Nothing makes me miss Singapore more than doing an internship in an unfamiliar third-world city. In my second week now.

While Kuala Lumpur is infinitely better a city than Bangalore (7-Elevens, Kiosks and other knock-offs: how much I miss those), there are lessons learnt. For one, unlike cities like Singapore and Tokyo, with an air of predictability, cities like Kuala Lumpur and Bangalore and be very inaccessible to people unfamiliar to the city.

In Bangalore, you can’t flag down taxis (you have to call to book) and haggling with three-wheeler autorickshaw drivers is a necessity, especially if you can’t speak Kannada. Likewise in KL, though, hopefully with a fare increase, taxis in KL would be less annoying. Public transport is entirely inaccessible in Bangalore (routes information is only in Kannada), similar to KL. Driving for non-locals is not even a consideration.

Unlike Bangalore, tourism is a huge part of the KL economy – and therefore, KL has to deal with a lot more people entirely unfamiliar with the peculiarities of the city.