Malaysia...

Well, better late than never.

Here are my journal entries from my trip to Malaysia.

7/24/10
I'm on the plane, on my way from Busan to Beijing then on to Kuala Lumpar. Megan came down last night and we got to the airport without a hitch. No delays, no lines, no waits. I'm excited to see how the week unfolds. I'm looking forward to the adventure and play time.

7/24/10
I'm having one of those "HOLY SHIT" moments. Not even holy shit I'm in Korea, though I do still have those pretty often but now I'm having a holy shit I'm somewhere over or between China and Malaysia. If someone had told me six months ago that I would be living in South Korea, on a plane to Malaysia contemplating where to go next I would have told them they were crazy. It's amazing to me just how much can change in six short months, and just how quickly six months can really go by.

I've been teaching in Korea for almost five months and I love it. I love my kids, yeah some make me crazy, but at the end of the day I really do love all of them. My Korean teachers are great and I have finally started to build a relationship with my boss.

I'm going to take my TESEL/TFEL next month which will make me even more marketable in this industry. I am going to start seriously applying and looking into other jobs in the next few months. I'm still considering staying in Korea for another year but am also looking into places like Dubai, Kuwait, Egypt, UAE, and Saudi. It's amazing how many things open up when you stop being afraid of letting go and moving on.

It's time for me to start living my life 110% on my terms. It's time to play, to explore, to dance, to laugh, to flirt, to smile, to stop settling. It's time to get my ass in gear. To treat myself like a princess. To put the effort and energy that I put into other people into myself. It's time to work out. It's time to reach my goals. It's time to grow. It's time to love. It's time to take all of my attention and put it back on myself.

"Live, Laugh, Love"

7/25/10
We made it! Heather, Megan and I are on the Perhentian Islands. We are on the small island, Kecil. We got into KL late last night slept for about 4 hours then got on another plane to Kota Barhu. We took an hour taxi ride from the airport to the catch the ferry to the islands. The taxi was yet another experience of a country with no road rules. They drive on the other side of the road and it's so strange to get in a car with the steering wheel on the right side of the car. Airport security was a joke, they didn't x-ray bags, make us take off our shoes or any other "American" security measures. I guess it's a quick reminder that we aren't in the US anymore.

We took a 30 minute ferry ride from the mainland on a speedboat to the islands. The boat ride was great, but then again I'm the girl that's always happiest when I'm on the water.

We got to Coral Bay, very accurately names since the beach is covered in coral. We got unloaded and after about 30 minutes of back and forth we decided where we were going to stay for the night. We checked in at the Butterfly House and paid 80 ringgits for the night, less that $30 USD per night for all three of us. Don't get me wrong it's not the Hilton, by any means, but it's sitting on the water and as I am writing this I am sitting on the deck with my feet up on the railing listening to the water crash under me, the raid hit the coconut leaves all while sweating like crazy and getting eaten by mosquitoes.

After getting into our room and putting down our bags we quickly changed out of sweat soaked clothes into our suits and headed to the beach. As we were walking down the beach we crossed paths with a Monitor lizard that proceeded to go for a swim. This "lizard" looked like a small alligator it was so big. We dropped out stuff and headed for the water. The water was amazingly warm, like a big bath tub, for how hot and sweaty I was it would have been much more refreshing to have been a lot cooler.

After a few minutes we decided to wander and find a place to eat. We found a little place called Mama's Kitchen and sat outside and proceeded to have the worst chicken sandwich ever, they use a sauce that is basically mayo and curry powder and it was gross, but looking out over a beach in Malaysia quickly made up for it.

After lunch we headed back for nap/reading/writing time.

Funny things:
"Don't be shy...check yourself in the keys are in the door" The whiteboard sign where we stayed...they are on the honor system.

Water $3 a bottle Soda $1

"Watch out for the leeches" a sentence you don't think you will ever get to say.

"Where are you from" - Islander
"California" - Me
"Welcome to the Hotel California...such a lovely place." - Islander
"Does the hotel really exist?" - Islander


7/27/10
We spent yesterday in the water snorkeling. For the girl that is freaked out by fish I think I handled everything like a champ. We snorkeled at five or six different places and it was amazing. The visibility was great and the fish were so colorful and there were so many of them it totally blew my mind.

Yesterday morning we met a woman on the beach, we thought she was traveling alone so I started talking to her, it turned out that her husband was diving but we ran into them yesterday afternoon and ended up all hanging out. We also ran into a girl that had been on the boat with us who was traveling alone and I asked her to join us. So we all hung out for the afternoon, had dinner together and then had drinks at the "Black Tip" which happens to be the most "happening" place on the island. We also picked up a solo guy. So by the end of the night there were the three of us girls from the states, a couple from England, a girl from Norway and a guy from Sweden. It was a great night.

Black Tip was a pretty nice little beach front bar with horrible early 90's music playing all night. We had literally BUCKETS (like the buckets you use to build sand castles) of "monkey juice" which is a local whiskey and red bull. For the girl that doesn't drink much it was HORRIBLE, we we shared 4 buckets of the stuff and it was pretty toxic. We did have a lot of fun thought. It was a great night. We did have one sudden and massive downpour where about 50-60 of us ran for cover in a tiny gazebo'ish hut, it was great.

Well...off to start my next day.


7/28/10
When we left the island this morning the weather was not ideal to say the least. By the time we got back to the mainland it was pouring and we were soaked from being in the front row of the boat the entire trip back. It was great...though I was glad to have other clothes to change in to.

We caught a bus in Kota Barhu to take us to Taman Negara. Taman Negara is the oldest rain forest in the world. It was a full day on the bus, about 7 hours.

Taman Negara is an interesting place, it is a National Park and you have to have a permit to enter and you have to take a boat across a river to access it. We got there late so decided to find a place to sleep and get some dinner. While we were at dinner we met another girl that was traveling alone and ended up asking her to join us.

We decided to spend the next day together and planned out our day that night with the help of an awesome Malaysian man who is also a tour guide. His name was Ruce Lee but he told us to remember him as "Bruce Lee" and he looked just like Morgan Freeman. He ended up being a great friend and asset during out few days in Taman Negara.

We met bright and early the next day and took a boat across the river to enter the park, literally about a 20 second boat ride, but it is a way for them to monitor how many people go in and out and also a way to make money for the people in the area. Each person is charges 1 ringgit each way, which is only about .30 cents USD.

We got our permit for the park and our camera permit and headed in to do the world famous canopy walk. The canopy is a 400 meter man-made bridge that is suspended 40 meters above the ground. It is the longest canopy walk of it's kind and is something that I highly recommend doing.

After the walk we ventured back down to hike up to a look out point. The hike almost killed me at some points and the steep terrain was kicking my butt and legs. At some points ropes had been put into the trail to help people climb/crawl up the hills. The lookout was not as impressive and I had expected and after a short few minutes break we headed back down taking a different trail to look us down to the river. The trail back seemed to be the "path less taken" and we worried a few times that we were heading in the wrong direction but eventually we found the river and stripped down to take a quick afternoon swim and cool off.

We made it back to our starting point around 3pm (7 hours after we had started) and had a quick lunch and then met with Ruce Lee to set up a boat ride to take us up to an aborigine village. Taman Negara is home to the Batek people, one of Malaysia's five aboriginal groups.

These people lead a nomadic lifestyle in the forest, hunting with blowpipes and darts. They have opened up their village for tours to come through and see how they live in exchange for a portion of the profit that the tour guides make on the tours. These tours help supplement their income and the young people of their tribe show how they make fire, how to use blowpipes, and give a short history lesson.

These people reminded me a lot of the Native American's in the US and live by a simple philosophy: "take little from nature that nature alone cannot heal." There were many women and children and this was probably one of the most memorable experiences of the entire trip for me.

After taking the boat back we went back to our chalet to shower and change and then met back for dinner and a night wildlife safari. We spent 2 1/2 hours riding around in a jeep looking at the night life of the area, monkeys, wild cats, wild pigs, etc.

We shoved a lot of stuff into one day and will be on our way to Kuala Lumpar tomorrow.

7/29/10 - 7/31/10
We got on a bus early this morning and headed for KL. It was a long day on the bus and by the time we got to KL we were ready to put our stuff down and get food...we weren't sure where we were going to stay though. So we started looking around for the places in my Lonely Planet, we quickly found that some of them were just point blank sketchy and scary looking. So we came across a foreign couple and asked them if they could recommend anywhere. They took us to the place that they were staying which turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip! It was a great new place called Explorers and it was clean, cozy, great condition, amazing staff, and really reasonably priced.

We checked in and then took off to wander through China Town and find some lunch. We ended up wandering for a few hours checking out the KL Towers, and a couple of different mosques at night.

The next day we started out headed to the Batu Caves. The caves are about 7 miles north of Kuala Lumpur. They are sacred caves for the Hundu's of Malaysia. There are three main caves and many other small ones. The caves are made out of limestone and are 400 meters long and 100 meters high.

To enter the caves you first have to climb 272 stairs to enter the caves. At first I was not excited about the caves or the stairs until I got there and found that the caves are almost over run by wild monkeys.

The Batu Caves are a tourist destination in this area and the monkeys literally feed of the tourists, stealing their food and drinks, tearing their bags out of their hands and climbing up trees and on top of buildings to rummage through tourists things. The monkeys were really cool to look at but I would not want to get on their bad side. We watched them steal bags out of people's hands, drink soda straight from the cans and chase people around. I even managed to have a monkey smack my pony tail because it was moving.

The monkeys were one of the highlights of my trip.

We also went to the National Mosque and were able to put on robes and tour the building. We went to the Orchid and Hibiscus Gardens along with a few other gardens in KL.

Our time in KL was quickly coming to an end so we headed back to get our luggage and head to the airport.

All in all it was a great trip!!