Most families treat Singapore and Malaysia as one trip. They are actually three different ones.

Changi's automated immigration gates clear most Indian passports in under ten minutes — have your arrival card filled before you land. The transfer into the city is around forty minutes, and the hotel around Bugis or Little India puts you within walking distance of the cultural quarters you will cover tomorrow. Tonight is one thing only.

Gardens by the Bay's OCBC Skyway gives you the Supertree canopy walk before the show. The Garden Rhapsody light and sound show at Supertree Grove runs at 7.45 pm and again at 8.45 pm and costs nothing. Stay for one, skip the second — they are identical. Be back at the hotel by ten; tomorrow starts early.

The morning goes to the three quarters: Chinatown's Buddha Tooth Relic Temple (open from 7 am, free, shoes off at the door), Little India's Sri Veeramakaliamman (the most photographed temple in Singapore, and it earns it), and Kampong Glam with the Sultan Mosque's golden dome. A guided walk through all three takes three hours and tells you why a trading port the size of Chennai somehow became the country it did. The food tour variant adds roti prata, mee goreng and curry puffs at stalls most visitors walk past.

Afternoon is the two conservatories at Gardens by the Bay: the Flower Dome first (Mediterranean plants, 23°C), then the Cloud Forest, where a 35-metre indoor waterfall drops in front of you as you walk in. Combined tickets save a few Singapore dollars over separate entry. The day ends at the SkyPark observation deck on the 57th floor of Marina Bay Sands — open until late, facing the whole lit-up bay. No pool access unless you are staying there; the deck is enough.

Book the first-entry slot for Universal Studios Singapore and walk straight to Transformers: The Ride and then the Battlestar Galactica duelling coasters before the queues build after ten. Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure soaks everyone, so save it for when nobody minds being wet. The park has a handful of vegetarian options; the Hollywood zone has a pizza counter that works. Full day, seven zones, and the children will not want to leave by five — they have to.

At five, the Mount Faber cable car across to Sentosa gives you the city skyline from the gondola. Wings of Time, the water and laser show on Siloso beach, runs at 7.40 pm and 8.40 pm — book online, it sells out on weekends. This is the day that earns the trip for the children; make sure the adults have comfortable shoes.

Check out after breakfast and cross the Tuas Second Link into Johor. Immigration is done twice — once out of Singapore, once into Malaysia — so keep passports in a top pocket, not in the bag in the boot. The drive north on the North–South Expressway to Kuala Lumpur is roughly five hours with a lunch halt at Tangkak, a town famous for nothing except being exactly halfway and having decent hawker stalls. You arrive in KL by mid-afternoon.

Drop bags and walk Bukit Bintang after dark. Jalan Alor is the food street where the tables spill onto the road and the satay and char kway teow arrive before you have finished ordering. For vegetarians, roti canai at any mamak stall here costs under RM 5 and comes with three dipping chutneys. This is also the best evening to buy the Petronas Towers entry — the slot fills up by the morning of the day you want.

Morning city tour: Merdeka Square, the Sultan Abdul Samad building opposite it (Moorish arches, a copper dome, built 1897), the National Mosque and a drive past the King's Palace gates. The tour takes about three hours and gives you the colonial layer of KL that the tower photos do not show. Lunch at a banana-leaf restaurant in Brickfields, KL's Little India, where the rice comes unlimited and costs almost nothing.

The Petronas Towers timed-entry runs you up the double-decker skybridge connecting Tower 1 and Tower 2 at the 41st and 42nd floors, and then to the observation deck on the 86th. The view at the 86th is the better one; the skybridge is the one for the photograph. Allow forty-five minutes inside. If you booked the morning slot, the afternoon is free for KLCC Park or the Suria KLCC mall.

Batu Caves is thirty minutes north of central KL and free to enter. The 272 steps are painted in different colours up the cliff face under a 43-metre golden Murugan statue — cover knees and shoulders, go before nine when the heat is still manageable, and walk into the limestone cavern where the working Hindu temple sits in a shaft of natural light. This is the moment grandparents have been waiting for since Changi.

Breakfast at 1,800 metres where the windows fog over from the inside. Then the Awana SkyWay cable car back down — the morning light on the palm plantation below is better than it was coming up. The drive to Kuala Lumpur International Airport is ninety minutes on the Karak Highway; there is usually a chocolate and pewter outlet stop on the way, which is the standard last-day routine and harmless. Keep your receipts: Indian customs allows goods up to ₹50,000 duty-free per person.