Ukelele at 2am…seriously? March 5, 2008

27.Feb.2008

We went to the Singapore zoo which was definitely among the greatest zoos we have ever been to, and we like to consider ourselves zoo connoisseurs. The zoo was very well run and nary a cage in sight. The animals were free range in large enclosures surrounded by moats and such. It really was on a par with the San Diego Zoo (except maybe the many varieties of monkeys put it a few points over). We spent nearly 2 hours on trains and buses to get there, however it was well worth it and only cost about 2 bucks per person! I love the public transport here. So the zoo was great, but talking about it is lame so check out the Flickr pictures I put up (link to the right). We got back to the city and spent some time on the net uploading pictures and trying to fix Jess’ finicky iPod, then got back to our humble abode and fell asleep exhausted.

28.Feb.2008

Today was mostly uneventful. We wandered through the city, exploring new places and pondering our next course of action. I tried getting malaria pills for when we head to India, Laos, Cambodia, and such, but Singapore is way to expensive to buy here and the doctor we talked to said Malaysia has the same pills, but much cheaper. There are three pills, Larium, which is dirt cheap and often makes you hallucinate, but is very effective (not taking those), doxycycline, which is equally effective, only slightly more expensive, and has few side effects (I am allergic to it because it is a tetracycline, but Jess can take), and malorone which is equally effective, nearly no side effects, but sadly very expensive (but we hear it is better available and cheaper in other parts of SE asia). Anyways we had our goodbye dinner with our Couchsurfing host, went back to our place, watched some funny British shows and slept.

29.Feb.2008

We boarded a bus for a couple bucks to take us to Johor Bahru, Malaysia; the border city. It was a short trip and only eventful when we got off to stamp passports and Jess had earlier mistakenly taken an important document left in her passport when we entered to scrapbook with it as a souvenir! It was funny, but the Singapore customs agents didn’t think so and they took her back and made her fill out a few forms and she was free to go. We got in Malaysia and were swamped by taxi drivers offering rides everywhere. Being confused and shocked by our new surroundings, we got duped by a taxi driver to take us to the main bus terminal for 20 Ringgits (6 dollars more or less, EXPENSIVE for a taxi here as we later learned). We paid 50 Ringgits (18 or so dollars) for the comfy 5 hour journey to Kuala Lumpur. We met a nice Malaysian who spoke great English and taught us a few words of Malay during the ride.

When we arrived in Kuala Lumpur it was pouring rain. We had no idea where to stay as our Couchsurfer contacts were hazy about whether we could stay or not. Turned out no, we didn’t have a place. So we wandered the busy streets looking for a decent hostel. One seemed nice and cheap, but turns out they charged by the hour (Get it? We did, especially when we noticed a few respectable ladies outside just hangin’ around). Some guy brought us to nice looking Hostel, but it was full, so he took us to a crappy looking hostel that was not so surprisingly empty. It wasn’t too bad of a place, mostly clean, and we had a TV where I started watching Road to Perdition for the first time (a bit fuzzy too) until the midnight news kindly interrupted it and ended my movie like 20 min before it actually ended! I tossed and turned trying to sleep, having to know how it ends, but I didn’t even dream an ending…I guess I’ll never know.

01.Feb.2008

We met up with Thomas and his Couchsurfer Wen for breakfast. Thomas is from France and teaching French in Malaysia and Wen is Malaysian staying in Kuala Lumpur with Thomas. We had a great breakfast of true Malay food and headed to Thomas’ beautiful apartment overlooking the whole city to drop off our bags. Thomas had plans for the day so we met Shah, another CSer, downtown for lunch and hang around the shops. We got picked up by his friend Joy who drove us through massive traffic to the CS party!
The CS party was awesome. All the Couchsurfers in Kuala Lumpur came with home cooked food and whoever was staying at their place. It made for a massive crowd of 60 or so who came from all over the world; Kenya, India, Hawaii, Sweden, Russia, France, Germany, Zimbabwe, England, Malaysia, China, Paraguay. Our first CS gathering, hope there will be many more to come during our travels!

2.3.2008

(This is Jess, I’ll take it from here while Dave works with pictures) We spent the day walking around the city, starting in China town. Wandering around the outdoor markets where fake watches, hand bags and much more are sold along side a myriad of street food. We then made our way into Little India where gold jewelry and colorful clothing are the main wares for sale. Very busy and lively place

We then made our way to the Lake Gardens, we started out in the Sculptures Garden and then made our way up to the national monument celebrating the independence of modern day Malaysia, which is very recent, 1957! News to me. At this point, I become aware that every single country we have traveled in since we left the U.S. (and including the U.S.) was a former British colony! Very strange, they really did own the world not too long ago

Our next stop was the Hibiscus and Orchid Gardens, cost RM1 (.30 U.S.)….totally worth the entrance. The Hibiscus garden was pretty nice but the orchid garden was spectacular…this isn’t Dave writing, so don’t take this lightly… I have never seen so many different types of orchids in my life and may never again. It was a explosion of colors everywhere. Beautiful walkways with orchids lining the sides, literally hundreds of different species and hybrids and you could buy orchids there as well and they were so cheap! $3 U.S. for amazing orchid plants….if we lived in KL our apartment would be full of orchids.

On our way out of the gardens we bumped into a family of monkeys making their way over some fences into the park, about 8 in all. They completely ignored us and went about their business…by this time we were so overheated from the humidity and hungry, we stopped for lunch at Kafe Hornbill, which has a balcony within the bird park. So we took a much needed rest and watched hornbills and some other pretty birds fly around and even swoop in for some food.

We then continued on to the mouse deer, which are these tiny freakish deer, so cute, but very skittish! We then jumped into a cab (one that used his meter) and got a ride to the Central Markets in Chinatown. We wandered around those for a while and then walked back to Thomas’s apt around 7:30pm, where they were having a gathering of French people…or something like that. We all went out together and had an amazing meal down the road from his apartment complex, even tried some stingray. At Thomas’ apartment we headed up to the 38 floor roof, I don’t know if we were supposed to, but we found a way, and it was stunning. There was a nice electrical storm to take some fantastic pictures of. All in all a great evening.

3.3.2008

We checked ourselves into a hostel today, because our host was going out of town…so we packed up and caught a cab over to Chinatown to Le Village and got a room for RM30 per night. For lunch we went to a great little Indian restaurant and then hung out and relaxed at the hostel for a bit

For dinner we met up with our CS friend Prakash and he took us out to one of his favorite food stands in Little India…with a Kollywood (yes Kollywood, not Bollywood) blaring in the background, it almost felt like we were in India. He then took us to the Eye of Malaysia, a giant ferris wheel, with great views of the city. We went up for a ride and mid way through our ride it started pouring rain, which was slightly terrifying especially with the strong winds and lightning… the ride seemed to go on forever, it kept spinning and spinning, every time we passed the bottom we thought for sure it would stop, but it just kept going. We then had to hangout under an overhang and wait for the torrential rains to stop.

Before saying goodbye we had one more drink at a Restoran (that’s Malay for Restaurant) right next to our hostel…hot chai and Milo (hot chocolate), delicious.

That night we were awoken around 2am to some completely insane hippie chinese lady poorly, and loudly playing the Ukelele and singing.  The walls are paper thin and it sounded like she was right in our room.  Being too nice to say anything we let her play a couple “lulliby’s” then Dave finally shouted “Alright you’re done, it’s 2am!”  She stopped, but the sound will forever be etched into our brains.

4.3.2008

The plan was to wake up early and get tickets to go up the top of the Twin Towers but sleeping in felt so good, so we did. Instead we had breakfast around the corner, my usual Egg and Onion Roti and Dave gets whatever looks good. We then got on a bus and waited for half an hour while they waited for it to fill (not the best public transport around) and then half an hour later we were at the Batu Caves.

A very dramatic entrance, with a huge staircase of 272 stairs and a 140 foot golden statue of Murugan, a Hind diety. On the stairs up we encountered some monkeys, who were slightly intimidating, we made sure not to look them in the eyes, because we heard they don’t like that, and hold on to your camera tight because they do enjoy stealing as well, bad monkeys. We made it to the top and it was a very impressive cave, with a huge mouth and lots of greenery growing everywhere. There were a number of differnt shrines to different gods throughout the shrine.

At the main shrine there were so many monkeys and the first thing we see is a couple of tourists get attacked by the big alpha monkey, pretty funny ! Especially when it is not happening to you….there were so many monkeys and even some tiny baby monkeys latched on to their mama’s back. They had the place trashed, there was garbage everywhere, and I am sure it was them because it was all up on the rocks and I saw them digging in the trash, more bad monkeys.

We watched the monkeys and enjoyed the cave for awhile and then headed back down the steps and went to a vegetarian restaurant for lunch. We walked around to the other temples and watched a short documentary about the shrine and a specific festival they hold every year there. We then caught a bus back to town and then grabbed a monorail for the fun of it to another part of town. I finally got malaria pills….6 months for $90 U.S., glad I waited, loads cheaper then if I had bought them at home.

We walked through downtown and came across something of a Kuala Lumpur icon, the cat man. He’s a guy who takes care of all the stray cats in the city and hangs out with them snuggling on his motorbike all day while he plays them music and leaves the bike running to soothe them. He’s taken care of over 72 cats and I believe he lets people adopt them when he makes them healthy enough. The cats were really cute, and after a small donation for cat food and medicine Dave got to cuddle with the cats.

On a whim we stopped for massages at a nice looking place, so nice they didn’t have hawkers outside advertising…I took that as a good sign. I got a 30 minute foot massage and Dave got a 30 minute arm, neck and back massage, all for a staggering price of RM60 ($20 U.S.). Walking out I felt like I had new feet, so relaxed and ready for dinner.

For dinner we checked LP and found a good looking vegetarian chinese restoran near our hostel called Fatt Yan Vegetarian Restoran. Dinner was delicious, especially the sweet and sour soya pork and fried rice. We then went to outdoor market in Chinatown for drinks and went to a place with a buy two get one free beer deal. So we got our bucket of Tiger beer and watched the hawkers sell their wares…nice night.

Dave’s Edit: March 4th was Jessica’s B-Day even though she didn’t mention it. We didn’t have a party, but it was still a fun day! Happy B-Day Jess!

How many abodiginals do you see modelling? February 26, 2008

Well Mike, I can safely say that no, I didn’t see any aboriginals modeling as many do believe it takes a piece of their soul, but many don’t care for traditions when they get drunk enough which, as we’ve seen, is depressingly often. We thought their drinking habits were simply many Australians being racist, but it is instead quite true and very sad aspect of a culture that is currently having issues adapting after being treated like trash by the English for so long. Our time in Northern territory has taught us a lot about the natives and their problems, though some we’ve talked to have been extremely nice, many others are barely understandable through the intense slur from a brain floating in alcohol or petrol fumes (this is at least in larger cities, we’ve been told that their culture is much different in the outback and in their own communities away from the westernized Australia). Anyway I just wanted to mention all that because it has been a topic of long debate with many Australians we have been spending time with in Broome and Darwin, but this blog isn’t meant to depress, so lets get on to more cheery issues! If you want to discuss more about the state of the aborigines, I’d love to have a chat about it in person.

20.02.08

After using the internet we drove to a local brewery for some beers and food. We got a sampler of beers which had a fantastic berry beer, a mango beer, and a wild chili beer (very spicy). We usually avoid fruity beers, but these weren’t too sweet, but had a nice kick; very tasty. We met these two guys who were up from Perth to teach cricket to school kids in this small town for a week. We all started chatting and they invited us to another place for dinner (which in hindsight did not seem to have better food than the place we met at). It was a fun local bar with pool, good beer, and decent portions for a reasonable price. We all talked and laughed and made fun of US and Australian culture and politics (a typical topic of conversation; there’s just so much that is so easy to make fun of). We ended the night after the boys lost a game of pool as we cheered them on.

21.02.08

We did very little today, mainly bummed around the campervan park, reading and chatting; just killing time until our flight tomorrow. In the afternoon near low tide we drove to an absolutely stunning spot of beach that had the largest and most active and diverse tide pools I have ever been to! I’m talking massive crabs with all sorts of bright colors, starfish, sea slugs, and octopuses, YES, TONS of octopuses! (I keep wanting to type octopi, but it says octopuses is correct, sounds funny though). The octopuses were opaque (see through white) and when they saw you they’d instantly turn into a dark brown and hide under a rock, or spray ink out at you and swim away. They were absolutely stunning; I got some great photos for you all to check out I’ll put them up on Flickr soon. The rock formations around this area were simply surreal and the whole area is teeming with dinosaur footprints, though they are very difficult to detect and what we thought were, might have just been random crevices. I found myself regretting we hadn’t discovered this place sooner, as it got dark and we had to go home. I would have loved to spend more time exploring!

We got back to the camper park, cooked what was left of our food, shared our last bottle of beautifully buttery and oaky chardonnay and slept this night with a fan that a German couple gave us since they were turning in their campervan and didn’t need it anymore. If felt great NOT to sweat the entirety of the night!

22.02.08

We woke up very early to turn in our campervan. Had to pay a few hundred in repairs for the broken windshield. Since I realize I didn’t tell the story of the broken windshield earlier, here I go now. Well, when driving such long distances you get a bit bored and annoyed with the flies that buzz around your face in the cabin so you find ways to kill them as they lay against a window. One landed on the windshield in front of me and a was trying to tap it with the fleshy part of my fist and just as I caught it; CRACK, I made a huge spider web in the windshield. I was devastated, and I didn’t hit hard I promise, but apparently windshields, like arches, can take hits against the outer concave not under it. Oh well, it was later sort of justified when a bird full on smacked the windshield and probably would have cracked it had it not already been, but the crack never impeded vision, it was just a nuisance, and not fun to pay for repair.

We dropped off the van, took a taxi to the airport and lined up to board our flight. We were getting nervous as word of a second cyclone was on its way, and the weather was not pretty, all we wanted to do was GET TO DARWIN. If either of us had any kind of diety, now is when we’d probably pray; much good that would do! Then of course maybe I spoke too soon; as we were in line to board we were turned back from the plain to return to the terminal! Oh no, buddah, vishnu, muhammed, mother mary, or sweet naked baby jesus, please it can’t be so; the flight is canceled due to cyclone? A bomb was found in the luggage? The pilot is drunk? Armageddon is finally upon us? Zombies? Barbara Streisand is in town? No, instead some tall Yao Min, or Shaq wannabe passenger hit their head on the top of the plane while entering and dropped crumpled and unconscious to the ground. The EMT’s helped him and after just 5 minutes or so we were on the plane, FINALLY bound for Darwin!

The flight was short and sweet and we took a bus downtown where we had some terrific beer battered Barramundi and chips with a pint of Kirin. Our couchsurfing host Jack picked us up still dressed in his military camos and took us to his awesome 3 bedroom apartment overlooking the city (military pays well, and subsidizes housing up in the North Territory. I guess they want as many up there as they can in case of a “likely” attack from Bali or Singapore). Jack took us out to the bars with his military friends (they are civil engineers) who loved the fact that any tourists actually ventured up here in the middle of nowhere! That fact and they were super drunk and we got TONS of free drinks. It was a great night! We got back to meet the third couchsurfer April and slept on our nice bed with a fan keeping us cool for once.

23.02.08

We woke up and hung around the house a bit then headed out with Jack and some of his military buddies to a Saturday market. It was a huge Asian market with tons of wonderful smelling food. We ate some Indonesian food and some chicken Satay sticks with a fresh fruit smoothie to go down. Jess and I wandered around enjoying the shops and art and an belligerently drunk aboriginal man tried getting $10 from April, when she said she had no cash, he tried to show her how a nearby ATM worked. It was sad, but kind of funny and he didn’t get money from us because sadly it would only buy him more liquor.

Jack later drove Jess, April, and I to the Esplanade to do a walk along the beach and gardens. It was a fun walk interspersed with pouring rain that cleared up quickly. We found our way to a Wharf where we met a bunch of Aprils friends who have been driving all throughout Australia to Aboriginal towns to help in their communities. We ate a massive variety of fresh caught fish, squid, prawns, and crocodile meat, with some great white wine. The conversation was terrific as the whole group was lively and very knowledgeable about Australian politics and indigenous affairs. Later we went to a bar for more drinks and more lively conversation then went home and slept well.

24.02.08

Today we said bye to April and Jess and I went to a regional museum. The aboriginal art was beautiful and the exhibit on native species was simply awesome. They had very lifelike animal statues on display in all their natural habitats. There was an exhibit on Cyclone Tracy which completely flattened Darwin in the 70’s which was quite interesting considering our near cyclone experiences!

We headed to the market to get dinner ingredients and went back to Jack’s to cook us all my favorite quesodilla recipe. It was better than we’d ever cooked it, we made the tortilla from scratch and had to improvise on some ingredients we didn’t find, but it all cooked very well!

We watched cricket and tried to learn the rules better (I think i get it now) and then at 11pm we caught a taxi to the airport to get on our 1am flight to Singapore!

25.02.08

Our flight was decent, we slept well and arrived in Singapore at 3:30am. Our couchsurfer hosts wouldn’t be awake for some hours so we found a spot in the airport to sleep, ate a quick noodle and sushi dish, and rested our heads on our bags until 7am. We got a hold of our host, hopped on a train then bus and were at our new digs in no time. We learned right away how nicely priced the public transport is, as well as super efficient. We settled in and headed out with one of our hosts David to lunch with his girlfriend at a wild food market in the business district. Jess and I could not decide what to eat; there were hundreds of booths of all tasty looking cheap food. I got a some great roast duck and noodles, and Jess got a vegetarian noodle dish with the local Tiger beer.

Then we headed to Little India to shop for cheap electronics (new iPods, camera, etc). Turns out iPods are the same price anywhere you go, unless you want a crappy knockoff, so we went away empty handed, but the experience wandering through packed alley shops with fun Indian and Chinese music playing was terrific. We stepped barefoot into a massive Hindu temple just in time for one of the multi-daily prayer sessions. This was no, quiet boring prayer, or some uptight preacher with a monotone voice droning from outdated books, this was fire, colors, pounding music, bright light, insane images, statues of the most vivid depictions of the thousands of Hindu Gods, from vicious demons eating human intestine, to the divine vishnu, rama, lakshmi, and ganesh, all given their own ceremony by bald monks with white and red paint decorating their bodies who would light tons of stuff on fire. THIS is what all religion should be! People laying on the floor praying, putting hands and face in flames to purify their soul, dotting their heads with red and white ash to mark their piety. It was a wild experience, but it was only but a small taste before we go to India where it all gets multiplied by 10!!!

We headed home exhausted and fell fast asleep on our floor mattresses.

26.02.08

Today we had some tasty noodles for breakfast and headed to the nearby pool for some laps. Now we are hanging around the house, writing the blog, uploading pictures, and researching the next part of the trip to Malaysia and Thailand to begin in a couple days. This country so far is really neat. It is by far the cleanest city I have every been to. I have seen one piece of trash and not a drop of spraypaint. There are a lot of fines for breaking laws here and stuff like chewing gum is illegal, and not flushing the toilet gets a fine. Singapore has strict laws, but there is never the feeling of corrupt or fascist government, and the people seem happy and very nice. They have lots of censorship supposedly, but none at all with showing the most disgustingly brutal images of cancer, gangrene, and bloody gaping wounds on their cigarette packages. While on the train a video sits on loop depicting trains getting bombed and reminding citizens to stay vigilant and be on the lookout for suspicious people or bags. Sometimes feels a bit like 1984. Anyway, it’s a bit of a culture shock, but still quite westernized, we are told it is nothing like whats ahead where things really get different, but it’s a good city to make the transition.

Pictures coming up very soon, check them out. Hope you enjoyed the blog, they might start getting even longer and not as constant as we’ll be traveling all through smaller cities in Malaysia and Thailand so when I do write I’ll be catching up to many days without.

(We thought this add was on of the funniest things we’ve ever seen).