Kuala Lumpur or Yangon?

Neither city is a beach destination, and in both a swim usually means the hotel pool. Kuala Lumpur at least has Port Dickson about an hour and a half away for a warm if unremarkable sea, and Langkawi and Penang are easy to add as a separate leg. Yangon's nearest proper sand, at Chaung Tha and Ngwe Saung, is a long day's drive and needs several nights of its own.

Kuala Lumpur is the stronger city for eating. Malay, Cantonese and South Indian cooking sit side by side, mamak canteens serve roti canai through the night, and Jalan Alor and Brickfields' Little India are good places to wander and graze. There is also a polished restaurant and cocktail tier when you want one.

Yangon is more a discovery than a feast. Tea shops serve mohinga for breakfast, there is laphet thoke and there are slow-cooked Burmese curries with their spread of side dishes, and in the evening you can have skewers with draught beer on 19th Street. It rewards curious eaters, but there is little at the top end, and wine and cocktails barely feature.

Yangon has the more memorable sights. The Shwedagon Pagoda, gilded and nearly 100m tall, is one of the great religious monuments of Asia. The downtown grid around the Sule Pagoda keeps one of the region's largest sets of colonial buildings, weathered and full of atmosphere.

Kuala Lumpur's sights are younger and more mixed: the Petronas Towers, the Moorish Sultan Abdul Samad Building on Merdeka Square, Thean Hou Temple and the stairway at Batu Caves. Its clear advantage is the Islamic Arts Museum, far stronger than Yangon's modest collections. Each city is well covered in two or three days.

Kuala Lumpur has proper nights out. There are the shophouse bars of Changkat Bukit Bintang, rooftop bars facing the Petronas Towers and clubs that run into the small hours, with Bangsar for a more local evening. Drinks are heavily taxed, but there is plenty of choice.

Yangon goes to bed early. An evening means a beer station with football on the screens or a table on 19th Street, plus a few hotel and rooftop bars, and the streets are quiet well before midnight.

Kuala Lumpur has real rainforest close at hand: the jungle patch and canopy walkway by the KL Tower, the trails of the Forest Research Institute, hiking on Bukit Kiara and the cooler hill stations of Fraser's Hill and Genting. Yangon sits on flat delta land with no hills or trails nearby. The outdoors there means strolling around Kandawgyi and Inya lakes or taking a river ferry to watch delta life.

Kuala Lumpur has the stronger day out in Malacca, a UNESCO-listed port two hours south with Dutch and Portuguese buildings, Chinese shophouses and Peranakan cooking, though it makes a long day and many people stay the night. Closer in, Putrajaya's grand mosques around its lake are half an hour away, and the royal town of Klang and the hilltop fort at Kuala Selangor make shorter outings.

Yangon's main trip is Bago, two hours north by road or train, a former royal capital with the towering Shwemawdaw Pagoda and a long reclining Buddha. Getting to Twante's kilns and canals takes a ferry across the river and then a ride inland, and Kyauktan has a pagoda on an island in the river. From both cities the famous trips further out, the Cameron Highlands and the Golden Rock at Kyaiktiyo, need a night away.

Kuala Lumpur is far easier with children. The food is easy to adjust for young eaters, and there is a free splash area in the park beside the twin towers, a butterfly park in the Lake Gardens, the national zoo on the city's edge and a theme park up in the cool air of Genting Highlands. The weak points are the heat, afternoon storms and missing pavements, so most families get about by taxi.

Yangon has an old-fashioned zoo, a small amusement park and the lawns of People's Park and the lakesides, and not much more built for children. Burmese people are as warm towards children as Malaysians are, but broken pavements, disorderly traffic and relentless heat make the city a better fit for older children who enjoy temples and markets.

Kuala Lumpur has a working rail network of LRT, MRT and monorail lines plus an airport express. The trains are clean and cool, though changing lines can be awkward, and cheap ride-hailing fills the gaps. Walking is hard going beyond the centre, but the covered walkway from the Petronas Towers to Bukit Bintang helps.

Yangon has no metro, so once you leave the walkable colonial grid you are in taxis stuck in heavy traffic. Motorbikes are kept out of the centre, which makes the streets calmer than you might expect. The slow Circular Railway is worth riding for the views, not as a way to get anywhere.

Kuala Lumpur is a mall city, and a very good one. Bukit Bintang's huge centres run from luxury flagships to electronics floors, Mid Valley and Bangsar add more, and Central Market sells batik and pewter.

Yangon's shopping centres on Bogyoke Aung San Market, a colonial hall of jade, rubies, Bagan lacquerware, puppets and longyi, where bargaining is expected. It makes a good afternoon among the crafts, but for range and brands Kuala Lumpur is well ahead.

Both cities are cheap for a visitor, and Yangon is the cheaper day to day. Tea-shop breakfasts, street noodles and taxis cost very little, and most pagodas charge little or nothing. The catch is hotels, where international-standard rooms cost more than the rest of the trip would suggest.

Kuala Lumpur works the other way round. Its hotels are unusually good for the money, rooftop pools included, but meals and drinks add up faster, and heavy taxes make alcohol expensive.

Neither city is one to plan evenings around, but Kuala Lumpur has a dependable option in the Malaysian Philharmonic, which plays in its fine hall inside the Petronas Towers. It also has large productions at Istana Budaya and a small jazz circuit. Yangon offers marionette shows, classical dance with dinner at the barge-shaped Karaweik on Kandawgyi Lake and, with luck, an all-night zat pwe at a pagoda festival, but there are no concerts or theatre in the Western sense.

Kuala Lumpur is a little better for comfort. There are reflexology parlours along Bukit Bintang, Malay herbal treatments in good hotel spas, a few hammams, and the cool air of the hill stations when the city wears you down.

Yangon's massage is firmer and based on stretching. It also has something Kuala Lumpur lacks in its Buddhist meditation centres, such as Mahasi, where foreigners can practise vipassana for days or weeks. Neither city is restful in itself, so in both the calm comes from early mornings by the lakes.