Pulau Sibu, Johor, Malaysia

The day we flew back from Cambodia, we were picked up from the airport, driven to my dad's office and then got on the road to drive to Tanjong Leman Jetty, which is about a 4 hour drive. I was the navigator, which anybody who knows me knows would not be my strong point, but we made it and got on the 6 pm boat ride to the island.

Sibu has absolutely the prettiest beaches I have ever seen and very clear water, my pictures do not even begin show how pretty it is. Anyway, the boat took us to Sea Gypsy Village Resort, which is made up of about 20 little wooden cabins on stilts, a large bar/dining area and a place to rent diving, snorkeling and other equipment. The resort was pretty basic and you had to sleep under mosquito nets, but it was a perfect simple, relaxing and beautiful beach get away - and they had awesome food!

We went snorkeling twice and we got to see lots of coral and some fish, but unfortunately we didn't see any small reef sharks or sea turtles, but my dad and I managed to get quite good sunburns.

We are now back in KL. Last night we ate dim sum, which is like fancy wontons served in small steamer baskets. They were freshly made and tasted sooo good, I know I'm going to be craving them all of the time. We then walked around a little bit and went to another mall, which was by far the coolest mall I have ever seen. It's really hard to describe, I think I will need to go back and take pictures, but every wall, floor and restaurant was decorated differently and so beautifully. We stopped at one bar that was made of different colored glass bottles and glass lanterns, I had a lychee martini, which was amazing.

Today we are going to go on a tour bus of KL and then thursday we head to Bangkok.

Cambodia

We'll start this blog off with an apology for not blogging sooner. The hotel we stayed at in Cambodia did have computers, however, they were kept in the open air hotel lobby…the warm sticky climate of siam reap did not agree with the keyboards and all the keys stuck. It was a pain to type even short emails to our parents and boyfriends.

We woke up at five in the morning to leave for Cambodia. Our flight over was short and uneventful. The airport in Cambodia was very small…just one terminal and one baggage claim. We made our way through immigration and we noticed a common theme. An airport worker at each airport we have passed through has played jokes on me and never Samantha. We finally realized why its always me--I have the American passport (Samantha's is British!) I have had a TSA worker tell me my shoes are untied when I am not even wearing shoes…I have had a customs agent ask "Sarah, what is your name?" and other similar jokes. 

Outside the airport our ride was waiting for us holding a sign with both of our names on it. He dropped us off at our hotel, the Central Boutique Angkor Hotel. The hotel was very nice. After grabbing a quick breakfast, we started our tour of all the temple ruins in the area. These temples were built during the 9th century and on. We visited Angkor Thom, Buyon, Takeo, Prasat Kravan, Terrace of the Elephants, Leper King Terrace, Ta Prohm (which is the temple from Lara Croft Tomb Raider!), and a few other temples. We ended the day by going to a market located next to their infamous Pub Street. The market sold many different items varying from shoes to spices. We ended the day with dinner at the hotel and went to bed early.

The main mode of transportation in Cambodia is motorbikes. For tourists, instead of taxis there are tuk-tuks which are motorbike driven carts. As for traffic laws, there didn't seem to be any. The roads were a very busy free-for-all. Our hotel had tuk-tuk drivers in their parking lot and we just selected one and stuck with him for the whole trip. Our driver's name was Mr. Prem and he took great care of us. He kept a cooler on the tuk-tuk which was always full with ice cold water bottles. He also helped us navigate our way through the maze of temples in the area. Prem actually ended up being the same tuk-tuk driver Mr. Piper had when he visited a year ago!

The second day we went to see the major temple, Angkor Wat. All the travel books and advice we had gotten said to see this temple after all the others because of its size and grandeur. After the Angkor Wat, Samantha and I went on an elephant ride! We rode through the gates of Angkor Thom to the Buyon Temple, about a fifteen minute ride. To get on the elephant, they had a platform built around a tree that you climbed up on and over on to the elephant. The ride was incredibly bumpy and uncomfortable, but we had a great time. People waved and took pictures of us as we rode by. Our elephant driver told us that our elephant was 45 years old! We went back to the hotel for lunch and then headed back out to see more temples. On our way out, we saw our first Cambodian gas station….which consisted of an old stand of recycled bottles filled with gas…I think we have a picture of it in our slide show. We then visited East Mebon, Neak Pean, and Ta Som. We ended our day by going to Pub Street to have a few beers and try the local cuisine. The food was amazing!! It was served in dishes made out of palm leaves!

On our third day we decided to make the long trek out to the River of a Thousand Lingas and Kbal Spean. It was about an hour tuk-tuk ride into the countryside of Siam Reap. The path was a sandy, rocky, steep uphill climb. This was not the type of path we were expecting…Samantha was wearing flip flops! We also had no idea how far it was…1200 meters! On the way up there were some view points that had amazing views of the neighboring mountains. Once at the river we were slightly disappointed because there was a small river with a couple carvings..but then a tour guide took us through mountainside and pointed out a few more carvings before we reached a small waterfall surround by millions of butterflies. It was breathtaking! Our journey back down was almost more difficult because we were exhausted!  Luckily we had a long tuk-tuk ride to re-energize before we went to go see another temple. We then went back to the hotel for lunch and then went to the floating villages. Our boat drivers were around our age and only one spoke very broken english. The weather started out nice but started to take a turn for the worse. The river was very shallow and our boat kept getting stuck. We finally made it out to a platform that contained a gift shop and a small zoo. By zoo, I mean that they had an alligator pit, a snake pit, and a snakefish pit. Once on the platform, it started storming and our boat driver that could speak english mistakenly said it was going to "tornado". That's when I lost it. I started taking pictures of the storm so that everybody could see how I died. Samantha was trying to calm me down but all I could think about was the rickety platform breaking and the alligators getting loose and eating us all in revenge for being kept in a nasty cage. After the rainstorm settled we got back on the boat, donated some coloring books and pencils to the orphanage school, and headed back to shore. Once we got back to land, we were immediately accosted by beggars that had plates with our faces on them. Samantha and I were absolutely embarassed by the pictures of our sweaty faces on the plates and Prem was standing by laughing at the whole ordeal. 

Cambodia's temples were full of peddlers. Once your tuk-tuk stopped kids would surround you trying to sell you bracelets, tourist books, scarves, and other goods. It was really annoying. They would not leave you alone until you went inside the temples…which usually was a long walk. They even had a set script:

"lady! where you from?"

us-"america"

"capital washington d.c.!"

us-"very good!"

"you buy bracelet! 5 for one dolla"

us-"no thank you"

"fine! lady! ten for one dolla"

us-"sorry! no thank you!"

This happened at every single stop we made. It was exhausting! 

Overall, Samantha and I absolutely loved Cambodia. Our hotel was perfect, the temples were absolutely amazing, and the food was delicious. We both agree that we would love to go back!

Melaka

Today we drove down to a port town of Malaysia called Melaka. We got a little lost on our way there which turned out to be a good thing because we got to see a more rural part of Malaysia. In Melaka, we visited their maritime museum. They had a full sized replica of an old Portuguese boat from the 1500s. There were exhibits inside the boat explaining the history of Melaka. At one point Samantha and Chris went to look at one exhibit while I was dragging behind. Two young asian girls came up to me and asked for me to take a picture of them...or so I thought. Turns out that they wanted a picture of me! They took turns doing different poses with me. It was really weird. I kind of felt like a freak! Samantha and Chris found this really funny though. After the boat, Samantha had her first run in with a true Malaysian toilet..aka a hole in the ground. She came out of the bathroom with a disgusted look and said she could hold it until we found a more civilized restroom. After the museum, we walked the streets of Malaka's chinatown which is called Jonker's Walk. The store fronts were very colorful and vendors were everywhere trying to sell their items. We stopped for lunch in chinatown and then proceeded to a very old historical Catholic Church, St. Paul's. The church was built in 1521 by the Portuguese. There were a million winding stairs to climb in order to get to St. Paul's but once you made it to the top, the view of the coast was amazing. It was a really hot day (around 98 degrees F) and we made sure to load up on some unusual drinks such as dragon fruit juice, watermelon juice, and coconut milk right out of the coconut. Tomorrow Samantha and I leave for Cambodia bright and early at 5:00 AM. There should be computers at our hotel, so hopefully we can keep ya'll updated!

Second day

Today was a very busy day. We started by swinging by my Dad's office and then heading just outside of the city to feed wild monkeys. Yesterday we purchased tiny bananas and the monkeys noticed these right away and headed towards us as soon as we got out of the car. These monkeys were a lot larger than I expected. I wanted to feed the cute little babies and females because the males were quite intimidating, but it wasn't up to me and I quickly ended up giving one large monkey 3 of our bananas, which didn't last very long. The highlight of this part of the day was when Sarah was waiting for a small monkey to grab a banana out of her hand and a MUCH larger monkey sneaked up to her and touched her leg (which my dad saw coming but decided not to mention), needless to say this made both of us jump, Sarah throw the banana and other people around us laugh.

After this we came back the the apartment, grabbed spicy noodles for lunch and decided to go on a walking tour of Chinatown. We walked from the apt. to the tube and got off several minutes later.  We walked through central market which has many small shops that sold a variety of items ranging from masks to flip flops. In central market was a place where you could get a pedicure from fish. We all decided that we wanted to give the fish a try and submerged our feet in the water. The fish immediately started nibbling away at our feet. It really tickled! They did a fantastic job of removing our callouses! We then left central market and walked around chinatown looking at  old buildings and a clock tower from the 1930's. We then tried teh tarik (tea with evaporated milk, which is amazing!), saw a pretty mosque and then headed to petaling street, which is very well known for its imitation merchandise. It was pretty humorous to listen to the heckling and interact with the sales people. It was insanely crowded and a lot bigger than I had expected.

Tomorrow we plan on leaving the apartment early and driving to the city-state of Melaka, which is a coastal town that was once owned by the Portuguese. It  used to be one of the greatest trading ports in Southeast Asia and is well known for its seafood.

Flight over and our first day

The flights over to KL took forever! Samantha and I both agree that it feels as if my mom dropped us off at the airport a week ago! The initial flight from Houston to LA was fine but Samantha and I were separated. I was sitting next to a mom and her baby...and the reading light did not work. Once we landed in LA we had a super long walk to their international terminal. The path included going outside and walking on the sidewalk with no signs to follow. The security line at that terminal was sooooo long. At one point on the long flight, Samantha opened the window and we could see the snow covered mountains of north China. The Hong Kong airport was really pretty and nice. It had a fantastic view of the coast and the mountains. Also, in their terminal they had a starbucks that was offering a new drink: a ginger black sesame frappacino. I think Samantha is going to be on the quest to try one this whole trip. On the final flight from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur, Samantha and I tried our first dragon fruit and were served chicken and rice for breakfast. Chris met us at the airport and took us to downtown KL. Samantha and I didn't know what to expect about downtown KL but we were both surprised by how big it was. We settled into Chris' apartment which is located in the heart of downtown KL. After that we hit the streets of KL and walked to the twin towers. At the bottom of the towers is a huge shopping mall, filled with all the american stores that you would expect in any american mall. We both have been quite surprised by how all of these american things are incorporated in KL. For example, their radio stations play all the latest US hits including Lady Gaga and Beyonce. All of the signs, advertisements, and instructions are in english. Later that day we went to an english bar called 'The Green Man' for a few beers. Then we went to Malaysia's version of chinatown for dinner. The street was lined with stalls and people shoving their menus at you in an attempt to get you to stop and eat their food. There were fish tanks full of frogs and snails. Also, there were some fruit vendors selling this really smelly fruit and midget bananas. We chose the vendor who had the most people eating there. We ordered dry chili chicken, chili crab, and a bok choy dish. The food was amazing! Definitely better than any chinese food we've had in the states! While we were eating other vendors would come up to us trying to sell their various items ranging from pirated DVDs to flashlights. After dinner, we went back to the apartment and immediately fell asleep...at 8:30! Today we are going to feed the midget bananas (which are actually really yummy) to the monkeys around the golf course right outside downtown KL and then come back downtown and walk around some more. We will keep you updated as much as possible! 

Time to go!

Today is the day! Our flight to LA leaves at 9PM and we will get there at 10:33PM. Then we have a layover until 1:40AM (that is not a typo-its really that late!) We then fly over to Hong Kong where we'll arrive at 7:15AM. We will then promptly board our last flight to Kuala Lumpur at 8:50. We will land around 12:30 PM. All together it is 22 hours of travel time. Wish us luck!!

Day before

Hello,

We are leaving tomorrow night. I can't believe we are actually going!!!