July 16, 2006: Our day of laziness, and July 17, 2006: Going home

So James wrote and said, "When are you guys coming home?" Um... well, I guess we're home. I should really finish this blog.

Our last day in Penang. Were we productive? Did we get to see all the sights that we didn't see yesterday? Well...This is pretty much what we did after breakfast. Until 3pm. At that point, we were so tired from laying out that we decided to go back to our room to lay around. Even that got tiring, so at 5pm, we went downstairs and had spa services... again! (I know it sounds ridiculous, but it seriously costs 1/4 of how much it would cost in the states!)
By the time we got out of the spa, it was almost 8pm, so... guess what we did?? We ate! We went back to the night market that begins right at the doorstep of our hotel and worked our way down about 1/2 a km, before we came upon a huge food court/hawker stand area. PERFECT.We feasted on a meal of fresh sea bass grilled in a banana leaf, chicken vindaloo and aloo gobi, washed down by 2 huge bottles of Tiger beer. We rounded out the night by strolling through the market some more, then headed back to do some last minute packing at around midnight. Jack left his old Simple shoes in Malaysia... a little token to remember us by!
And here we are, a mere 5 hours later, checking in at the Penang airport, where we would begin our long day of travel back to California. We caught a short, hour long flight from Penang to KL, then a 31/2 hour flight from KL to Taipei, then a 12 hour flight from Taipei to L.A. where Ron picked us up in our Prius, which he now seemed very adept at driving. He even told us that he liked it so much that he also ordered one!

At 3pm, we began the drive home to Oakland, hoping to get back at 9pm or so. And we did! The trip was quite a success! Before we left, we really didn't know quite what to expect. I had never even heard of Borneo before I began looking into Malaysia. I just knew that I wanted to go somewhere in Southeast Asia that was a little more off the beaten path. Although it's becoming more of a popular destination among Europeans (we met a few Germans and some Brits as well,) Australians and other Asians like the Japanese and the Taiwanese, we didn't meet any other Americans aside from the folks in our group. Malaysia is one of those places that seems to have it all... beautiful beaches, incredible diving, great mountain climbing, jungle trekking and unique wildlife, and such an interesting mix of different cultures, religions and lifestyles all living together under one government. We didn't get to spend too much time in Malaysian peninsula, but that just means we'll have to return someday.

Thanks for reading our blog. We'll only get wordier with age!

Selamat Datang.

July 15, 2006: Penang, a whirlwind tour

A picture speaks a thousands words, so they say, so I'm not going to write very much since we've got so many photos! What a packed day! The day started off at a water village...

Then, we were off to a fruit stand, where, finally, we had the opportunity to try durian, the fruit that seemed to grow everywhere in Malaysia. It was actually pretty yummy! The smell didn't bother me that much- sort of like a mixture of strong garlic and onions, but the texture is creamy and smooth, sort of like a tangy custard. This one I thought looked like my head. The shape at least. Our next stop brought us to the Penang Butterfly Farm- an incredible, tented area where hundreds and hundreds of butterflies roamed free! Here are just a few of our many many butterfly pictures...

And there were also some incredible tropical flowers as well.

As well as other assorted creepy crawlies that we were allowed to interact with...
Next, we visited a spice village, a small, native village where spices like curry, tamarind, lemongrass, nutmeg, chilies... grew wild! But what captivated me the most wasn't the intoxicating fragrance of the spices, but the beautiful little faces that we saw. We find ourselves at a Chinese snake temple, which apparently was once filled with venomous snakes. Where are they now? Development has encroached upon the area around the temple so most of the snakes have taken off, but some still hang around...We were able to get dropped off in Georgetown, an old British settlement. After a relaxing lunch of fish n' chips and a burger in the cool air conditioned shelter of an English pub, we ventured out again into the heat and headed to Little India. Closed off between two streets, I felt like we stepped onto a sidewalk in Bombay. Beautiful, colorful shops sold trinkets, saris, and crafts. I bought a sari for 25 ringgits! Don't know about the quality, but it's very pretty. Now I just need somewhere to wear it!

Of course, we had to sample some of the local cuisine... this man here is "pulling" our chai for us- he pours it from one cup to another at a great height to mix the spices and to make the milk frothy.

We also tried a Roti Jala, a kind of lacy pancake.

We roamed Little India a little while longer, then made our way over to Chinatown where we came upon some type of a cultural heritage event at this temple. We stayed and watched a shadow puppet show being put on by some local children, then made our way over to a large mall where we'd read that there were some good hawker stands.We never quite made it to the hawker food stands, because we got sidetracked when we saw a sign advertising Japanese ramen! There is just nothing in the world more comforting than a bowl of hot, steamy ramen! By now, it was just about 10pm, and we had 30 ringgits left to get us back to the hotel. Even though there were many taxis outside waiting for customers, it proved rather difficult to find one that would take us back for that amount of money since it was a Saturday night and high traffic time on the main thoroughfare. We finally found a Chinese guy who was taking two other girls back to their university dorm and he agreed to have us split his cab. Turned out this guy had some serious issues which I won't get into, but he's the first person that I've EVER heard say, "Confuscious is stupid." Interesting. But he got us back to our hotel safely and he even seemed glad to have a listening ear.

July 14, 2006: A room with a view...

See that little bridge between the two towers? That's where we went this morning to take a glimpse of KL in the early morning haze. We lined up at 6:45 am for tickets to spend 15 minutes in the Skybridge. Crazy! And we weren't even the first people in line!Here is a picture of the beautiful lobby- deserted at 7am, but soon filled with business folks heading to work.Can you spot Jack standing in this chaotic line, waiting patiently for tickets? The skybridge probably didn't offer the best view of the city, since it was a mere 40 stories up, whereas the building itself has over 100 floors. The two towers were built in 2 years and cost about a billion each. Although both were designed by the same American architecture firm, two contractors- a Japanese and a South Korean, were hired to build each tower. I think it was intended to be sort of a competition to see who would finish first, and the South Koreans finished a little bit ahead of schedule, due to some ingenious design involving how they built the spire on top. After breakfast, we headed over to the National Islamic Arts Museum, a brand new building directly across the street from the National Mosque. I really didn't know what to expect, but I was astounded by some of the most beautiful and intricate artwork I've ever seen. The attention to detail, geometry and patterns reflects the deep devotion of the Islamic faith, and oftentimes, verses from the Qu'ran are embedded into the art itself. We saw tapestries, traditional clothing, architectural renderings, even ancient scripts dating over a thousand years old. I learned a lot about the history of Islam, how it came to spread to China, India, and other parts of Southeast Asia, and the influences it had on architecture, script, food and clothing in each of these places. I never knew that the Taj Mahal was modeled as an Islamic structure! It was all very interesting and eye opening. At 2pm, we headed back to the hotel and said goodbye to Thomas, tour guide extraordinaire! I was really sad to say goodbye, even teared up a little. For the past two weeks, this man took care of us, arranged for our comfort, taught us so much about Malaysian culture and history, patiently answered questions that he had answered before, told us silly jokes to keep us happy on long bus rides, and even bought a bottle of rice wine that he split with me and Jack! We had definitely grown very attached to him, especially after we got the chance to sit down and talk to him in Batang Ai during our first week. I'd like to think that he was sad to see us go too, but I guess this is his job and he's probably said goodbye to thousands of people. We definitely hope to keep in touch.
Jack and I got onto a plane once again and headed to Penang, the final leg of our trip. We arrived a little after 7pm and were picked up by our local guide, who took us for an hour long ride to our hotel on the northern end of the island, right on the beach! We dropped our things off in our room and went across the street in search of some grub. Once again, we ended up in a hawker stand food court! Yum! The stand advertising sizzling noodles with chicken grabbed my attention (that was the only thing they made) so we ordered one, got some dim sum from another stand, and two big bottles of Tiger beer rounded out dinner.
Afterwards, we wandered the street some more, finding ourselves in a huge night market along the beach, that just seemed to go on and on. Exhausted from our day of travel, we headed back to the hotel and crashed, excited about seeing Penang during the daytime.

July 13- From the jungle to the city... Kuala Lumpur!

This day was a little disorienting. It started off with a very early morning frenzy as we searched everywhere for Jack's wallet. Nada. We left the hotel, hoping that it was in our luggage somewhere, which was already locked up in the storage compartment of our airport shuttle. Keeping our fingers crossed, we boarded an early morning flight which brought us from the Malaysian island of Borneo, back to the peninsula, where we land in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. It was strange to suddenly be surrounded by tall buildings and so much traffic after spending two weeks in jungles, rainforests and tropical beaches. Upon reaching the airport, we rummaged through the suitcase in search of the wallet. We nearly dumped the whole thing out. There was only one place left to check. I reached my hand into the pocket that held all of my underwear and felt around. What's this? Could it be?? Success!! I triumphantly pulled my hand back out, holding the wallet up high like a trophy. Maybe it would be a good day after all! We locked our suitcase back up and sent it on the bus to our hotel. Jack and I separated from the group and took the brand new, high speed train into the city center, reducing a 1.5 hour bus ride to a mere 28 minutes!

We immediately set off in search of food (it seems like we're always hungry!) and ended up at the City Market, a large warehouse structure filled with small craft stalls and a decent sized food court. We were naturally drawn to a stall advertising claypots- buy 2 get one free! Nevermind that there was just the 2 of us, we still got a third one for free.


After spending some more time shopping for souvenirs and bargaining with the vendors, we decided to catch a bus to the Batu Caves, about 13 km outside of the city. Doesn't seem that far, but with all the traffic, it took us over an hour to get there, and gave us only about a half hour to explore them if we wanted to get back in time for our farewell dinner that evening. We went into fast forward mode and bolted out of the bus as soon as the doors opened. What a sight! The ancient limestone caves loomed before us, and a large, golden statue of a Hindu god guarded the entrance. The caves are a sacred place for the Hindus in Malaysia, and the 272 steps leading up to the entrance of the caves bring you to several temples inside.

We ran up the steps, passing the monkeys that were hanging out on the banisters, feeling our legs turn into blocks of lead (too many buffets!) and found ourselves in a hushed, mystical place, with the chanting of Hindu prayers coming from somewhere deeper inside. All too soon, we had to run back down those steps and hop into a cab to make it back to our hotel in time for dinner. Our cabbie did not seem to sense our rush, and decided to stop for gas along the way, even urging us to come out of the car and watch. It seems that cabs in Malaysia run on a mixture of compressed natural gas and regular fuel, and when we hit the highway, he proudly hit the switch and declared that we were now running on gas. Yay! We made it back to our hotel on time, but wait! Who had the suitcase key? Not me. Not him. Uh oh.
The concierge at our hotel was very kind, and a nice man with huge scissors cut of our heavy duty luggage lock (so easy!) and brought our suitcase to our room. But that was after we locked ourselves out of the room and had to go downstairs again to get an extra key so that we could get back inside to accept the suitcase that was coming from downstairs. But all's well that ends well, and this is what we saw from our window! The Petronus Towers! The tallest twin towers in the world! They used to be the tallest buildings until Taipei 101 was built a few years ago.
After dinner, we headed out again, this time to the night market in Chinatown, where we were greeted with a hustling and bustling scene. Chinese people will sell anything. We even got a new luggage lock. This one is keyless and requires only a combination.
We were excited by the vision of roasting chestnuts, but it was really too hot to get some.
And just when we thought all the excitement was over, we saw the royal motorcade go buy. "It's the King!" said Thomas, who we happened to bump into as we were stepping off of the monorail.

It made me feel quite welcome in the city.

July 12: Day of fun and pampering

Ahhh... So today was one of those days when you're on vacation that you actually think that vacation is real life and you totally forget that you have work and responsibilities and a life somewhere else in the world. We had a free day to completely enjoy our fabulous resort and spa hotel (the Magellan Sutera) in the tropical paradise of Kota Kinabalu, the capital city of the state of Sabah. We woke up late for a change and leisurely ate our breakfast at around 10am. After finishing up and arranging our room neatly so that the cleaning personnel could restore it, we headed down to the resort jetty and booked a snorkeling trip to Mandukan, a small island about 15 minutes off the coast of the mainland. Sabah supposedly has some of the most amazing marine life and is touted that Jacques Cousteau declared it some of the best diving in the world.

We headed off on a motor boat to the island and found a nice spot on the small beach. I decided to go snorkeling first, while Jack guarded our stuff. After about 15 minutes of swimming through the shallower waters and following around small schools of shiny little fish, I went back to the beach, underwhelmed. "It's alright. The water was still a little murky from the storm last night." I took my place on the beach and watched Jack as he swam way out to where the waters turned dark, to the buoys we were told not to cross. With a tip of his flippers, he dove way underneath the surface, and since he can hold his breath for a long time, I totally lost him for the next 20 minutes. Just when I was starting to get worried, he popped up and waved. "That was totally amazing! Did you see all the beautiful coral? There were the spiky ones, and the smooth ones and the ones that look like big orbs but you don't really know what they are... I think I counted about 30 different types of fish! And the water was so clear!"

What???! I totally missed all that. So I put on my snorkel mask, handed him our valuables (a watch and 40 ringgits) and went out again, this time setting my sight on the dark blue waters in the distance. What a difference! I saw big fish, little fish, red fish, blue fish! There was a purple fish that looked like it was wearing pink lipstick, and then it's counterpart pink fish wearing purple lipstick. I saw giant sea urchins and made myself hungry thinking about uni, and sea cucumbers, and reefs and reefs of pretty coral. And when I got back to the beach, there was Jack, holding a burger and 12 sticks of chicken satay! Yay! After lunch, we headed back to the dock to catch our 2 pm boat back to the resort.

We went back to the room, and reapplied our sunscreen because next on our itinerary? Jet skiing! I've never done it before but Jack has, and we booked one for half an hour. What a thrill! I started off sitting in the back and screamed my head off as Jack drove. Then we switched places and I tried steering, and since I'm really bad with figuring out how to balance and turn at the same time, we had a few hairy moments, and a few blind ones as well, as the salt water sprayed in my eyes making them sting. But it was definitely worth it! By the end of our half hour, my arm muscles were so tense from gripping the handle that I was definitely ready for my next activity... the SPA. Now this isn't just any spa. This is actually a spa that I'd heard of even before we booked our trip to Malaysia. I think I read about the Mandara spa in one of those "Asian Spa" books that I'm often drawn to in bookstores. When I entered the waiting area, I felt like I was stepping into another world, filled with tropical scents, tranquil candle glow, relaxing gamelan music and beautiful dark wood floors and furniture. My attendant led me to my very own "suite," a large, beautiful room with floor to ceiling windows on one wall exposing a lush, flowering garden, and mirrors reflecting from various parts of the room. I was seated in a rattan easy chair as she watched me drink a ginger tonic, to "stimulate my senses." I received a heavenly lemongrass foot bath, and then the best massage of my entire life. Oh my. This woman can't weigh more than 100 pounds, and yet, the strength in her fingers made it seem that at times she must have been suspended on something above me, pushing down with all her force. And yet, when I opened my eyes and peeked through the donut cushion, there were her two feet, firmly planted on the ironwood floor, next to the frosted glass bowl with a single yellow flower floating inside. I was in awe. My massage was called the "Balinese Massage," and Connie and Paul, when you guys go to Bali, you must get a massage everyday. The Balinese sure know how to do it! After an hour, she moved on to my facial and though my eyes were closed as she began spreading a luxuriant yogurt all over my face, I could hear Jack enter the room and go through everything I had just been through as he was being prepared for his massage on the table next to mine. Halfway through the facial, I was suddenly overcome with a momentary pang of sadness as I realized that this heavenly experience was drawing to a close. But then I was once again lost in the moment of having cucumber mush massaged into my face.

When it was all over (our attendants had timed our services so that we would both be finished at exactly the same time), we just looked at one another in absolute amazement. "That was the best massage I've ever had!" "Me too!" we whispered to one another. We bid farewell to our two lovely attendants and stepped out into the "real world," just in time to see the beautiful, glowing, hot pink sunset over the South China Sea. Sigh... does life get any better than this?
For dinner, we joined up with our group again and headed to yet another great Chinese seafood restaurant. This time, our meal was accompanied by a fantastic cultural dance show, and I was pulled up onto stage once again by one of the male dancers looking for audience participation to try the same dance that I had done yesterday when I was up on stage at the cultural village. This time, however, the bamboo sticks were moving so much quicker, the foot movements were a little more complex and if I didn't stay right in rhythm, I would get my feet caught between those bamboo sticks that seemed to be clapping together louder and harder as the music got faster. Through God's grace, I made it through the dance intact, and I have both ankles and pictures to prove it! It was so much fun and definitely something I think I'll try to teach my kids next year, now that I'm such an "expert." A wonderful ending to an unreal day.

July 11: Encounter with the headhunters...

Today we took the short flight back to Kota Kinabalu for a half day in the city before checking into our lodging, the Magellan Sutara Resort and Spa (more on that later). Our exploration began with a visit to the Monsopiad headhunter cultural village, where we saw skulls collected by the greatest headhunter warrior of his time. We were greeted warmly with a couple of shot glasses filled with their version of rice wine. This time, the rice wine was icy cold, so it was extra refreshing on this hot morning.
We took a peek at a collection of the skulls, which was a bit spooky. All of the skulls were suspended from the center support beam of the room.
The practice of the high priestess is quickly fading out, which is one of the reasons why the cultural village is in existence. A few years back, a team from National Geographic came to document a lot of the traditional practices... here is an example of traditional jewelery: a heavy metal piece worn around the waist by the women.
While we were there, we also learned how they still use traditional methods to make their rice wine, as well as their methods for distilling the rice wine into a more potent brandy. I tried a bit of the brandy straight from the condensation distiller. It was interesting... not too abrasive, but also not too much intrinsic flavor; just a hint of fermented rice aroma.
We were treated to a brief cultural show which included dances from three different tribal groups. La Verne and I, along with Nancy (one of the other folks in our group) went on stage to try a dance involving bamboo poles that were rhythmically snapped together near our feet... we had to step in and out of the poles without getting our feet caught! It was a lot of fun, and a bit of an adrenaline rush as the beat got faster and faster.
Outside the village, La Verne took a quick stroll along a rope bridge and took a moment to jam on the traditional instruments with Thomas... they had a pretty good beat going on. The remainder of the afternoon was spent back at our ridiculously luxurious resort, lounging by the pool. It has been an activity-packed vacation, so we enjoyed the down time immensely. We wrapped up the day with a short trip into town for dinner at a restaurant called "Little Italy." We felt the need for a little break from Asian food, and pasta hit the spot nicely. We're beginning to realize how little time we have left in Malaysia, so we'll really need to make the most of the last few days we have!