Johor Bahru Heritage District

For years Johor Bahru's old centre was somewhere people passed through on the way to or from Singapore, and the shophouse blocks behind the Causeway were run down and half empty. That has changed over the last decade: the streets around Jalan Tan Hiok Nee and Jalan Dhoby have been restored and reoccupied by coffee shops, small galleries, bookshops and design businesses, murals have gone up on the gable ends, and the district works as a walk. The anchor is the Johor Old Chinese Temple and the Chinese Heritage Museum next to it. The mix of communities is on the streets - Chinese shophouses, Indian textile traders, Malay food stalls - and the night market and the food centre are part of it. It is compact enough to cover on foot in a morning.

What you actually see

• Restored shophouse streets - Jalan Tan Hiok Nee and the blocks around it.
• Street art on gable ends - murals through the district.
• The Chinese Heritage Museum - the five-clan story of the city's founding.
• Coffee shops and small galleries - the businesses that reoccupied the buildings.

When to go

All year; mornings for the coffee shops, evenings for the food. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Restoration is patchy - fine blocks sit next to derelict ones. Traffic and heat make walking hard by midday. It gets busy with Singaporean day-trippers at weekends.

Nearby

The Causeway, Sultan Ibrahim Building and the city centre malls are close.