Return to the Online World
Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Oh my, it has been a long time since my last blog. It's been very nice having Gunga guest blog our adventures through Cambodia, S. Thailand and Taman Negara. Our short but interesting visit to Cambodia opened our eyes to the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge in the late 70s. As young children during that time, we were completely unaware of the atrocity that was happening to the men, women and children of this small country. However, visiting the killing fields and prison museum really opened our eyes to the tragedy that has happened, and reminds us that life is unpredictable, and unprotectable. It was certainly a lesson in history, and of mankind. In the Angkor area, we see a different side of Cambodia. Beautiful temples of various sizes and shapes, not only were we in awe to be seeing them in person, we could only imagine how beautiful and spectacular these must have been when they were built, and used. Angkor Wat is as amazing as Discovery Channel shows it to be :) Try and visit this area if you can soon, as many buildings are beginning (if not already) to be overtaken by nature.

In Southern Thailand, we got to really relax and spend quality time with our good friends from home. Beach, clear warm water and good food, all of us had a great time. Camping out on Ko Rok Island was neat, but by far the hottest night we've ever encountered. Imagine sleeping in a sauna; that's what the tent was like. Other than that, amazing snorkelling out there.

Here we are now in Malaysia, country of my childhood. I just have 2 words for Taman Negara: bed bugs!!! Itchy buggers, I am covered with them, though I think now that it's a week later, the itch is finally slowly tapering off. ARGH!! It has been very embarrassing explaining to strangers and relatives what happened to my arms. People are quite shocked to see the many bumps covering both arms, my face, neck and legs. Not fun. It certainly was neat to see the oldest rainforest in the world, however, next time, I'll be voting to stay at the nice chalet. I'm sure Gunga would prefer not to see too many big bugs either.

Thank you so much Aunty Maria and cousin Paul (Winston's side) for taking such good care of us when we were in KL. We truly appreciated Aunty Maria's food, and Paul driving us just about everywhere. Gunga mentioned that we met up with my friend Maria (yes, same name as aunty), aka Shuk Sian. She, along with Evelyn (Ho Yee Phing) and I were classmates from grade 1-6 at the St. Agnes Primary School in KK. It was a ball hanging out with them, and a treat to see Evelyn, whom I haven't seen since we graduated from primary school 20 years ago.

Gunga's last day in KL (Valentine's Day), Paul took us up to KL Tower. It was fascinating to have a 360 degree view of the city. The observation deck is 263m high, the 3rd highest telcom tower in the world (if I remember correctly). We were lucky to have a clear day, and enjoyed seeing the Petronas Twin Towers (no longer the tallest building in the world) as well as the rest of the sky scrapers in this busy capital city. Gunga had planned to take the express sky train to the airport, but traffic was terrible that day so Paul drove him all the way to the airport. After saying goodbye to our travelmate for the past month (sob), we ate lunch at the airport before heading back to the city. We ended up visiting the computer shops and picked up a few things here and there :)

In the evening, Paul took us to an area known as MontKiara, and we had splendid sushi. There is a Japanese school in the area, thus many of the restaurants and shops there catered to the Japanese expats. It is really quite a trendy area. The restaurant was quite busy when we got there, so while waiting for our table, Winston got a haircut by Indian barbers. It turned out quite well (you'll have to judge for yourself on the photos).

The following day, Amy and Wei Siong and baby Rachael came by to grandma's house. They brought us chow kuay teow (very yummy). In the afternoon, Winston and I went to visit my cousin Catherine (San San), whom I haven't seen in 18 years. Now she is married, and a mother of four beautiful children (the youngest is only 4 months old). I sure had fun being aunty and playing with them. Ah San and her sister, Kin Kin, were my mates when they lived in KK (during my earlier years). I have very fond memories of sleepovers at their home on the weekends.

That evening, we enjoyed dinner at Aunty Maria's. Amy and family were there the whole night, so we got to catch up over dinner. Rachael is a cute and big 6 month old baby. She smiles a lot, and we think she's ready to start crawling anytime soon. Oh, I forgot to mention Aunty Maria's two dogs: Sasha and Pichu (not sure how to spell it). Sasha is a shih tzu who barks and growl at anyone new who enters the house. She wears a ribbon on her head, and has lower teeth that stick out (everytime I see her, I think she needs braces). She nipped at my ankle the first night I was there, but by the time we were leaving, she was already laying on my lap. Pichu is a chihuahua (I think) who is completely bullied by Sasha. Poor thing.

On Monday, the 16th, I joined Catherine and her friends for a luncheon. The food was completely Malay and cooked by a lady called Dee. Everytime was absolutely delicious and tasty. Yummy! The sambal was a bit spicy, but it was still ok. It was interesting talking to the local chinese folks (English speaking, and comfortably well off). One fellow there was a dentist, who cooks and love to dive. He had very good things to say about diving at Sipadan Island. Another two women work together at a pet grooming store in a high end mall. They charge 150 Malaysian Ringgit to groom a dog! That's quite expensive, but sounds like they are quite busy these days. I gather that there are many people who live quite comfortably in the big city. Cars are extremely expensive in Malaysia. The starter car cost over 50kRM (it's worth $13k USD, but for a Malaysian who is only making 30kRM, a 50kRM car is very expensive (and that's the absolutely cheapest new car). Looking at the States and Canada, it is possible to purchase a brand new vehicle for $10k.

The afternoon was spent hanging out in San's place, catching up and playing with Gabby, her two and a half year old. When the older two (Alex - nine and a half, and Max - seven and a half) came home, I showed them our website, photos of my sister's wedding (to show them pics of distant relatives) and gave them a glimpse of MSN Messenger as I chatted with our friend Natalie in Japan. While San prepared dinner, the kids and I watched 'Legally Blonde 2'. Winston spent the day at home on the computer (that's when he uploaded our Southern Thailand page) and then had dinner with Paul and Liza (cousin from Singapore).

Our last day in KL, we just relaxed at home with Aunty Maria. In the afternoon, I went to the pasar malam (night market) to buy some fruits with her. In the evening, we were treated to a yummy chinese dinner by Aunty. She invited all the Tay cousins who were living in KL (Liza, Andrew, Kenneth and his gf Jae, Susan, Adrian and his wife Carol). After dinner, everyone went back to Aunty's place and enjoyed fruits and chatted. Sasha got a piece of mango seed (you know how big they are) into her mouth and we were worried she would choke on it. She ended chewing it to pieces and eventually spat it out. Whew.. that was quite an excitement. It sure was nice to see everyone again (last time we saw them was in 2001 when we were in KL with Winston's mom and dad).

We left EARLY (6:30am) Wednesday morning for the airport for our Air Asia (much cheaper than MAS - Malaysian Airlines) to KK (Kota Kinabalu). It was a coincident that one of the flight attendant on this flight was also our flight attendant on our flight from Bangkok. She recognized me when I walked up with my bording pass (oh oh, am I that easy to spot?). I'll end for now and start another blog for KK (tomorrow). I'm off to watch a movie with the hubby now.

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We're Back Online
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Well, after a nice break from blogging, we're back online, this time enjoying a high speed wi-fi internet connection at my cousin's place in KL. It is really good to be here; this is the first time in the last 230 days that we've been on the road that we've stayed at a relative's place, and I must say, it is a real comfort.

Special thanks to Gunga, who's detailed blogging during the last three weeks gave us a bit of a reprieve, which we didn't think we needed, but ended up appreciating. It was fun travelling with him and it again gave us an appreciation for how lucky we are to have this opportunity to travel. Every time Gunga exclaimed in amazement or commented on something we took for granted, we were reminded that every small moment we experience is worth examining and appreciating.

Of course, Gunga provided us with a lot of entertainment to boot, such as continual commentary on how travelling with us was such an "experience" or "adventure," tons of technical discussion on D-SLR's and camera pros and cons, and lots of laughs resulting from his bug-phobias, non-stop sweat glands, mumbling enounciation, and of course, his groan-producing puns. From Saigon to Kuala Lumpur, it was a blast Gunga, we're going to miss you.

There's quite a lot of stuff to comment on from the last few weeks, but we'll save that for another blog. For now, I just want to point out our tentative itinerary for the next few weeks; right now, we're starting a 2-3 week period of hanging out with our relatives in Malaysia and Singapore. We're leaving KL for Kota Kinabalu the day after tomorrow after having dinner with all my cousins. We'll visit the relatives there, then pop over to Labuan Island for a few days. Eventually, we hope to head to the east coast of Borneo to do some diving at Sipidan Island, before making our way down to Singapore.

While this will be a bit of a break from the cultural exploration that we've been doing for the last seven months, we'll be back in the swing of things soon enough as we head down to Bali and then Australia and New Zealand in March. More to follow later!

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