George Town's prewar shophouses are the picture people mean by a pretty Malaysian street. The hour after the worst heat is when they feel livable.

The covered sidewalk in front of a shophouse was a colonial rule and became the place Malaysian streets actually live.

Peranakan shophouses in George Town are some of the most decorated houses in the country. The ornament is the point, and so is the upkeep.

Malacca's Dutch squares and red riverfront are the country at its most deliberately pretty. The crowds come with the paint.

Kuala Lumpur's old railway station is Moorish, enormous, and more memorable than most of the towers around it.

Masjid Jamek sits at the confluence that gave Kuala Lumpur its name. The mosque is the pretty center of that story.

The clan jetties of George Town are wooden villages on stilts. They are picturesque because people still live there.

The Cameron Highlands are cool because they are high. The bungalows and the tea slopes are the pretty part. The towns are small.

In Little India and a dozen other streets, a Hindu temple rises out of the grocery blocks. The sacred and the errand share a wall.

Kek Lok Si is Penang's hillside Buddhist complex: pagodas, lanterns, and a view back over the island.