So, finally we are letting you guys in on the last 3/4 weeks of our travels. Well to say the least, it has been crazy busy!
We had a great final few days in Kuala Lumpur, staying with Mo, our 1st couchsurfing buddy, exploring the city (particularly the air-conditioned parts!) and hanging out with old friends. Gav, a guy that we both new from Brighton, is now living and working there, so we were able to catch up over several very expensive beers in the local Irish Pub - fantastic!!
After KL we spent 30 odd hours in transit - KL to Bangkok, Bangkok to Tokyo and Tokyo to sunny California. And after a little questioning from the immigration official who couldn't understand "why" we were travelling, we were finally stateside again, awaiting the arrival of Warren and Tessa! Tessa was apparently very excited to see us which was demonstrated by her urinating all over the pavement of the arrivals area, thankfully Warren greeted us with big hugs instead of following suit! We spent a wonderful weekend at the ranch decompressing after the long journey and enjoying the company of family once more. And we definitely enjoyed the trip to in'n'out too!
On Monday we left the ranch and cruised over towards the Bay Area to Tiburon to see Aunt Rayna and Uncle Jimmy. We had a great afternoon and a wonderful home cooked meal and great company in the evening before getting another great nights sleep. Tuesday we had another lovely day, went on a great hike where we snuck into the brand new, not yet open, marine wildlife centre, saw "UP" and mentally prepared for the Trivia Night at La Barca that evening. It was a blast! The food was great as usual and it was great to see Vance and Lori as well.
Next we ventured South even further and stopped in SLO to see Grams. We tortured her with a couple hundred of our photos, cooked dinner and ate Ollalaberry Pie! We also spent a great day touring Hearst Castle and looking through more pics and enjoying the opportunity to cook once more.
Come Friday we were rolling down to L.A. in time for lunch with our old work places. But 1st we had to swing by the old apartment in Westwood, completing one full revolution of the World heading East!! We both had great lunches and visited the LACMA for the 1st time before heading over to Erin's to start the night of fun. We had an awesome night meeting up with just about all of our great friends from L.A. and despite having at least one too many drinks we made it home and were up in time to leave L.A. once more. Not before a trip to the legendary Apple Pan for lunch though!
We made it back to the ranch in the early evening and detoxed before heading up to Boonville on Sunday to start pre-show for the festival. We spent the next 4 days working long hours, with short nights, enjoying more family time and getting everything in shape for Thurs/Fri. On Thurs our friends arrived and we celebrated heartily! It was amazing to see everyone again and we had a wonderful weekend with everyone. It was a really spectacular weekend with too many good moments to list them all but we thank everyone from the Vets Hall Camp for coming to Boonville and seeing us again. Even though it meant working the early or late shifts! We love you guys!
Come Monday, the show was over, we all felt great about the weekend but it was now time to start the clean up. Cue the long days and short nights again! Finally on Friday we were able to leave Boonville for another year and relax at the ranch with Warren, Gret, Bette and all the animals before our early start on Sunday.
Well, 34 hours of transit later we arrived here, in Chiang Mai, at our hotel on Tuesday the 30th. Yes, a hotel! We are splurging for our anniversary(Thx Mum & Dad)! We spent thye day lounging around in our suite, sleeping and eating the amazing food. Yesterday we explored the city a little, saw the amazing "Wats" (temples), ate more great food and finished the evening with a few drinks. Today is pretty much a repeat of that! We love it so far in Thailand and are looking forward to seeing Michael, Karle and Jessy on Wednesday and exploring more of it with them.
For now, that seems to be us caught up, so until next time.....
Showing posts with label Malaysia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Malaysia. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Jungle men, the Great Singapore sale and vending machine haircuts
Hello!!!
We are so so overdue for a nice informative blog. Forgive us, as we have been on many flights and buses and malls and movie theatres... Ahem.. So where did we leave off? Ah yes, Uncle Tan..... but first, some pix from Semporna:
We signed up for a 3d/2n jungle tour, where we would be doing treks and river cruises and staying in little huts. We left Uncle Tan's ops base after visiting the over hyped Orang-utan centre down the road, and ventured off for 2 hours of minivans and 4x4 through acres and acres of palm oil plantations. Side note- we had no idea how prevalent palm oil is in every day products. The demand for palm oil has increased so much over the past few years that most of the rainforest in Borneo has been cut down to make room to the trees. This has GOT to stop!! Look on your labels- food, home, body products, and say NO!! Anyways, we rode on towards the wilderness, and then hopped on a boat to cross the river and head on to camp after a quick little boat tour, where we saw proboscis monkeys, lots of birds, and lots of muddy water. Mmmm.
We spent the evening dining on delicious local cuisine that appeared outta nowhere, and then had a night river cruise, where we saw the likes of owls, sleepy kingfishers, and tired monkeys. We fell asleep to the roar of cicadas outside out hut, and the flopping of frogs in the swamp below.
The next day we arose at 6:30 for our early morning boat cruise, where we saw lots of Orang-utans!!! Lucky us. We also spied on the elusive silver leaf monkeys, saw lots of macaques, birds, blahblah, good times! Returned for some breakfast consisting of maggi noodles, fried bananas, and french toast. Then we headed out on our jungle trek. We were slightly unprepared for the muddy conditions, but enjoyed every minute of trudging around, looking for tiny creepy crawlies and the frogs that feed on them. Somehow our awesome guide found one of the smallest frogs in the world- as small as your pinkie nail!!
Back to camp for nap time in the hammocks, then an afternoon cruise where we again spotted an array of monkeys, birds, and this time huge flying foxes!! Dinner and then back out in the jungle, where I got bit by 2 fire ants, pooped on by what I can only assume was a bird, and photographed a sleeping butterfly.
We had one last boat cruise on our last day, where we saw a whole lotta nothin, and then jumped on board another 4x4 for the lovely tour of the palm oil plantations. Back to ops base for lunch and then the bus to Kota Kinabalu for our last night in Borneo.
Five hours later, we arrived at the bus station, hopped on a local bus, and got dumped in the touristy bit. We found a few beds in the hostel and then ventured out for some much needed cold beers and experienced some very passionate British karaoke. Not something I would like to witness again, but he did give Robbie Williams a run for his money.
We flew back to Singapore for the umpteenth time, and finally visited! We took the MRT to the backpackerish area, and found that our hostel had been removed to make way for a large construction site. Moved on to another place, where we paid far too much for the last dorm beds in the place, with very very shoddy a/c. If you're gonna have it, make it work!!! We toured Bugis street markets, and some of the local malls, where we found that we were just in time for the Great Singapore Sale!! A month long celebration where everything is on sale and people shop more than other times of the year. That being said, shopping is the main sport and hobby in Singapore as it is. We window shopped, and then decided to go and see Angels & Demons. It was just as expected, decent enough, though we want to reread the books to see how much things have changed. We headed to bed after that, prepared to delve into the shopping scene in the am.
We headed to Orchard Road the next day, eating much needed Subway for lunch, and then stumbling across a huge Marc Jacobs sale where we made out like bandits for a lump sum of $30. A bit more roaming, and then off to find the Tiger Beer Factory. Upon arrival we found it had been converted into 9 nightclubs, which is sad for us. We headed to another mall where we found the coolest store yet- National Geographic, one of the 2 shops in the world. Job! We spent lots of time roaming around, looking at all their cool antiques, maps, and luggage, and then Oli found himself buying a $S25 journal. We hopped back on the MRT and decided to go and see Night at the Museum 2. About 10 minutes in we realized why we never even liked the first one. We stuck it through till the end, where we spied on the credits that the Jonas Brothers were indeed the angels in the movie, and had provided the only LOL moment. Oh Dear. We went to grab our belongings, and found that the noisy hot date couple next to us must have nicked Oli's new journal! I stayed behind to comb the theatre, just in case, and Oli went to the lobby in search of someone looking confused with a bright yellow NatGeo bag. No luck! Oli checked in the bathroom and low and behold, the empty bag was sitting on the rubbish bin. Now lets think about this people- how sad has your life become when you get your kicks by stealing journals in the darkness of Night at the Museum 2? Oh lord. We were saddened to think that our first experience with direct crime against us was in Singapore, accompanied by the Jonas Brothers. Not exactly the rough and tumble tale you want to tell the folks back home.
The next morning we checked out some dive shops, wandered around, went back to the mall to replace Oli's journal and to buy ourselves a very nice duffel bag. We spent the day wandering, and just to keep up tradition, decided to go to another movie- Terminator 4. I was shocked to find this was my favorite of the 3 we've seen! We were also very happy to see Charlie Bartlett in the film. Cool!!!
We decided to depart Singapore the next day and head to Malaka, the Malaysian western port city. It took an hour to get to the edge of Singapore, and then 5 more hours to get to our destination! Hopped on a local bus to head the 9km into town, checked into our 16 bed dorm room for $3 each, and grabbed an English Breakfast for dinner. We discovered we were in Malaka on fireworks night, and Chinatown was bustling with a street market. We mosied around and then bought some overpriced Tiger beers, then some more, and then off to bed in the dorm that strangely reminds me of the convents in which Madeline lived.
The next day we slept in for the first time in a long time, then checked out the town. Crazy busy everywhere!! We headed over to the People's Museum (aka the worst museum in the world according to Oli) and looked at their Kite exhibit, and then their body mutilation exhibit. Fun times!!! We then went to the most confusing mall in the world and found ourselves sitting in the theatre watching Star Trek. It was a pleasure. You may wonder why we have been spending so much time in the movies over the past 4 days, and the answer is simple- a/c. It is delightful, and the cheapest option for evening entertainment since drinks are prohibitively expensive and we aren't very creative. Anyway, the movie rocked.
I then made a very bad decision. My love of frugality overcame logic, and I had put 12 ringgit in a vending machine before I knew any better. I then received the worst haircut known to man. I am not sure how it was possible to litter the floor with SO MUCH of my hair, it looked like more than I ever had.. in the end, I looked like Leonardo Dicaprio in Titanic, with a bit of Ellen spice thrown in. Oh dear. Oli had to help me out with his nail scissors when we got back to at least even the cut out. Never again.
Back to Chinatown to buy some chopsticks (we are determined to learn how to roll sushi back in the states) and have a few more drinks to attempt to numb the image of myself in the mirror. All in all, a productive and memorable day.
Here are the pics from Singapore & Melaka
This morning we checked out of our hotel, grabbed lunch, roamed a bit, then hopped on the bus to Kuala Lumpur. We have arrived and are about to head out in search of our home for the next 3 days. We are going to be couch surfing for the first time ever, with a guy named Mo. Wish us luck!!!!!!!
PS- Cali in 4 days!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!? In-N-Out, fear us.
We are so so overdue for a nice informative blog. Forgive us, as we have been on many flights and buses and malls and movie theatres... Ahem.. So where did we leave off? Ah yes, Uncle Tan..... but first, some pix from Semporna:
We signed up for a 3d/2n jungle tour, where we would be doing treks and river cruises and staying in little huts. We left Uncle Tan's ops base after visiting the over hyped Orang-utan centre down the road, and ventured off for 2 hours of minivans and 4x4 through acres and acres of palm oil plantations. Side note- we had no idea how prevalent palm oil is in every day products. The demand for palm oil has increased so much over the past few years that most of the rainforest in Borneo has been cut down to make room to the trees. This has GOT to stop!! Look on your labels- food, home, body products, and say NO!! Anyways, we rode on towards the wilderness, and then hopped on a boat to cross the river and head on to camp after a quick little boat tour, where we saw proboscis monkeys, lots of birds, and lots of muddy water. Mmmm.
We spent the evening dining on delicious local cuisine that appeared outta nowhere, and then had a night river cruise, where we saw the likes of owls, sleepy kingfishers, and tired monkeys. We fell asleep to the roar of cicadas outside out hut, and the flopping of frogs in the swamp below.
The next day we arose at 6:30 for our early morning boat cruise, where we saw lots of Orang-utans!!! Lucky us. We also spied on the elusive silver leaf monkeys, saw lots of macaques, birds, blahblah, good times! Returned for some breakfast consisting of maggi noodles, fried bananas, and french toast. Then we headed out on our jungle trek. We were slightly unprepared for the muddy conditions, but enjoyed every minute of trudging around, looking for tiny creepy crawlies and the frogs that feed on them. Somehow our awesome guide found one of the smallest frogs in the world- as small as your pinkie nail!!
Back to camp for nap time in the hammocks, then an afternoon cruise where we again spotted an array of monkeys, birds, and this time huge flying foxes!! Dinner and then back out in the jungle, where I got bit by 2 fire ants, pooped on by what I can only assume was a bird, and photographed a sleeping butterfly.
We had one last boat cruise on our last day, where we saw a whole lotta nothin, and then jumped on board another 4x4 for the lovely tour of the palm oil plantations. Back to ops base for lunch and then the bus to Kota Kinabalu for our last night in Borneo.
Five hours later, we arrived at the bus station, hopped on a local bus, and got dumped in the touristy bit. We found a few beds in the hostel and then ventured out for some much needed cold beers and experienced some very passionate British karaoke. Not something I would like to witness again, but he did give Robbie Williams a run for his money.
We flew back to Singapore for the umpteenth time, and finally visited! We took the MRT to the backpackerish area, and found that our hostel had been removed to make way for a large construction site. Moved on to another place, where we paid far too much for the last dorm beds in the place, with very very shoddy a/c. If you're gonna have it, make it work!!! We toured Bugis street markets, and some of the local malls, where we found that we were just in time for the Great Singapore Sale!! A month long celebration where everything is on sale and people shop more than other times of the year. That being said, shopping is the main sport and hobby in Singapore as it is. We window shopped, and then decided to go and see Angels & Demons. It was just as expected, decent enough, though we want to reread the books to see how much things have changed. We headed to bed after that, prepared to delve into the shopping scene in the am.
We headed to Orchard Road the next day, eating much needed Subway for lunch, and then stumbling across a huge Marc Jacobs sale where we made out like bandits for a lump sum of $30. A bit more roaming, and then off to find the Tiger Beer Factory. Upon arrival we found it had been converted into 9 nightclubs, which is sad for us. We headed to another mall where we found the coolest store yet- National Geographic, one of the 2 shops in the world. Job! We spent lots of time roaming around, looking at all their cool antiques, maps, and luggage, and then Oli found himself buying a $S25 journal. We hopped back on the MRT and decided to go and see Night at the Museum 2. About 10 minutes in we realized why we never even liked the first one. We stuck it through till the end, where we spied on the credits that the Jonas Brothers were indeed the angels in the movie, and had provided the only LOL moment. Oh Dear. We went to grab our belongings, and found that the noisy hot date couple next to us must have nicked Oli's new journal! I stayed behind to comb the theatre, just in case, and Oli went to the lobby in search of someone looking confused with a bright yellow NatGeo bag. No luck! Oli checked in the bathroom and low and behold, the empty bag was sitting on the rubbish bin. Now lets think about this people- how sad has your life become when you get your kicks by stealing journals in the darkness of Night at the Museum 2? Oh lord. We were saddened to think that our first experience with direct crime against us was in Singapore, accompanied by the Jonas Brothers. Not exactly the rough and tumble tale you want to tell the folks back home.
The next morning we checked out some dive shops, wandered around, went back to the mall to replace Oli's journal and to buy ourselves a very nice duffel bag. We spent the day wandering, and just to keep up tradition, decided to go to another movie- Terminator 4. I was shocked to find this was my favorite of the 3 we've seen! We were also very happy to see Charlie Bartlett in the film. Cool!!!
We decided to depart Singapore the next day and head to Malaka, the Malaysian western port city. It took an hour to get to the edge of Singapore, and then 5 more hours to get to our destination! Hopped on a local bus to head the 9km into town, checked into our 16 bed dorm room for $3 each, and grabbed an English Breakfast for dinner. We discovered we were in Malaka on fireworks night, and Chinatown was bustling with a street market. We mosied around and then bought some overpriced Tiger beers, then some more, and then off to bed in the dorm that strangely reminds me of the convents in which Madeline lived.
The next day we slept in for the first time in a long time, then checked out the town. Crazy busy everywhere!! We headed over to the People's Museum (aka the worst museum in the world according to Oli) and looked at their Kite exhibit, and then their body mutilation exhibit. Fun times!!! We then went to the most confusing mall in the world and found ourselves sitting in the theatre watching Star Trek. It was a pleasure. You may wonder why we have been spending so much time in the movies over the past 4 days, and the answer is simple- a/c. It is delightful, and the cheapest option for evening entertainment since drinks are prohibitively expensive and we aren't very creative. Anyway, the movie rocked.
I then made a very bad decision. My love of frugality overcame logic, and I had put 12 ringgit in a vending machine before I knew any better. I then received the worst haircut known to man. I am not sure how it was possible to litter the floor with SO MUCH of my hair, it looked like more than I ever had.. in the end, I looked like Leonardo Dicaprio in Titanic, with a bit of Ellen spice thrown in. Oh dear. Oli had to help me out with his nail scissors when we got back to at least even the cut out. Never again.
Back to Chinatown to buy some chopsticks (we are determined to learn how to roll sushi back in the states) and have a few more drinks to attempt to numb the image of myself in the mirror. All in all, a productive and memorable day.
Here are the pics from Singapore & Melaka
This morning we checked out of our hotel, grabbed lunch, roamed a bit, then hopped on the bus to Kuala Lumpur. We have arrived and are about to head out in search of our home for the next 3 days. We are going to be couch surfing for the first time ever, with a guy named Mo. Wish us luck!!!!!!!
PS- Cali in 4 days!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!? In-N-Out, fear us.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
More to come soon.
Hello peoples, we are alive and well. We have had a great week in Borneo and are now in Singapore.
We are heading back to Malaysia tomorrow, the peninsula this time. Hopefully the internet will be cheaper there, it is expensive here. Therefore, we are waiting to upload our pictures and write a full blog.
As I said, more to come soon..... prepare for wild orang-utans!
We are heading back to Malaysia tomorrow, the peninsula this time. Hopefully the internet will be cheaper there, it is expensive here. Therefore, we are waiting to upload our pictures and write a full blog.
As I said, more to come soon..... prepare for wild orang-utans!
Friday, May 22, 2009
By The Chair of Hawking.... The Big Bang!!
After 2 hellish days traveling and spending far too much time in airports (We don't recommend a night at Chateau Changi Airport Budget Terminal), we arrived here in Semporna excited to dive again. Semporna is the base for dives to Sipadan, supposedly one of the best dive sites in the world. What we didn't know is that only 120 permits a day are given out. Needless to say, our spur of the moment trip here did not qualify for 2 of the sought after permits! Fortunately the diving on the other islands is also very good.
We signed up with Dive Junkie and yesterday (Thursday) we were on a boat at 8:15am headed to the island of Mabul. Our 1st dive was not great, it was an artificial reef, cool to see but just not the same. (Jen's note- out of sight, out of mind. that dive was just terrible. Oli is being optomistic) Fortunately our 2nd and 3rd dives were very good (aka- ok. we have been spoiled in the past and we are just realizing it now) and we saw a wide variety of fantastic marine life. We were shattered by the end of the day and barely made it out for dinner before we retired to bed.
Today we boarded the boat again for more fun, this time to Sibuan. We arrived to a picture perfect, tiny little island in the middle of the ocean and descended into the depths. (This is where many gypsies live, of all origins, hiding from the law and civilization.) More good diving but I was wrought with problems - both my primary and alternate regulators were leaking, every breath was accompanied by a mouthful of salt water & my mask was both fogging and leaking! What can you do?! To top it all off, about halfway through the dive there was a thunderous bang, we could feel it in our ribs..... looking around showed that we were all OK and nobody's tank had exploded but we were a little perplexed. Turns out that there were some sea-gypsies close by who were dynamite fishing!!!
With a new reg. and a quick look around for fishermen we went on our 2nd dive we saw more great stuff, or not, as my mask was still playing up. What I did see was great! Our 3rd dive, all problems fixed, was wonderful, a great way to finish off our diving before Thailand after we are in California.
We leave tomorrow at 7:30am on a bus for Sepilok and our jungle excursion, we can't wait, it will really feel like Borneo then.
We will upload pix after that, hopefully when we are in Kota Kinabalu.
Cali in 2 weeks!!!!
We signed up with Dive Junkie and yesterday (Thursday) we were on a boat at 8:15am headed to the island of Mabul. Our 1st dive was not great, it was an artificial reef, cool to see but just not the same. (Jen's note- out of sight, out of mind. that dive was just terrible. Oli is being optomistic) Fortunately our 2nd and 3rd dives were very good (aka- ok. we have been spoiled in the past and we are just realizing it now) and we saw a wide variety of fantastic marine life. We were shattered by the end of the day and barely made it out for dinner before we retired to bed.
Today we boarded the boat again for more fun, this time to Sibuan. We arrived to a picture perfect, tiny little island in the middle of the ocean and descended into the depths. (This is where many gypsies live, of all origins, hiding from the law and civilization.) More good diving but I was wrought with problems - both my primary and alternate regulators were leaking, every breath was accompanied by a mouthful of salt water & my mask was both fogging and leaking! What can you do?! To top it all off, about halfway through the dive there was a thunderous bang, we could feel it in our ribs..... looking around showed that we were all OK and nobody's tank had exploded but we were a little perplexed. Turns out that there were some sea-gypsies close by who were dynamite fishing!!!
With a new reg. and a quick look around for fishermen we went on our 2nd dive we saw more great stuff, or not, as my mask was still playing up. What I did see was great! Our 3rd dive, all problems fixed, was wonderful, a great way to finish off our diving before Thailand after we are in California.
We leave tomorrow at 7:30am on a bus for Sepilok and our jungle excursion, we can't wait, it will really feel like Borneo then.
We will upload pix after that, hopefully when we are in Kota Kinabalu.
Cali in 2 weeks!!!!
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