Malaysia

After leaving Korea on Feb 27, in a bit of a rush, we arrived safe and sound in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Thursday morning. We stayed in the airport for a few hours and caught a flight from KL to Kota Kinabalu, one of the bigger cities on Borneo Island.  (Borneo Island is the 3rd largest island in the world and has 3 different countries on it; there is the Malaysian part, where we were, a tiny part on the northern side that is Brunei, and the southern half which is part of Indonesia).

We were recommended a scuba instructor named Neville in KK by friends from Korea (Jamie & Blaine). After what seemed like a wild goose chase, we finally found Neville and signed up for scuba lessons. After 3 days of scuba, Kyle and I are now scuba certified!  Hooray!  We saw many cute things while diving, the best being a couple of nudibranches, 2 lion fish, 2 blue spotted sting rays, some puffer fish, and numerous reef fish. By the way, sign language is quite handy for diving.

After we finished our scuba course on Sunday, we encountered a problem with our money situation Monday (2/28) as we were trying to get money out of the atm for our river cruise. We had planned to use Kyle's atm card since mine could not get mailed to Korea in time before we left. This was a fine plan until Kyle's pin number decided to not work. After about a week of semi-panic waiting for the new pin to get mailed to NJ, we broke down and had Beth & Gregg wire us money. Actually not as difficult as we imagined, you can do it online, and the fee is only $30, much cheaper than we had anticipated. Just make sure that you include the entire name of the person you are sending it to so that it matches their passport exactly.  :)   We got the money March 5, just in time for my birthday!!! And all seemed well with the world again!

River Cruise

Baby proboscis monkey

Back to KK, on Wednesday (3/2), we signed up for a river cruise on the Klias River to search for proboscious monkeys (the ones with the big noses) in their natural habitat. It was a 2hr drive South, on a one way winding road which was a little scary at times, but well worth it. Once we got to the base camp we had tea and some banana fritters (yummy!) and some Malaysian sticky rice (not as good as the Thai's). We then got in our little boat and started looking for monkeys. Within 10 minutes we had already found several monkeys and continued to see many more monkeys, macaques and proboscous, along with a monitor lizard and water buffalo throughout the duration of the cruise. After the cruise, we went back to the base camp, had a delicious dinner, and then went back in the boat after dinner (once it was dark) and looked for fireflies which lite up the mangrove trees like Christmas trees. It was beautiful and very peaceful.

Adult male proboscis monkey

Monitor Lizard, this guy was small but they can grow to be huge.

Buffet dinner

The next morning we flew back to KL which was a rather tiring day. We ended up spending 60RM on a taxi to the airport because our taxi driver dropped us off at the wrong terminal. (The airport terminals in Malaysia are not connected or even located near one another).   :(   Once we got to KL we wandered arounf for about 3 hours searching for a hostel.   :(   After being exhausted and weary we settled for one that was alright. We walked around KL trying to follow the Petronas Towers, but got exhausted after awhile and just went back to the hostel to go to sleep.

Friday (3/4), we went to the Batu Caves, a Hindu pilgrimage site. It was pretty cool and once you climb the 300 stairs there are small shrines inside to differnt dieties and TONS of macaques. They're mostly after the leftover food the visitors have brought with them, but we were right next to live, uncaged monkeys. It was a little scary.... We then moved to our worst hostel yet, the Oasis, which fortunately did not have bedbugs, bit it had termites and ants instead. The bathroom didn't even have a sink. After waking up with ants and termites crawling over us, we decided that if we got money the next morning we were upgrading.

Batu Cave

Inside the Caves

Fortunately we did get money on Saturday, which was my birthday. We moved to a MUCH better hostel with a comfy, bug free bed. We are going to have a delicious dinner, compliments to Beth & Gregg for the birthday treat included in the wire.  :)    Kyle is then going to take me to Chinatown and let me do some shopping on his budget.  :D

Chinatown at night

Tomorrow we leave for the Perhentian Islands. Jamie & Blaine told us that they are the most beautiful islands they have ever been to (and they've been all over), so we're excited. Hopefully we can get another dive in and maybe see some cuttlefish.    :)

Hope all is well with you. Good luck Matt as Joseph! Wish we could be there to see you live. I've heard only wonderful comments so far!

Thanks again to Beth & Gregg for helping us out of our money situation!

On the River Cruise

We love you all!  Love, K & M