This post is looooong overdue, but if you follow me on Instagram, you’re already aware that back in April I traveled to Southeast Asia with 20+ of my med school classmates before graduation. Our main destinations were Bali, Indonesia and Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. My travel partner and I had two layovers in Shanghai, China for a total of 34 hours, so I count China as one of my stops lol.

I’d never been to the “far east”, so everything was super new, exciting and fresh to me.

SHANGHAI, CHINA

We spent much of our layover exploring Nanjing Road, the main shopping street in Shanghai. We then went to the Bund waterfront to admire the unique skyscrapers of the Pudong District. We also got a chance to visit Yu Gardens.

BALI, INDONESIA

Bali was beautiful. My camera couldn’t perfectly capture what I saw with my eyes. Stops included Ubud Traditional Art Market, Tegalalang Rice Terrace, the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary, lunch overlooking the Mt Batur Volcano, Kopi Luwak Coffee Farm, Titra Empul temple, Lake Beratan, Secret Garden Village (with a dope swing overlooking the jungle), Handara Gate, and Nusa Penida Island to name a few.

You can book tours online for relatively cheap or you can hire a driver for the day who will take you anywhere you want to go. The latter is probably the cheapest option, but if you just want to go along with an itinerary then the guided tours are also cool too. I did both when I was there.

Use the Gojek app to get around and order food (like Uber and Uber Eats).

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA

The last leg of our trip was spent in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. While there we shopped, visited the Petronas Twin towers, and the Batu Caves. The star of the show was really our AirBnB’s rooftop pool overlooking the KL Tower.