great at telling them apart. But they all look amazing :)

Argentina's Route 40 runs along the Andes and gets incredibly high in some spots. One point sits at almost 5,000 meters above sea level! You literally drive straight up to it. You're just a hair's breadth away from hitting that exact altitude mark, but if you walk a bit, you can actually get there. The problem is, after just 200 meters of walking, you're hit with brutal shortness of breath. It's like you've been smoking a pack of cigarettes every single day of your life and then suddenly sprinted a couple kilometers. I wasn't planning any serious hikes, but even this little walk was tough. Even the car starts performing noticeably worse at that altitude.

I spent the night in the town of San Antonio de los Cobres at 3,800 meters. That's noticeably lower than 5,000 meters, but even there, after a fifteen-minute walk before dinner, breathing was difficult. And don't even get me started on the night—I was sleeping loudly and desperately sucking in air the whole time because there just wasn't enough oxygen. By morning it got a bit easier, my body started adjusting, but you'd need to stay way longer to fully acclimatize.

Most of the route is gravel of pretty rough quality. Sometimes I could manage 80-90 km/h, but other times I had to ford rivers, like in the last photo. And that's not even the widest crossing. Still, even a basic rental Fiat Cronos could handle it.