And then we're home!

While it's a little sad to end traveling, in general I'm actually feeling pretty good about returning. Much moreso than I did after my last trip. Maybe part of it is that 1 month seems like a holiday, and after 3 months you've adjusted to being away all that much more, and there's more of a culture shock. But some of it is also probably that I'm just a lot more content with my home and my work and my life and lots of other things (like just being married!) compared to last time.

Our garden took off like crazy in our absence. (Lorien having installed an irrigation system shortly before the wedding presumably helped a great deal with that.) The bougainvillea (take a look back at the Malaysia pictures from the Cameron Highlands) is thriving, which is somewhat amazing considering that last year we didn't even know we had it, because it was totally surrounded by the wisteria. Speaking of wisteria, it grows like crazy. In just one month of being away it had totally climbed up the pole to the clothesline. When we moved in I concluded that the previous owners had totally neglected it, since it was so overgrown. Now I realize that it just grows and grows and grows and grows. I think I've already spent way too much of my life trimming it, and we need to maybe seriously cut it way back and try to get it a bit more under control. Our vegetables and herbs are also doing pretty good, lots of big tomato plants.

Dirk is quite happy to be home. Or at least in the general vicinity of our house, as I think it's the outdoors that he missed the most. We brought him back from a friend's place, where they were taking care of him while we were away. We let him out of his travel box, he looked around the house a little bit, and in probably less than a minute he was out the cat door and wandering around outside. Thankfully he doesn't seem too angry at us for abandoning him for month.

And we were blessed the day we got back with a gorgeous sunset.

Thanks for the good wishes we got from people while we were traveling, and we're glad that some people got some enjoyment out of this blog. We're going to keep it for a while and see how it goes. It seems like a convenient way to keep in touch with people, posting here and there about what's going on in our lives, and people can check in sometime if they're curious about what's up. In case anybody is wondering, it was incredibly easy to set up. And while the software has a few quirks and is sometimes a little bit buggy, in general it goes pretty smoothly.

another brush with royalty

Another thing we forgot to post earlier. On our first day in Kuching, we saw the Queen of Malaysia! We were walking down the street by the river, and a big motorcade came by and stopped in front of us. We walked to the other side of the street and asked what was up. Someone told us that the Queen had just arrived and was shopping in the clothing store that we were in front of. We joined the gawkers for a bit and got a glimpse of Her Highness. I mostly saw a big bouffant with a headscarf perched on top.

Later that day, we discovered that the King and Queen were in town for a festival of indigenous Borneo culture. We went to the festival, driven by the proprietor at our guest house. It was alright, a lot of speeches in Malaysians by Ministers of Culture and such, then traditional singing and dancing and a play about a native boy becoming a hero in order to win his girl's affection, with little bits of how well all the cultures in Malaysia get along.

More catchup, Japan

Here we are in the Bangkok airport about to leave Thailand for Japan. Lorien and I both still had ear infections, and we decided before boarding the plane was a good time to administer ear drops. It also gave us an excuse to lie down for a bit before the long plane ride.

We didn't really have a lot of time in Japan. Narita is not really very close by to Tokyo. Which I can understand in a crowded country like Japan, but I can't understand for example why the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia is so far from the city. So with all of the time in transit, we only really had about 5 or 6 hours I think.

Usually we're accustomed to having guidebooks, maps, and stuff like that. This time we had none of that, our only main preparation was about an hour the previous day in Bangkok where we scanned the web, and managed to get some useful information off of wikitravel.org. It helped that we had limited goals -- our one main goal was to get some good sushi. Which we did, by going as close to the source as possible, one of two places recommended that's located right in the fish market. The fish comes in in the early morning hours, and people start queuing for sushi for breakfast. We weren't there quite that early (more like 10ish AM), but we still had to wait about an hour. But it was worth it. Quite good.

Our endeavors were also helped by a few things that I remembered from my previous trip to Japan. One, that the public transit system is amazing. It really makes it clear how horrible all American public transit systems are when you see just how good it can be. The other is that so many Japanese people are so helpful, to the point sometimes of being absurd. If you're in a big city, where most of the people can speak decent English, even if you think like you look a little confused, and are staring at a map or looking around for a sign, chances are that someone will come up and ask you if you need any help, before you even have the chance to think about asking someone for help. One time we entered a subway line by heading into a stairwell that, in an unusual example of something not being organized well, put us on the wrong side of the station (with the tracks going the other way than we wanted), with us having had no other choice. Not really that big of a deal, we just had to walk down the platform, head up some stairs there, cross over the tracks, and down the other side. And we were pretty certain that we knew exactly what we were doing and I don't really think we looked confused at all. So as we're heading out of sight and climbing the stairs to get to the other side, this guy is running after us trying to catch up to us. I can't imagine what's going on, and he just wants to make sure we know what we're doing and that we're going where we want to go. And even when we get to the other side he's similing at us and pointing and making sure that we're all set.

We had wanted to walk around the gardens of the Imperial Palace, but they're closed on Mondays (and Fridays). Nevertheless, we headed to the area instead, and wandered around some other nearby gardens. By that time it was getting close to us having to head back in the direction of the airport anyway, and we were also starting to get a little bit weary, our first stage of jetlag beginning to catch up to us.

I'm glad we took the time to head in to Tokyo. It would have been nice to have more time, although you can easily spend as much in a very short amount of time in Tokyo as you can live on for probably a whole month in Southeast Asia.

Fire Play

No holiday would be complete without a little fire spinning. I just wanted to add that we found the one person on the island (Kecil, that is) with fire poi, and she let us play with them. Thus, we found everything we needed for our well being (good scuba, good food, fire poi) on the island before being struck down by the gods with ear infections. But, as they say, it's better to have played then gone to the hospital, than never to have played at all.

Another day, another round of catchup (Thailand)

Time for some more catchup. There's not really all that much left to say about the remaining parts of our honeymoon. Our short time spent in Kota Bharu had two main highlights, namely the general hospital and the night market. Not a lot of noteworthy pictures there. It was then about a 45 minute taxi ride to the border (we really weren't in the mood to deal with a public bus that day) where we got dropped off. I enjoy walking across international borders. Here's a shot leaving Malaysia

And here's a shot preparing to enter Thailand. A reasonably organized crossing, where it helps that both countries drive on the same side of the road (the left). Last visit, when we crossed from Cambodia to Thailand (also by walking, also after getting dropped off by car at the border, but driving the roads on the Cambodia side is a bit more of an adventure than in Malaysia), there's the issue that Cambodia drives on the right side and Thailand drives on the left. In this case, Thailand sort of "won". The bridge connecting the countries was left hand drive, which on the Thailand side neatly flowed into their organized highway system. On the Cambodia side it didn't really matter, because there really was no organized system of roads at the border. The bridge just ended in a pretty rundown and disorganized location, so there wasn't much of a side of the road to be driving on there period.

Our remaining time in Thailand was occupied mostly be eating, getting massages, and shopping. No, this isn't at a conventional fruit stand. All of the fruit that Lorien is standing in front of is plastic. One of the odder sights we saw at the (huge) Chatuchak [sp?] weekend market. They had replicas of I think just about all of the exotic Southeast Asian fruits you can think of: mangosteen, longhan, durian, rambutan, lychee, bitter melon, to name a few. Perhaps you're seeing the theme of the tables at our wedding by now, if you didn't before? If only we could have gone on the honeymoon before the wedding, we could have bought plastic fruit for all of the tables and used those as centerpieces instead of the labeled cards. Although I'm not sure if then anybody would have known what table they were at. Ok, maybe banana would have known.

And here's another image from the market. Ok, so we're a little obsessed with cats, perhaps.

And here's a tuk-tuk driver in Bangkok doing what they do so well, just lounging around. It's not that they're lazy, there's just way too many tuk-tuk drivers. A tuk-tuk is basically a small, open cart attached to what I think is pretty much just a motorcycle drivetrain. They've I believe outlawed the older 2-stroke models in Bangkok (or maybe that's just for new tuk-tuk's?) in favor of 4-stroke models, which is I think improving the air quality somewhat. Or maybe I'm just more used to the pollution than I wsa the first time around. Most guidebooks now recommend against using them -- if you're getting a fair fare, you can probably get just about the same price in a metered taxi; and many of the drivers (esp. in the heavily touristed areas) try to charge you way too much (it helps to know how much a comparable taxi fare would be); and if they quote you a way low fare they're probably just trying to be a tout and drag you to some place where someone else is going to try to sell you some crap you don't want. Nevertheless, we've found them quite fun. Even for about the same price, and despite sharing the same roads, they can be WAY faster than a taxi. They can squeeze past spaces that a taxi could only dream of, and tuk-tuk drivers have a pretty low respect for local traffic laws. One more word of transport advice, though, is that if you're going a long distance from north to south or vice-versa and it's during the day, the best combination of cheap, fast, and fun is to take a river taxi, and just bypass the city traffic.

Anyway, that's the next bit of catchup. More on another night.

Catch up #1 - Beach and scuba

It's been a while since I posted, so I'm not even sure if anyone is reading this anymore. But I feel like I left things a little bit unfinished, esp. since it wasn't easy to post pictures at the end, so I'm going to include a few more posts that are retroactively going back in time to the tail end of the honeymoon.

We spent a while (a bit more than a week I think) in the Perhentian Islands. On Long Beach at Pulau Perhentian Kecil (Kecil means the small island; contrasted to Besar, the big island). Long Beach is the most developed area of the small island, with the most to do, but that's really not saying much. Most of the people are on the island to dive, and there's really not much of a late night party scene. Which was fine with us. (Are we getting old?)

We did a bunch of scuba diving, with Coral Sky Divers. Sometimes the visibility was awesome, sometimes it was less than spectacular. The dive sites are very close to the islands compared to Koh Tao, where they were still fairly close. It's easy to get two dives in a day and still have plenty of other time. Our favorite dive spot was Temple of the Sea, which we ended up diving at twice.

The island has no roads. There's just a number of beaches, some connected by paths through the jungle. The only other way to get around is by boat. It's the kind of place where you can take off your shoes when you get there and keep them off for a week. Which is basically what we did, with two exceptions -- one time when we talk a walk to the other side of the island, and the other time when we decided our initial accomodations (at Panorama) weren't quite good enough, and we packed up our belongings and moved to the north end of the beach, to Moonlight.

One somewhat downside of the island was the food. There's not a lot of places to eat besides the guest houses, and they generally serve up the same monotonous variety of both Malay and Western food, but most of it not very imaginative or all that great. Although there is plenty of fresh fish (the nightly BBQ is a decent deal), and the mangos were plentiful and quite sweet and juicy. And various places seem to be able to make decent french fries, if that's what you have in mind.

We were complaining about the food to Trish, one of the divemasters at Coral Sky, and she clued us in. She recommended a place for us to go, Aziela Cafe. We had actually already been there and weren't too impressed. But the key is to not order anything that's on the menu. She gave us a bunch of recommendations for other things to order. Which is the kind of thing that we could have been able to do in Thailand, but not having enough familiarity with Malay food, we weren't really capable of doing something like that without assistance. Anyway, we went there, and kept going back repeatedly over the next few days, and tried everything she recommended, and it was all quite good. I don't understand why they don't just put the good stuff on the menu so that enough people can have it. They seem to be quite happy to make it when you ask for it. And not all travelers want crappy Western or Westernized food.

We ended up getting to be a bit friendly with the people there. I had been looking for durian (the spiky fruit with a bad reputation), but nobody had it for sale on our part of the island, since it's not something a lot of Westerners want. I had even been considering taking a boat to the village to see if I could get some myself at the market. I asked them at Aziela if they had any, and the answer was no, but they volunteered to get some for me the next time they went to the market. Which they did. And the next day, when we had the durian, we ended up eating with a bunch of other people, and sharing a bunch of dishes, and I got a bunch of people to try durian that never had had it before. It's funny -- everyone seems to have their own opinion of what it tastes like, and everyone describes it as something totally different than what everyone else says. Including brie, honey-garlic, and jackfruit. My recommendation is to definitely try it if you're traveling in Southeast Asia and get the chance. But you probably don't want to give it a go in North America -- I'll let Lorien tell you why.

As in many other places along these travels, we encountered plenty of cats. Well, more specifically, plenty of kittens. Really an overabundance of kittens, which isn't actually a good thing, if you think about it. But many of them are incredibly cute, so I couldn't resist posting at least one photo.

All in all we had a pretty good time there, the biggest downside being that we both got ear infections, which ended our diving a little bit early.

That's about all for now. I'll continue playing catchup with reportings on our journeys, and some more photos, on another night.

We're back

We're back home safely, and happy to see Dirk (the cat) again. Our plan to avoid jet lag by staying up last night until a normal hour local time was thrwarted by the fact that we then slept for something ridiculous like 15 hours.

Anyway, once we've recovered a bit and gotten things here in order we'll post some more with some of the final details, as well as a few more pics. All of our wedding and honeymoon pics will eventually be posted online, but it might take a little while for us to get around to that.

Tokyo advice?

I've probably asked for this before, but we've got a very long layover on the way back in Tokyo and our plan is to head into the city. We've got I think something like about 6 or 8 hours that we can actually be in the city. If anyone has any advice about things to do in that time, feel free to reply here and/or e-mail us. I've been to Japan before, but never Tokyo other than passing through. This is Lorien's first visit to Japan, unless you count hanging out in the Narita airport.

Heading home soon

So we've left the beach and returned to Thailand. As I was about to show you in pictures, but things don't seem to work quite right uploading pictures with IE7, and no Firefox here, so I give up. We'll have plenty more pictures later.

We did manage to get on the train that we wanted to get on. Indeed the computers magically started working again right on time as predicted.

We've been spending the past few days enjoying the familiarity of Bangkok. Between two trips and this being the transit center for various itineraries, this is actually now our fifth visit here. We've been eating, getting massages, doing some shopping, doing some more eating, etc. It's our last night here, so I won't spend too much time catching up on all of the events since my last long posts, but I'll fill in the missing gaps after we return. And get over the jet lag.

Thankfully our ear infections are improving somewhat, so hopefully the flight home won't be too bad. Or at least nothing that enough drugs can't overcome.

Oh yeah, one more little detail I was going to include in my previous post that I forgot to mention. Of all of the various (four) health care people that were in our path on our long visit to the hospital in Malaysia, they were all women. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just came as a bit of a surprise to me that that was the case in a predominantly Muslim country. (And they were all definitely Muslim, given the head scarves).

Anyway, it's getting late, and we ought to be moving along. Lorien and I have enjoyed posting during our honeymoon and we're glad to see that people are actually paying attention.

gradually on our way back

Walked across the border back into Thailand today. We're now trying to book a train ticket back to Bangkok. Not having all that much luck right now. Their excuse is that the computer is down, but I'm a little suspicious of the somewhat professional looking, preprinted sign that indicates that the computer is down. Sounds like an excuse for a mid day siesta to me.

Not content to do activities separately, Lorien has decided to join me in having an ear infection. Although hers isn't quite as serious, possibly because we recognized it and started treating it earlier, having learned a bit from my experience. We spent about 5 hours or so in a hospital in Malaysia yesterday (stupidly we forgot to bring reading material) trying to get examined by someone. I wasn't too impressed with the people that we immediately saw -- one of the things I was asking for was a painkiller stronger than ibuprofin, so she was trying to give me Motrin. I didn't have much luck convincing her that Motrin is just a brand name for ibuprofin (like Tylenol is a brand name for acetominaphen). Anyway, we finally managed to see someone that I think was a real doctor, and was knowledgeable, and spoke decent English. And I think we've both turned the corner and are on our way to recovering.

Anyway, at the train station they told us to stop by again after noon (funny how they know just when they'll stop having computer problems?), and it's a few minutes past that now, so we probably ought to get back.

We'll try to post a bit more, and maybe some more pics, if we have the luck and manage to find our way back to Bangkok one of these days.

alive and sort of well

I've sold my first born to post from the Perhentian Islands that we're still safe and sound. The islands are beautiful, and we've done some great diving and found (after looking hard some great food). Rich is suffering from a bit of an ear infection, so no more diving for him, and we'll be leaving here for Bangkok withing the next couple of days. We'll post more then.

Monkey business

As Lorien mentioned, we finally made it out of the city to Bako National Park today. We took a motorbike to get to the boat, which wasn't too bad. Once you get off of the Kuching city map, mostly just go straight, although there's one right turn. I don't know how to describe it any better than to say if you find yourself in an industrial park, the last intersection that you passed through is where you ought to have turned right. If in doubt, ask directions. One guy we asked was wearing an Ameoba shirt (Ameoba is a record store in SF, Berkeley, and LA) which was somewhat surprising. Once you get near the ferry, things are actually signed. And within the park things are signed remarkably well, which is a nice change.

There's supposed to be a bunch of wildlife within the park. We went on a bit of a long hike (which was quite a nice hike) and didn't see too much along that hike, which was minorly disappointing. But the good news is that there's a bunch of wildlife that you can practically just sit on your butt in the park headquarters and observe, and they're clearly not afraid of humans. Here are a few pictures (out of the absurd number that I snap snap snapped away) of Macaque monkeys (according to Lorien, at least, which confuses me a bit because I thought that what was supposed to be in the park was Probiscous monkeys) that we passed by, along with a few other shots from the park.

It's getting late and we have to pack to get up early tomorrow, so I don't have time to say too much more now. Hopefully we'll be able to post a bit from the islands, but we really don't know.

haircut!!!

So, the hair wasn't working out on account of the heat, humidity and rain. So I paid this nice lady 15 ringgit (about 4 US dollars) to make it go away. And a fine job she did too.

By the way, we did go to Bako National Park and had a great time. Rich will post details. I'm signing out for about a week, since I've heard that email on the Perhentian Islands is terrible.

Bako National Park (aborted)

So we tried today to head to Bako National Park, but it didn't quite work out that way. We're heading out on our way underpowered motorbike -- did I mention that the speedometer and odometer don't work, and that it doesn't have a fuel gauge? Not that the fuel gauge is broken, it just doesn't exist. Who the hell makes a gasoline powered vehicle where you can't tell how much fuel is left? (Yamaha, is the answer.)

Anyway, it starts raining a bit, and we're only marginally prepared for the rain (and I'm not sure how prepared the bike would be). The downpours here are often very hard, but very short, so we decide to pull over and wait it out (along with another bike). This one was indeed hard, but not short. At some point it let up a bit so we ran across the street to the cafe. But by the time it really started to let up a lot, it was about 2 hours later. And at that point we figured that by the time we headed to the ferry, and took the boat, and left enough time for the return trip, it just wouldn't be worth it. So we headed back into town and will try again tomorrow. (It did end up being a beautiful sunny day later on.)

We're having mixed feelings about heading over to Borneo. I think there is a lot interesting to do here, but we kind of just need to get out of Kuching. But looking at our remaining time, and how much traveling we ultimately need to do in the reverse direction, and that we don't want to cut short our time on the Perhentian Islands, we just don't have quite enough time to explore Serawak (the Malaysian province we're in on the island of Borneo) as I think we need to to give it justice.

So tomorrow we're going to try again for Bako National Park, and then the next day we're moving yet again, heading in the direction of the Perhentian Islands. (We just booked flights from Kuching to Kuala Lumphur and then from KL to Kota Bharu, which is close to where we ultimately need to be.) This ought to hopefully leave us plenty of time to relax in our final beach stop and spend enough time there that we don't feel so much like we're moving from place to place. And give us enough time to spend a little bit of time in Penang and enjoy Bangkok again before we head on home.

The Perhentian Islands sound like they're fairly undeveloped as of yet, which means that available, uncrowded, reliable, useable, and/or cheap Internet connections might be hard to come by. So we might go for quite some time without posting, and uploading any more pictures might also have to wait awhile.

Malaysia Pics 2 of 2

Just in case you need a refresher on how to use a toilet, Western style.



This should have been our cake topper. Except that it's about 6 feet tall.



A mosque in Kuching.



Us at the Great Cat statue at the city gates. This whole cat thing is a little bit weird, we know.



View from the stairwell at our guesthouse in Kuching, as sunset approaches.

Malaysia Pics 1 of 2

Finally, as promised, here are some recent pictures.

It looks like blogger only lets you upload 5 at a time, so these will be in two batches.


Bougainvillea growing in the Cameron Highlands. With the weather being similar to SF, many of the plants are familiar. We have these in our backyard.


Another shot from the Cameron Highlands.


From the top of some peak in the Cameron Highlands (I forget the name offhand, on trail 10), as the fog rolls in.


Isn't this just unbelievably cute?


At the Sunday Market in Kuching.

Malaysian ramblings (alas, sans photos)

Finally, a chance to relax a bit and post some. Things have seemed a little hectic lately, maybe just a bit too much jumping around from place to place and going on boats, buses, trains, and planes. (We seem to be covering most forms of transportation in one way or another.)

As Lorien mentioned, we're now in a guesthouse in Kuching that we really like. I'll put in a plug for it in case it's relevant to anyone reading this, it's the singgahsana lodge, see www.singgahsana.com for more details. Too new too be in the latest Lonely Planet for Malaysia, but I'm sure they'll be raving about it in the next edition. And I'll put in a negative plug for where we moved from, the Mandarin Hotel. First of all, we ended up there because we had trouble finding a room the night we got in. I suppose given that we don't plan very far in advance and aren't usually in a position to be able to make any kind of reservation, it's inevitable that it will happen sometimes. At first we thought it was because of some badminton tournament going on (there are posters advertising it around town), but in retrospect perhaps the fact that the Malaysian king and queen were in town had more to do with it (for some festival that we went to last night – and also we were browsing along the stores on the main street here by the river and a big motorcade came by and stopped, and the queen was shopping in one of the stores there).

But I digress... The hotel was kind of dingy and run down and had no common area, and we were pretty tired and wanted to sleep in and then got woken up to construction sounds at 8 something in the morning. (Although it was cheap.) So we decided to find better digs the next day, hoping to move the following day, but when we found a room available immediately we decided to just take it right away. They suggested here that we just give the old hotel our key and leave, but I felt a little bit bad about checking out way past the posted checkout time (like 8 something PM rather than noon). So I explained to the manager how we couldn't sleep because of the noise, and I offered to pay him half of the rate for the room, even though we weren't going to spend any time there that night. He starts yelling and screaming at me and keeps pointing to the list of rules with the posted checkout time. I kept telling him that we couldn't sleep and I was being generous by volunteering to pay half, but that didn't assuage his yelling and screaming. Eventually he made a counter offer (I think something like 70% of the rate) and we said fine, I just wanted to get out of there. His wife was a bit more calm and maybe she was actually amused by the goings on.

At first I was very excited about heading to a new country – new food, new language, new experiences, but it's also been a bit stressful too. Thailand had a certain familiarity to it that we certainly don't have in Malaysia. And even the first time we visited Thailand, we knew a lot more what to expect from the food. But we're adjusting a bit and I'm a bit more relaxed now. Lorien mentioned that the food is a bit of a mix of Thai and Indian – I'd add Chinese to that as well. Which somewhat reflects the diversity of races and religions here – and the people seem to make a big deal of being a multiracial and multireligious country where different people seem to live together in relative harmony.

We took the boat from Koh Tao to Chumphon, then took the overnight train to Butterworth, which is right across from the island of Penang and the city of Georgetown. We kept trying to figure out on Koh Tao how we could buy a train ticket to go further, all the way to the Cameron Highlands, but finally realized that the answer was that you couldn't, Butterworth is the end of the line. You can take another train further south, but you have to wait I think almost a full day for that, so buses become a more attractive option.

No first class train on that route (I've gotten a bit spoiled by the niceness and cheapness of first class train sleeper accomodations in Asia), but second class was actually pretty nice. Except for the somewhat drunk and somewhat loud Canadians in the same car as us. Although they were somewhat amusing too us (maybe less so to the locals that had gotten on the train earlier and were already trying to sleep), and it wasn't too long before their drunkenness caught up with them and they were soundly passed out. One of the somewhat funny lines that we remember was one of them saying, as part of this real heartfelt, in depth conversation held at a fairly loud talking volume around midnite (quiet hours are supposed to be past 10 PM) was “Travel makes you grow up” (we pegged them as being in their early twenties, traveling for a few years past high school), not realizing just how immature they were being from the contents (and volume) of their conversation. Or am I just starting to sound like a cranky old man? Ok, maybe not, since we were giggling more to them rather than getting annoyed. Although we were vaguely considering slipping some Valium in their bottle (they were still drinking on the train) to get them to shut up, but that probably would have been a really bad idea.... Don't worry, I wouldn't really do that, I want to save the Valium for myself. :)

Ok, Lorien just returned and reminded me of a funnier quote from the Canucks: “I've never been able to trust anyone, and that's why I've never found love.” They just took themselves a bit too seriously.

Anyway, something I think around mid-day we ended up in Butterworth, which was far better than the 4 AM that we had to get off the train heading to Koh Tao. We got a quick bit to eat and then were pondering what to do next. We had considered heading in to Penang for one day. It's supposed to have very good food, and at the very least I feel like I owe it to myself to have Penang curry in Penang itself. And stopping traveling would have been nice, but the hassle of finding a place for just one night only to have to move on and travel some more the next day wasn't all that enticing either. We went to the bus station to check on schedules before deciding (it's right by the train station – why do so few cities consider the convenience of that), and there was a bus that was about to leave IMMEDIATELY, so it just kind of seemed like fate, and we hopped on the bus and headed on to the Cameron highlands.

Spent a few days hiking there. We stayed at the Cameronian Inn, which I'd also in general recommend, despite their somewhat nickel and diming for trivial items (like 1 ringgit for towel rentals, and something if you wanted more toilet paper). One really good thing was the detailed maps that they had posted on the wall of the hiking trails, put together by a “Good Samaritan”. FAR better than any official map we've ever bought in this area. But they don't have any copies for sale – they really ought to do that imho, or post them online. Anyway, I took some pictures of them and I think at 4 megapixels and high quality JPEG they're fairly readable, and I'll try to post them online after this trip is done to help any other travelers. We just hiked by ourselves – they really try to push you to hire a guide, but it wasn't what we were in the mood for. The only reason why I might suggest hiring a guide is that indeed some of the trails can be a bit hard to find, but with the maps we had it wasn't too bad, although we did get lost and have to backtrack a few times. But at least the trails we were on were never that far from some road, so I'm not quite sure how you could get so totally lost as to not be able to somehow find your way back. I suppose another thing that a guide would help you with would be transportation, but both trails we took had starting points very close to town. And the second day it was beautiful weather so we took a leisurely stroll back along the roads. And the first day, after sitting at the bus station for a few minutes chatting with a local, the VERY FIRST car to come by after we decided to try to hitch picked us up. (And he refused to accept any money for the ride.) One thing I should note is that even the easy trails can be slippery after a rain (which happens often there in the late afternoon to early evening), so decent hiking boots with good treads are a good idea. I wouldn't have wanted to do either of our walks in my sandals.

Speaking of weather, it did remind me a lot of San Francisco, although somewhat warmer. I might have been freaked out by the fog rolling in when we were at the top of a peak the second day had I not seen a similar sight many times before.

For food, the Malay/Indian place Suria was really good. And we also enjoyed tea and scones at the T-Cafe, although we weren't able to sample their raved about apple pie as when we returned for some in the evening, the kitchen was closed.

Oh yeah, and we also managed to continue our massage habit in Tanah Ratah (the town we were in in the Cameron Highlands).

After a few days, we were off to Kuching, where we are now, and where we had the hotel saga of which I already spoke. Indeed the cat at the Viewpoint guest house in Koh Tao was partially responsible for us ending up here, although maybe all he was really telling us was that he was hungry. Oh, while I'm at it, one more plus I liked about Viewpoint (and Big Bubble dive shop). We've been a bit dismayed at the amount of plastic that gets consumed on our behalf while traveling, despite our attempts otherwise. Viewpoint was willing to refill water bottles from a very large bottle (although we later found out it wasn't free and actually I think cost us marginally more than buying new bottles). Even better, Big Bubble had a water filter (that also chilled the water!) and refilling was free. I wish more guest houses would do that. In the Cameron Highlands, we were able to at least buy fairly large bottles (5.5 L) and use those to refill our 1.5 L bottles, somewhat cutting down on waste.

Anyway, back to Kuching. As Lorien mentioned, a few days out of tropical weather, and coming back was a bit hard for me. But I'm feeling much better today. We rented a way underpowered motorbike (I think something like 80 cc, and I keep trying to upshift when on main roads but find myself already in the highest (third) gear) and explored around a bit, including the cat museum. You really have to be a cat person to see the point, I'd imagine.

Ok, I think I've probably exhausted all I have to say for now, and perhaps bored anyone who's still reading at the end of this really long post. And I'd like to take a shower before all of the hot water runs out. (It's not quite hot enough for a cold shower to be refreshing. I find it kind of odd that we're nearly at the summer solstice, but since we're so close to the equator, that's actually not the time when the sun is most overhead.)

I really wanted to post some pictures (we have a bunch) right now, and we just selected some highlights, but there doesn't seem to be any software on this machine that lets you resize images, only view them. I wish I were traveling with a collection of useful software for Windows (or maybe even a self contained Linux distribution) on my USB drive, but with the wedding hecticness I never got around to that. Anyway, I promise we'll try to post some pictures the next chance we get. It's just not feasible to upload the high resolution images.

more kuching

Rich is currently lost in his book "The Kite Runner" and will hopefullly post some pictures soon. Yesterday we switched from our nasty dirty budget hotel, to a really great guesthouse with a nice community feel, from which I'm writing right now. They've got games, a library, internet, daily papers, a cafe, and a rooftop bar where I may actually go and watch some World Cup hulabaloo. We are two of very few Westerners here, and in Kuching at all it seems. There are plenty of tourists, but they seem to mostly be from other places in Malaysia, and from other east asian countries like Singapore and Hong Kong. It's funny to be in a city and have passerbys get all excited to be able to say "Hello, how are you" and practice their English.

After taking our readjustment day yesterday, we rented a motorbike today and went to the Sunday market, which is supposed to be the best market in Sarawak. It was fun (although nothing compared to the Bangkok weekend market), and we ate some laksa.

http://www.sarawak.com.my/travel_features/guide/laksa.html

Then we got our cat groove on. We drove up to the cat museum which is pretty much what you'd think it is, then got some roti canai to eat, then drove around town in search of cat statues.

Tomorrow we're heading up to Bako National Park to do some hiking, and see some Borneo wildlife, hopefully.

now in Kuching

After a flurry of travel, we're now in Kuching, in Malaysian Borneo. We're here because when we were trying to decide where to go in Malaysia, a black cat came up to us and started meowing. Kuching means "cat" in malay, so here we are.

First, though, we did a couple of days in the Cameron Highlands. This area is a hill station known for growing tea and strawberries (we bought a bunch of strawberry tea as a souvenir, but then realized that we'd been bamboozled and that what we'd bought had been imported from Sri Lanka). The climate is similar to San Francisco, but about 5C warmer. They've got good fog, though, and a daily deluge in the early evening. Since it's so much cooler than the rest of the region, we did some good hiking, from which Rich will hopefully post some pictures. We punctuated our hikes with tea and scones in town, which is a facet of British colonialism that's survived in this era. It actually got Rich liking tea!

The highlands were a nice introduction to Malay culture. The country is a mix of Muslim, Chinese and Indians who all seem to get along, at least on the surface. You certainly see plenty of people from different races dining and hanging out together. Malay food seems to be Thai meets Indian, but less hot (as in piquante) than either.

Yesterday we took the bus down to Kuala Lumpur and a flight out to Borneo. We're currently trying to readjust to the heat (amazing how just a few days of normal temperatures has unacclimated us) and figure out what we want to do here besides be amused that we're in a city named "cat".

We're still alive

Sorry we haven't posted in a while, but we've spent a few long days traveling, and the last town we were in for the most part shut down at 10 PM and we never got a chance to blog before then. And the one Internet place open later than that was jammed full of people and a connection to overseas servers was basically unusable.

Anyway, we're fine, and now in Kuching, in the Malaysian part of the island of Borneo, farther down south than I've ever been (about 0.5 degrees latitude). We'll post more, and some more pictures later, but right now I'm at a single shared terminal in a coffee shop and have to go.