Ahhhh, Phuket

Well what can I tell you about Phuket . . .
This place was incredible! The beach has the whitest sand that was so soft, it was unbelievable, the ocean was like stepping into a warm bath, and the water was so crystal clear; it was absolutely amazing!
We arrived in Phuket the Friday of the Songkran long weekend. We quickly learned that at the Phuket airport you need to pre-book transport, and yes, you will get ripped off and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. So, after 2.5 hours after we landed we pulled up to our resort, a little ways from the beach, but right on the rim of the rainforest. When we booked the hotel online, Ryan really liked the idea of being right in the forest, so . . . what's a little walk to the beach?
The people at the Pacific Club Resort were super-friendly and very helpful, although my first impressions of this place were a little weary . . .
As I mentioned, it took a while for us to reach the hotel, and when our van turned away from the beach I started to get a little concerned (Ryan and I were still not sure if our driver knew where he was going). We saw a sign that said turn right for our resort, but that took us down a very dark street that did not show any sign of people or hotels. Still, with another turn to the right we headed up a lantern lit hill and saw the lights of our hotel. The lady at the front counter had the bellboy take our bags and we headed up to our room. The adventure is not over. Not long after we turned a corner on the first floor we saw the BIGGEST SPIDER I HAVE EVER SEEN! Now for those of you who know me, (sorry Louise, I know you are squirming in your seat while you are reading this!) I am not a very big fan of spiders. I am ok if they are outside - that's where they live, and that's where they should stay - but as soon as they come into my space I sometimes freak out a bit. Luckily, I was so tired from our very long day of traveling (no direct flights from Jakarta to Phuket - Jakarta to KL to Bangkok to Phuket, Ryan did very well!) that I didn't really realize what the woman was pointing at and just managed to spot it out of the corner of my eye. However, that was long enough to notice that this THING had to have been bigger than my hand - and I have pretty big hands! Of course my brain finally kicked in and I looked at the lady saying "that was a spider?" It was so big, and I was so tired, I honestly don't know what I thought it was! So now, thoroughly freaked out (and fully alert to every shadow and movement on the walls) I made sure to check every nook and cranny of our room before I set anything down. Luckily, we did not have anything come into our room (we were on the second floor) the whole time we were there (and I didn't see anymore spiders the rest of the trip).
Now that that trauma is over, I will get to what you really want, pics of the beach!
Oops, sorry to make you wait more, but I have to finish the details of our hotel in the forest.
Our hotel was established by a gentlemen and his wife who already owned two highly successful restaurants on the island, so needless to say the food here was fantastic. Breakfast was included again, and they made the yummiest cinnimon french toast! This hotel had a gym too, and while it didn't compare to the Ritz, it was still better than what is in our building (and yes we did use it. I know, who works out on vacation?) It also featured an aromatic sauna, Ryan said it smelled like lilacs, but we didn't use it, and a jacuzzi area surrounded by gardens.

This is our pool, and it has to be my most favourite of all pools I have ever been in. It was absolutely gorgeous to be swimming on a roof top pool with bright blue skies above you, an ocean view to your right and a mountain of rainforest in front of you. Then, to top it all off, there are immaculate gardens surrounding the pool and the patio. It was truly a beautiful sight.
Okay, okay, the beach:

This is Karon Beach. It is one of the quieter beaches, but during the peak season it can get quite crowded with windsurfers and other water sports. Luckily for us we were there at the tail end of the high season and there was hardly anyone there. We heard rumour that if we headed over to Patong Beach (5 mins by taxi) there would be a lot more people, but we were there for a relaxing holiday (2nd, 3rd, maybe 4th honeymoon by now?) so we stayed by our beach.
Honestly, the Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean truly have perfect beaches. I am told that there are better beaches in Australia, but that comparison will have to wait a couple of months yet; so for now I will say the best beaches are here! Our first day we explored our beach, walking the length of it, stopping to check out the water and have fun in the giant waves (at least giant compared to anything back home).


There was not a rock or even a shell washed up on these beaches, it was just soft white sand - although if you strayed too far from the surf without your flipflops on it sure was hot! The only thing we saw disturbing the sand, besides footprints, were small sandcrabs, and they were more fun than anything! I have never seen crabs move so quickly, but if you blocked its path, these little guys would scurry across the sand quicker than you could blink! Don't worry, they were few and far between, so they were more entertainment than a nuisance.
For our second day we booked ourselves a snorkling adventure in and around Phi Phi Island. We were picked up at our hotel, and dropped off 45 mins away at the pier to board our speedboat with about 18 others. Wanting to make the most of our trip, we opted, with the brave few, to sit at the front of the boat. I almost lost my hat once, and after that, both Ryan and I held on tight. There were some big waves out there, and there were a few times that we were sure we were headed overboard!
Our boat took us to Phi Phi Island (which is actually 6 islands), Maya Beach (where they filmed the movie The Beach), snorkling at Pileh Lagoon, sightseeing at Viking Cave, Wang Long and Monkey Beach, lunch at a seaside restaurant, and then more snorkling at Khai Island. We returned at the pier around 4:30, exhausted and a little sunburned (we had to buy sunscreen after we lost our first one - it was brutal anyway, so we were better off buying the new one).

This is Phi Phi Island (islands). The last big hump on the right is our first stop, and just between there and the first little one is where I saw my first wild dolphins!

Here is a closer view; these are the tree-covered limestone rocks surrounding Maya Beach (or Maya Bay).
This is also where the movie The Beach was filmed. We got to swim here for about 40 minutes before we went on our way, and it was so nice to just float in the water admiring our gorgeous surroundings.


This beach also had the softest sand of all the beaches we went to. Picture the softest thing you can thing of, then multiply it by 50 and walk on it. Honestly, it was amazing; and if you don't believe me you can fly over here and I will take you there myself (I can't wait to go back!)
All along the beaches in Phuket and Kho Phi Phi (Kho means Island) are signs showing Tsunami evacuation areas.

I am not sure if they have always been there, or if they were erected after the Tsunami came through. Much of Phuket and probably a lot of Phi Phi were wiped out, although you couldn't really see any physical signs of it, everywhere seems to be recovering nicely. Our guide did point out to us an area on the way to lunch where the highest waves washed in. He told us over 3000 people had died, and bodies littered the bay after it was all over. It was really sobering to think that something so horrible could happen in such a paradise.
After Maya Beach we headed off for Loh Samah Bay. On the way to the we passed by some dolphins playing in the water.

Sorry its not a better photo, but this was a busy throughway and speedboats kept whizzing past and scaring the dolphins away. Luckily our tourguide had really good eyes and he would get the driver to stop the boat as soon as he saw them again. If you look at the top left you can see one.
Once we all got some snapshots of the dolphins it was time for snorkling in the Bay. The snorkling around Koh Phi Phi is supposed to be the best in Asia, and it definitely lived up to its name. There were so many fish and the colours were incredible! You could literally reach out and grab the fish, they would just swim right up to you. Unfortunately, much of the reef was dead, so the coral wasn't very colourful. But you could see signs of regrowth and the natural beauty returning to the reef. You will have to wait until we get home to see the underwater photos though. Ryan went to a great deal of effort to get some good shots of some fish!
The funny thing about our snorkling stop is that no one seemed to want to get in the water. As I mentioned, Ryan and I were at the front of the boat, so we had to wait for the other people before we could get in. But nobody moved! They all just sat down trying to get their fins and snorkles on. After a few minutes we got fed up and grabbed our gear and jumped in the sea. I think the crew was pleased becaue they couldn't understand why no one was going in! Once we were in the others followed, I guess no one wanted to be first.
Oh yeah, and we kept getting bitten (stung?) by these things we couldn't see! We weren't sure if they were tiny jellyfish or what, but we both got stung a number of times! It didn't really hurt, it just felt like a mosquito bite, but we never saw what was doing it.
Next we were off for a swim in Pileh Lagoon. The water around these Islands was so amazing we couldn't wait for each stop on our trip.


Here is an example of how crystal clear the water is! And we didn't even throw any food in the water, this is actually how many fish were swimming here!
Once we got back in the boat, we took a tour of some caves carved out of the limestone, this one here is Viking Cave, I wasn't really paying attention to the guide at this point in time, but I am sure it was used for smuggling or something back in the day.

Next up was a quick stop at Monkey Beach, named appropriately as it was CRAWLING with monkeys. Our guide didn't want us to get out on the beach because he said the monkeys here are prone to attacking tourists. Sure enough, another tour who was let off was having some problems. A man was teasing a monkey with some food and sure enough the monkey lunged at him. Serves him right, if you are going to tease wild animals you may just get bit!
Our next stop was a buffet lunch at a sea side restaurant. I always seem to be disappointed with the food we get on these tours, but I was pleasantly surprised with this one. Of course, how could you go wrong with a Thai food buffet?

This is the view from the restaurant. It was true Thai style, sitting on cushions on the floor. These tables didn't have the cut-out underneath though, so we had to sit proper Thai-style!

Here's me headed back to the boat with a full belly.
Another 40 mins on the speedboat and we arrived at our last stop for the day, Khai Nai Island. This is a tiny Island in the Indian Ocean that takes a whopping 5 mins to walk the circumfrance. We were given almost 2 hours to explore the Island, there were a number of vendors, and beach chairs set up if you wanted some shade. Ryan and I booked a set of chairs near our tourguide who said he would watch our stuff so we could get in the water without worry. (This was a huge tourist spot, so there were a ton of people around!)
The snorkling here was really neat, albeit a wee bit scary. I still have a healthy fear of the ocean, not enough that it prevents me from getting in and enjoying it, but enough so that when I am told there are many shark sightings here I keep my eyes wide open! Ryan was really excited to see some sharks. We swam with Nurse sharks in the Dominican, and while they couldn't bite us they were really big and quite intimidating, so really I was expecting to turn a corner and see some mammoth shark swimming up to me, but sadly (for Ryan) we did not see any. We did see just about everything else though. It was like swimming through a fish tank! The water was really shallow for at least a kilometer out, and the reef was growing all over the place, in some places almost to the top of the water. At some points we were swimming in no more than 3 feet of water and the coral must have come up at least 2 feet if not more. There were times that I was really sucking it in, trying to make my body as thin as possible to make it over the coral! I got nervous a few times being so close to the coral because there were so many Sea Urchins in the water and I really didn't feel like getting stung that day! I never knew they were so pretty though. I always thought sea urchins were just ugly (scary) black pointy things, but these shined blues and purples in the sun. The numbers and variety of fish we saw was just amazing and being that close to so many different types of coral was really neat. Sorry, no pictures, not even with the underwater camera. Ryan wanted to save our last three pics for a shark, but since we never saw one our last three pics got used up back on Karon Beach playing in the giant waves!
Back at our hotel on Karon Beach, Ryan and I were exhausted from our day in the sand and surf so we opted to take it easy on our last day instead of booking another excursion. Plus, there had been a big storm over night so it was really cloudy all day. It did make for some great waves though, the surf was at least as high as us!
Our last day we ate one last delicious breakfast and took the hotel car to the airport (yes we did pay WAY too much) and sadly said goodbye to Phuket.

The Ritz-Carleton

I suppose I should be calling this entry Jakarta, but I don’t feel like I was really in Jakarta since I didn’t really leave the Hotel.
We arrived at the Ritz and it definitely lived up to its reputation. This place was beautiful. Here's the lobby:

Our room was enormous, and yes, the bathroom was even nicer than the last! While it was all one room, this one had a huge glass-encased shower, a big tub by the window that overlooked the city, and a huge vanity with his and her sinks. Definitely my dream bathroom! Here is our view:

Bright and early Monday morning we woke up to have a quick breakfast before Ryan headed off to work. Yes I was a good wife and woke up at 6:30 every morning to have breakfast with Ryan. Breakfast was another amazing buffet, with almost everything imaginable on it. They don’t know how to cook eggs though; I got a really runny omelet the first day and then opted for scrambled eggs which I made them cook thoroughly each time after that.
After breakfast Ryan headed off to work and I enjoyed myself in the lap of luxury. The pool there was huge, and if there weren’t too many kids in it (which generally there wasn’t) you could do some nice laps. Ryan is very proud of this picture:

It is actually taken around 10 pm and it is pitch black, so it really is impressive camera work!
The gym was right next door to the pool and it puts our gym at the apartment to shame. It contained all state of the art equipment, complete with individual screens on each console! They had a decent sized weight room, and a separate room for aerobics and spinning classes. We were going to try a spinning class, but missed both times they were available. Oh well, we still enjoyed the facilities.
I went for a sports massage on the Wednesday. All the traveling was catching up to me and I wanted to make sure I would be ok for Phuket. So I booked myself in at the spa and got my butt kicked by a woman half my size! I felt really good after, but man that woman was strong! I suppose it’s my own fault, I told her I wanted a strong massage. After the massage I wandered into the locker room and found the sauna, steam room and Jacuzzi tubs. I probably could have stayed in there all afternoon, but lunch was calling me, so I had a sauna, a nice long shower and then ordered room service back in our room.
I was also very excited to discover our 40 inch flat screen in the room, and it had satellite! It’s funny how you don’t notice you miss TV until you have one again. Now we do have a TV in Bangkok, but we only get a few channels in English and they play a lot of old movies and reruns so we don’t watch much. So it was nice to catch up on some old shows. I was excited to see my soap opera, GH, but then quickly disappointed to realize I hadn’t really missed anything! (ha ha, they were running tape from about a year ago – I was pretty confused at the start though, I couldn’t figure out why a number of people I thought were dead had been written back into the storyline somehow!)
Oh yes, we did partake in the hotel's laundry service as well. After all the running around we did in Malaysia we needed some clean clothes for Phuket. Little did we know that it cost us more to clean our socks then they actually cost! Oops, I suppose we should have washed those ourselves! Oh well, we were on holidays ;)
We did venture out on the streets of Jakarta once or twice. We joined some colleagues for dinner and then stopped at a mall nearby the hotel to pick up some snack food and fruit so that we weren’t tempted by the mini-bar. It was very odd walking around though. Everyone stared at you, and it didn’t feel like a friendly, welcoming stare either. We were expecting lots of stares when we first moved here, but it never really happened. Perhaps they just don’t get a lot of leggy white girls in Jakarta, but it made me pretty uncomfortable. I think Ryan was happy when I told him I didn’t think I would be comfortable wandering over to the mall myself while he was at work.
For our last night in Jakarta we joined John Demers at The Meridian Hotel for the monthly meet and greet of expat Canadians in Jakarta. We were charged a fee at the door and then got to eat and drink as much as we wanted for the rest of the night. Again I was tempted by the lure of the red wine, and I enjoyed my fill – I had to get my money’s worth! It was neat to speak to the different people and learn what they were all doing here. The consensus was all pretty much the same: nobody liked Jakarta very much. I ended up winning one of the door prizes: a half-day spa package at the Meridian. However, since we were leaving the next day, I gave my prize to John so his wife could enjoy it.
While I would definitely want to travel back to Indonesia, I think next time Ryan has to work in Jakarta for a week I will skip off to Bali and let him enjoy Jakarta by himself!

Tres Belle KL

Thursday (April 05) was our Songkran Party at school, and marked the end of the second term. Can you believe I made it through my first term as a teacher? Anyway, for those not in the know: Songkran is the Buddhist New Year. I keep getting different answers depending on who I ask, but from what I can gather it is a water festival that rings in the rainy season. There are numerous rituals and blessings that go along with it, but basically it is a big crazy party/water fight, where people go around spraying people with water guns, or splashing them with buckets of water. There is also a powder that is wiped on your face, arms, etc, that is supposed to be some kind of cleanse. Anyway, while Songkran wasn’t for another week, and since we would be on holidays, we threw a Songkran party at school. It was great fun, the kids all came to school with their bathing suits and lathered up in sunscreen and we basically had a water fight for 4 hours! Not a bad way to end a term!
After my water-logged morning, I rushed home, grabbed Ryan and the suitcases and we hopped in a cab for the airport. We were taking a discount airline, which meant if we missed our flight we were SOL. But we quickly learned this no-bull airline is the way to go. Check-in was closed 45 mins before take-off, and the gates closed 10 mins before, so there were no excuses – if you missed it you paid to get on the next one.
Our adventure began with a weekend in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We had a mini-panic at the airport after the travel assistant booth informed us our hotel didn’t exist! But we soon realized this was a lost-in-translation episode, and she knew the vicinity it was in, but not the exact location. Our cab was able to find our hotel and it was smooth sailing from there.
One never knows what to expect when booking hotels online. Pictures can often be deceiving, and perhaps only the positive reviews make it onto the web. Nonetheless we really lucked out with all of our hotels. Our KL home was the Best Western Premier Seri Pacific. We figured it would be your average Best Western – clean, but nothing to write home about – however we were greatly mistaken. This hotel was beautiful!

The lobby was gorgeous, our breakfast buffets (included) were delicious, our room had an enourmous bathroom with a separate room for the tub and toilet, another room that was just a shower, and then the main room that had the sink and vanity. We had a nice view overlooking the city with rainforest covered mountains in the distance. We got a great deal on our room, and found out this was due to the construction they were doing on the floor beneath us. The concierge was quick to tell us the different lounges, pool, spa, etc, where we could escape the noise, but we weren’t planning on staying in the room much anyway. Even when we were there, we had to laugh – I heard this soft knocking noise and discovered it must be the construction he was talking about – it was nothing compared to the normal noises in our apartment in Bangkok!
We woke up early to get a full breakfast before beginning our trek through the city. We were given a tourist map and we knew where the sky train was, so we made a list of sights we wanted to see, crossed our fingers and went on our way.
We were pleased at the ease of getting around KL. Besides taxis and buses, we had a crash course on the KL monorail, Light Train Transit (two lines) and Komuter Train (subway). The trains were easy to figure out and took us to pretty much anywhere in the city.
Our first stop was the Petronas Twin Towers.

We were told to get there nice and early, because while it is free, they only allow a certain number of people up to the skybridge each day. We arrived at the doors by 9:30, but were already too late to go up.

Oh well, conveniently there was a mall next door and I needed a new pair of sunglasses having left mine . . . somewhere.
We hopped back on the train and headed for some more cultural hot spots. Our next spot was Masjid Jamek – the city’s oldest surviving mosque and the birthplace of KL.

We weren’t allowed in as it was prayer time, but we didn’t go back because I would have to borrow a headpiece in order to go in, and would not be allowed on the same floor as Ryan – separate prayer rooms for men and women.
We continued on past the mosque to find Market Square or Central Market. They had some great deals on clothes, watches, souvenirs, art, etc., but we had to be careful about our purchases – the bad thing about discount airfare is they only allow 15 kg/person and we were already pushing our limit! I did manage to buy (cheap!) a gorgeous pashmina, and it is real cashmere! I had to get something to keep me warm – they crank the air up so much everywhere. Ryan says I am the only one who can come to a country of 40 degrees and be cold!
After more wandering around, and consulting our map, we also spotted Dataran Merdeka (Merdeka Square) where the Union Jack was lowered in 1957 and a 100-metre-high flagpole flies the Malaysian flag (supposedly the tallest in the world).

Next door is the Royal Selangor Club which is now the local cricket club. We crossed the field and hopped in a cab, spotting Sultan Abdul Samad Building – the largest building of its day (1897), now housing the Supreme and High Courts, on our way to KL Tower.

KL Tower is the 4th tallest in the world (we proudly took a picture next to the plaque showing the CN Tower), and we headed up since we missed out on the view from the Patronas.

The view was pretty great, there’s nothing like looking out over a city being shadowed by gorgeous mountains. We both agreed that the view is probably better from this tower as the skybridge is not very high on the Patronas, but since we don’t know for sure we will leave that one open for debate.
Surrounding KL Tower is the “Forest in the City,” the nearby Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve. There are 10.5 hectares and a number of trails wandering through it. Ryan and I were very excited about our first rainforest adventure and forgot we had no bugspray, but it wasn’t too bad and we made it out with only a few bites!

The noise in this place was incredible. A mixture of birds, bugs, and animals all bunched together . . . we took a video so that you could hear for yourself, and if you look very closely you might see the crazy monkey that was following me . . .

Our KL tour still not complete, we hopped on the Monorail headed for Titiwangsa Lake Gardens, a large green area with a man-made lake. We found the Monorail quite humourous . . .

I’m not sure if you can read it, but the sign says “Please do not disturb driver”, no, your eyes are not fooling you, there is no driver!
We rode the Monorail to the end of the line and then made the critical error of deciding to walk, instead of hailing a cab to the park. It was stinking hot out and we had gravely miscalculated how far the walk was. Oh well, after a quick stop to refuel with some water, and a few failed attempts to hail a cab, we picked a side street that looked like it was in the right direction and lucked out.
We went up the giant ferris wheel, I believe it is called the Eye of Malaysia or something like that. Anyway, it was air conditioned and the top offered some gorgeous views of the city and the mountains (which we were much closer to now).

After our ride, we wandered through the park and noticed these massive billboards showing pictures of what was not allowed at the park. There were your standards: no fishing, no littering, etc, but then it also showed a picture of a man’s face and woman’s face that looked like they were about to rub noses. We decided this one meant “no canoodling” and later discovered that we were probably right after hearing some commercials on TV! KL has a very conservative Muslim population.
With all of the major attractions checked off the list, and both of us in need of a break and a cool drink, we headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up and head out again for dinner. We wandered around a bit trying to find a restaurant that wasn’t attached to a hotel, and found a Jazz Bar/Restaurant that looked pretty interesting. The décor was a little . . . art deco? But they had good food and the band kept us entertained. Unfortunately for us, they weren’t serving dinner upstairs (where the band was), but we could hear all the commotion, people were really enjoying themselves.

After dessert (a very disappointing apple pie, KL does not know how to do dessert!) we wandered up the stairs to see what all the noise was about. Sadly, we only got to hear two more songs before the band finished up for the night (it was only 8ish so we weren’t sure what that was about!) We did get to hear some ‘great’ covers of Western music from the 80s though! After a quick stop in the men/ladies room, yes it was a unisex public bathroom, we wandered around some shops and markets before calling it a night.
Day 2 would prove to be a whirlwind adventure on the outskirts of KL, but also some of our most memorable moments of our holiday. We booked a cabbie for the day, Aziz, who was very knowledgeable and told us about the buildings and landmarks as we drove by. First we headed out to the rainforest for a canopy walk 30m above the ground. Of course to get to the canopy we had to hike half an hour up a mountain, but it was totally worth it.

The rainforest is incredible. The leaves are giant and everything is so green. We could hear birds, insects, and the odd animal, but never got to see anything more than a few butterflies and a very odd grasshopper-like bug (it was massive!) The canopy was really neat, neither of us had done anything like this before, and it was basically a ladder covered with plywood and surrounded by netting, held up by wires.

I think if you were afraid of heights you would be a little weary, especially when you got right out there, it was pretty jumpy and shaky, but we were all right. I even had to help fix it at one point in time!

One of the pieces of plywood had come loose, and then some guy tried to jump the hole and made it 10 times worse. The lady in front of me looked kinda nervous, so I walked out and daringly made the necessary adjustments!

After we finished the walk we continued down the path past the waterfall and the fork in the road. We consulted our map and decided that right was definitely the way to go (we wanted to hurry up as we had our cabbie by the hour and wanted to make it to our next stop with plenty of time). We hurried on our way, but then discovered we had taken a wrong turn! We turned around and found our way back to the waterfall and crossroads and took the other one to find our way out.

After a brisk jog (had to squeeze our workout in!) we came across a woman holding a monkey. She looked a bit concerned and asked us what that noise was. We listened and could hear a strange noise coming from the tops of the trees. The woman asked us if we thought that was monkeys, apparently wild monkeys don’t get along with pet ones, and the little guy was looking a wee bit skiddish. We both figured since she was the one holding a monkey that perhaps she would be more in the know than us about monkey noises, but we politely replied we weren’t sure and asked to take a picture. To our surprise she let us pet the monkey and take its picture for free! Both of us were sure she would ask us for at least 500Baht, that’s what would happen in Bangkok! We followed the trail the rest of the way and found our driver chatting with the other drivers waiting for our return. Off we went down the road for our next adventure.
We were pretty amazed when we pulled up to the Batu Caves, it is pretty mind-blowing to see how big this thing really is:

The caves are a limestone formation is the home to an ancient Hindu temple, the gold statue is a massive Hindu goddess, but I don’t remember which one.

The staircase was pretty steep, and we (of course) decided to run up all 272 steps with only a few short stops to take some quick picks of the monkeys playing along the sides. Our cabbie later told us he watched us run up, but next time we have to do it with no stops!
The top of the steps is an enourmous entrance to a massive structure housing various paintings and figures in the nooks and crannies of the cave walls. Directly across from the entrance is more steps which bring you out to an area covered with monkeys!

It was pretty neat to be that close to that many monkeys, but we were smart enough to keep a respectful distance. One tourist tried to get close to one to get a super-close-up pic, but the monkey didn’t like that very much and jumped at him. (Apparently someone needs to learn about the zoom feature!) The tourist, of course didn’t plan his escape route very well, and was trapped on the staircase, almost falling backwards! Luckily the monkey didn’t attack any further because the man would have been at a big disadvantage. Back down the steps we went and headed for the hotel. We couldn’t believe that we saw all that we did that day and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet!
We found out later that the Amazing Race All Stars made the same trip we did (through KL and to the caves), so if you were watching, we were there - I think they must be following us!!
Back at the hotel Ryan ordered a traditional Malay dish called Hinnan Chicken, I wanted to save the traditional food for dinner and ordered a Club Sandwich. We got our meals and discovered we had enough food for 4 people! This was the largest club sandwich I had ever seen (and also the yummiest)! Ryan’s chicken was quite tasty and he helped me polish off my sandwich, so feeling a bit replenished we headed up for some much needed relaxation by the pool.
After a rest we needed to waste some time before dinner so we headed across the street to The Mall. This is literally what it was called! There were a number of shops selling fairly cheap goods. Ryan picked up a new shirt, and I was looking for some new pants for school. I was happy to discover I could actually fit in the pants here (if you are not a size 0 it is very difficult to buy pants over here!) but they were uber-low cut (western bodies and eastern bodies are just not made the same), so they were not the sitting kind of pants and definitely not appropriate for school! I put them back on the rack and we headed back to the Hotel for dinner.
We decided on more traditional fare for dinner, Ryan ordering this Oxtail stew-like dish, it was tasty, but spicy. I ordered what I thought was a beef dish, but it turned out to be a plate featuring beef, chicken and fish, along with rice and veggies. It was tasty, but next time I’ll stick with the Club!
It was our last night in KL, and we decided to enjoy it listening to the merry renditions of Western classics in our lobby bar (we had discovered that not only was the wine good here, but it was also reasonably priced, I was so excited!!) Of course in the morning we discovered that it was not the best idea to partake in the long-lost entrances of red wine when one has an early flight the next morning, but we survived just fine!
KL was definitely one of my favourite trips. The city is beautiful, there are so many interesting buildings and landmarks there. Everything seemed so clean and orderly, of course it helped that there were not 11 million people living there! The only downside to KL is that I did not matter. While the people were generally nice and friendly, they would much rather deal with Ryan than myself. At our hotel it was usually ok, but outside people generally ignored me and would only speak to Ryan. Even our cab driver asked Ryan his name, but didn’t ask me! There were other times too, that I would inquire about something and someone would begin to answer, but as soon as Ryan interjected I was ignored for the rest of the conversation. It is very interesting to witness first hand how other cultures and religions live, but it didn’t put me off Malaysia. I definitely want to go back and see more of that beautiful country.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

I know I haven't updated this for a while, so I apologize to all you avid readers who have been waiting ever so patiently for my return. We were crazy-busy the week leading up to our holidays, trying to tie up all the loose ends before we took off on our adventure, so I wasn't able to put anything up before our holidays. And now that we are back, I have many stories and adventures that I have to put together so that you can all share in our experiences.
But first things first:
My Grandpa has just turned 90 years old! Now that is something to be proud of. Not only is my Grandpa in wonderful condition, physically, mentally, etc, but he still has a sence of adventure about him. He was so excited to come to Mexico with us to witness our numptuals, and it was amazing that He and my Grandma were able to be there with us. I know that there are many things that they would enjoy over here too, but I think that it may be a little too much to ask to get them all the way across the world!!
Anyway, Ryan and I missed out on the big 9-0 celebration with the family, but my class and I made a special tribute to my Grandpa for his birthday. The kids helped me make a beautiful birthday card and they all sang happy birthday! I sent pics of the card and copies of the videos through, and I hope they made it, but for those of you who didn't get to see:





They were all very excited to sing, but as soon as the camera came out they all went a bit camera shy! However after Jacob did his solo they all wanted a chance, so I taped each one singing happy birthday, but that is just too much video to put up here so you will have to wait until we get home to see the rest!
BTW, the one in the yellow shirt is my Nanny, and the one in the Black is a TA who used to work at the school. She was helping out for the day as my new TA doesn't start until the new term.