3 months already! We have learned so much about the world in only 3 months.
We have learned about the religions of certain people throughout Asia.
We have learned a whole lot more about cooking Asian delicacies and how to properly prepared all dishes.
With the help of daddy we are very Adventurous with our eating skills. Funny enough the new things we try are mostly better then things that we have tried before.
Last but not least we have learned so much about the people in Asia and a lot about the city and/or country.
I am certainly looking forward to the Elephant sanctuary in Ching Mai, Thailand.
I am also looking forward to India, Turkey and London especially because they all have such a unique feel to all of them and London also especially because my mom used to live in London, England and it is very well known.
I had dreams I was stuck in the bowels of a ship as it bounced unpredictably through huge ocean waves. I think I took gravol for that trip, so maybe I did learn my lesson from the Cameron Highlands bus trip.
Cameron Highlands was named after Sir William Cameron, a British surveyor who discovered the plateau nestled between mountains in 1885 and deemed it suitable for a British style hill station - an area for a sanatorium, health resort and open farmland. Basically, a place for the rich to come and escape the heat of the lowland areas. The whole area is actually bigger than Singapore, with average temperatures of around 18 degrees - it seldom rises above 25 at night and it rarely drops below 9.
As Canadians, we are right at home here. In fact last fall I proposed three options to the girls for a six day, vacation from the vacation. First, a beach vacation in Langkawi (a developed island we would have to fly to that's west of peninsular Malysia), second, a beach vacation on a remote set of islands called the Tioman islands off the east coast, or option number 3. I give the girls credit - they chose the cooler temperatures and opportunity to do some hiking in the Cameron Highlands - so here we are.
Waking up in the morning and looking at the view out our room window, I'm glad the girls made that decision.
The previous night we'd arranged a taxi driver. They will take you around some of the sights at a minimum billing of 3 hours, but it was only $10/hr so getting around would be quite cheap. We met our driver, Selvam, a fifty-five year old Indian at 10:00am in the lobby. The population is mostly Indian in the Highlands, as they were transplanted by the Raj so many years ago, and most of the Indians are Hindu who speak Tamil as they were from the Madras/Channai region of India.
Selvam was full of that characteristic "Indian-ness" - nice, outgoing, funny and quite a character. His ride was a forty year old car with over a million kilometres on it. Selvam was born on a tea plantation to first generation Tamil parents. As he drove he would alternate between giving us the lay of the land (from his perspective :-)), greeting other passing taxis with a wave and an Indian head nod, and taking calls where he would try his best to questionable success in trying to speak to another English as a second language caller on the other end. It was quite comical.
Our first stop was one of the three Boh Tea Plantations. I had fond memories of the unique and kind of unexpected beauty of the tea plantations from last time, and I was looking forward to showing the girls.
We were not disappointed. I could hear the gasps in the back as we rounded the corner and came uponthe view below. As Abby said, you kind of expect the tea to be grown on flat land - to see the shimmering green hills stretching into the distance with white flecks of sunlight illuminating the odd patch of tea... It is really breathtaking.
Selvam got out of the car with us and proceeded to tell us all about the collection of tea. While it used to be Indian labourers toiling away up and down the steep hills with hands and buckets as tools, things have changed. The younger generation no longer wants to work the land, so the plantation started using more automated tools. Now, it's immigrants from Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Indonesia that use a cutting and vacuum tool to more quickly cut the young leaves from the 85 year old tea trees. I smiled as I listened - the irony was that Selvam himself was proof of this upward mobility of labour - he was born on the plantation, yet he was a taxi driver, his wife worked at a restaurant (we dropped by to pick up his breakfast earlier, she's quite lovely) and his three kids? A teacher, an engineer and a worker on a ship.
Oh yes, I said 85 year old trees. Left unpruned, the tea trees look like any other tree. The plantation prunes the tea trees down every 4 years so they stay at the optimal height. The leaves are harvested from the trees every three weeks, all year round - quite the business. They make 4 million tons of tea here every year, but it basically just keeps up with domestic demand - the population drinks 5 million cups of tea a day in Malaysia.
We drove up to the factory and welcome centre. We had a very quick tour to see the tea making process - which is surprisingly simple and fast.
Step 1 - Withering - They spread the green leaves out on perforated beds and blow air with powerful fans to reduce the moisture content by 40 to 50%. This also stimulates a natural chemical reaction which is vital for product quality. This is an overnight process.
Step 2 - Rolling (don't get too excited here Probir) - The leaves are placed in a rolling machine that's used to twist and break the withered leaves, distorting and rupturing its internal cells. This process liberates and exposes the leaf's juices for fermentation and takes just 20 minutes.
Step 3 - Fermentation - Otherwise known as oxidation, this process exposes the enzymes in the leaves to oxygen. This process only takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours, during which the characteristic flavour and aroma are developed and the leaves turn from green to a coppery colour. This is the most important process to be monitored to maintain quality and flavour.
Step 4 - Drying - The fermented leaves are fed into machines through which 100 degree Celsius air is passed through. This stops the fermentation process and brings the moisture level down to less than 3% and crystallizes the juices, converting the leaves into their familiar crisp black form. The drying process only takes about 20 minutes.
Step 5 - Sorting - After drying, the tea is graded according to particle size by passing it through a series of vibrating sieves. Stalks and fibres are removed. This is the way they choose which tea goes to what product line - each grade of tea has its own density and flavour characteristics. At this point, the tea is packed in bulk and shipped to KL to be packaged for retail distribution.
All of this knowledge was getting us thirsty, but we made sure to stop and get another cheesy cutout shot...
We sat down to some tea, cake and cookies. Selvam was there with his cronies, chatting away. I think if he started charging by the word, he'd do much better! The tea was awesome (Alex... Fresh grown and processed pulled Teh Terik.... Ohhhh.....). We got back in the old-mobile and made our way out the meandering plantation road. Our next stop was a "must-do" stop at the butterfly farm. It was actually pretty fun, but not because of the butterflies.
The place was full of Rajah Brooke Birdwings - the massive, quite lazy national butterfly of Malaysia. Before I knew it, Selvam was placing them on my hand - "you see sir, they are quite lazy!".
Selvam found a buddy who at his request reached in and grabbed a whip snake to put around my neck. Then Robin gave it a try too....
Selvam's buddy then brought out a Rhinocerous Beetle - huge and very prehistoric looking.
I turned around and buddy slapped a millipede on my wrist like a set of handcuffs. It was surprisingly "dry" and not as creepy as it looks.
I'm not sure why I became the guinea pig, but somebody put this huge green monster on my shirt. It didn't do much.... It was fine...just fine. No problem....
Luckily the scorpions stayed in the cage.... They are really creeping looking.
At this point, we were ready to leave when Beth shouted "watch the snake Abby!" - Abby and Robin screamed, turned and jumped to avoid the green monster laying in wait on the pathway.... Ok it was a long leaf. Beth pulled off the biggest prank of her life and was quite happy with herself. The kids hearts were beating out of their chests and they were half annoyed / half impressed with this unexpected stunt! Well done Beth.... Though I wonder if this will trigger reciprocation.....
Strawberry farms are apparently a big thing here (including pick your own strawberries.... However, after suffering through very traumatic pick your own fruit experiences as a child, there was no way in hell I was picking any strawberries.... Ok that sounded harsh, but I was really scarred!), and Selvam took us to the most Indian popular strawberry farm in the area. We weren't expecting much, but it was pretty funny that after we saw the "fields" (in a greenhouse with three or four lonely strawberries hanging off the vines) we came back to the retail shop to find Selvam working the counter! "Yes sir, you want strawberries, juice, milkshake, strawberry ice cream float, strawberries and cream? Ma'am? My friend gives me free juice for helping out."
The guy is a good salesman.....
What a morning. We got dropped off in town at 1:30pm, promising that we would see our little Indian friend again - he really made our morning. Next up? Kumar made our afternoon, serving another set of delicious meals....this time we tried the Thandoori chicken.... Yum. I know it seems weird to repeat at a restaurent after having dinner there just last night, but we have nothing to prove... Our goal is to find a good place to eat, then eat, sleep, repeat!
The girls had a very productive afternoon - two hours of math homework then a spa! They earned some iPad time, so after dinner we migrated to Starbucks for some online time. A great day.
I remember in 1997, the drive up to Cameron Highlands was pretty scary. We were sitting in the front seat of a huge tour bus with a gigantic bubble window stretching down to our feet. The bus wound around the narrow two lane road and quite often we would be hovering over nothingness as the bus swung really close to the edge. It didn't help that we would occasionally see the rusted hulk of an overturned bus that had gone off the edge at some point in the past. Fast forward 18 years and Beth was furiously doing research on the road conditions (but how do you expect results from googling "is the road safer now?").
We looked into a private car - the economics of going the private route have largely worked to our benefit, as multiplying trip costs by four usually ends up close to the cost of cheaper transit. This time, it didn't make sense: almost $200 Canadian for the four hour trip compared to $45 to go by bus. We loaded up on rolled sushi and snacks and in the morning got our packs on and walked 10 minutes to the Pudu Raya central bus station.
The girls were forced to take gravol, but Beth unfortunately made mine optional. The drive was pretty uneventful for the first two and a half hours, right up to the rest stop. After that, it was like we boarded a ship in rough seas. Ugh.
With our seats near the back of the bus, I was not feeling good. Why didn't I take gravol again? The roads were actually very safe - they've widened the shoulders quite a bit, and I didn't see any bus carcasses, so that was good. The last 45 minutes of winding up the mountain road was pretty bad. Lesson learned? Maybe.
We got dropped off in the town of Tanah Rata in a driving rain. The place isn't too big - just a main strip and then some hotels and residences off some small side streets. We had booked a stay at the Heritage Hotel, which is a giant colonial style building at the top of a hill at the south end of town. There were not a ton of options for staying in Cameron Highlands (at our price point and our desired comfort level - always a struggle between trying to save money and being comfortable... often overriden by the comfort side of things :-)) and since we are here for 6 nights, it was an important choice. We donned our trusty ponchos, and began the hike up the hill to the hotel.
I was on sea legs still by the time we checked in, so Abby and I hung out at the hotel while the other two went to scout out the town. They returned a couple of hours later having found a Starbucks and a tourist map (I gave them 25 scout points each!) and by that point, we were ready for dinner. We found this place called Kumars, which has great Indian food. I have a feeling we will be back many times before we leave this place.
It was a free day. We started off by going down to the zoo (buffet breakfast). We saw one family of three sitting next to us, after having gorged and left a ton of food on their table, send their 10 year old daughter to cut a loaf of bread in half and bring both ends to the table. They proceeded to hollow out each half of the loaf, then stuffed them full of meats and pastries. I guess that was their food for the day (or the week?). How bizarre...
We set out on foot towards the market area. We passed this nice looking Christian church - a reminder how harmonious the various religions are here (no right wing Christians, no radical Muslims, no angry Hindus (are there such things?)).
Near Chinatown, we came across a large Hindu temple and decided to explore.
There was a lot going on at the temple - Hindu worshippers, priests doing different tasks and a bunch of tourists. The Hindu temples have as many colours going on as the tacky Chinese temples, but somehow it works.
We watched one of the priests dumping water and milk repeatedly over a statue before coming out to bless the waiting worshippers. There's something very peaceful about watching Hindu and Buddhist ceremonies.
On the edge of the inner temple, two guys struck up instruments and began playing a mesmerizing tune - one using a hand drum, tapping away with fingers covered with some kind of ivory or bone devices, and the other with a horn that droned that familiar Indian tune.
We continued on across the river - what a mess walking can be in KL. Between sidewalks that end abruptly at a fence, incomplete (sometimes derelict looking) construction sites that block entire roads that were on the map, and numerous sharp object and sidewalk potholes, it's no wonder that Mimi told us Malaysians just don't walk very much. If they did walk, they'd see that the city needs a lot of work for pedestrians.
We made it over to Merdeka square which has a number of really nice Islamic style buildings - here's the textile museum...
And the Sultan Abdul Samad Buildign which houses a number of government ministries.
We caught a subway to the KL City Centre stop where we had lunch at the gigantic shopping mall that sits at the bottom of the famous Petronas Towers.
They were running the first annual KL Grande Prix (or as Abby kept calling, the Grand Pricks) so a lot of roads were closed down. Outside the Petronas Towers we could here the roar of the engines as the cars wove their way through the city.
We managed to see the cars on one section - pretty cool.
We ended up at Times Square Bergaya - the newest mega mall in KL that has a full amusement park with looping roller coaster near the upper floors. We grabbed dinner there and finished it off with Teh Tarik,the delicious hand pulled sweat tea that is a staple for locals.
The amount of cool modern and traditional architecture, fantastic restaurants, ultra modern super sized shopping malls, wonderful parkland and attractions and an exciting melting pot of cultures makes Kuala Lumpur one of the cities that should be on a travel bucket list. However, if it wants to edge into the category of "great cities of the world" according to the Tyndall family index, it needs to pay attention to details - fix the walking problem, clean up the derelict construction sites and make the river that runs through the city an attraction, not a polluted eyesore that is ignored as it currently is... And if I'm going to make a wish list, how about making every cab in the city metered, build an express airport train line and provide clean drinking water for all. Thank you!
We got a late start, opting to sleep in a bit this morning.... Yes, Beth. Slept. In! The Bickersons had arrived next door late last night, so we're hoping s later start would help them decide to leave Malaysia. No such luck unfortunately.
The buffet breakfast here is one of the best we've had on the trip (I am the lone dissenting vote - you'll have a hard time defeating the Citadines breakfast in Shunjuku - come on, they had gyuudon and Japanese curry rice....). However, we are seeing some bizarre hoarding and some really pushy people at the buffet. For some reason, almost everyone is acting like there's a food shortage - getting 8 pieces of toast, then leaving 6 for waste. A small woman in front me, waiting for fried potatoes, proceeded to take the whole buffet refill of potatoes on to a single plate back to her table. I don't get it. Maybe the clientelle here are not used to buffets... It's really weird.
We set out in foot again, this time in the other direction, towards the main park area to the western side of the city. KL has some enormous areas set out as parkland in the city, so a check goes into the column for that. We passed by the national mosque - a more modern looking mosque that's on the outskirts of the park.
Inside the park, we made our way to the famous bird park. Abby giggled at the ever present superlative - it is the worlds largest walk through aviary covered with copper tensile mesh (ok I added that last part, but we do get a kick out of the way that you can always get a "world's largest..." statement to be true if you add enough qualifiers and Abby and I have a running gag were we make up the superlative). Having said all that, it IS freakishly big and quite beautiful.
There are thousands of birds and hundreds of species of birds throughout the grounds. These Pelicans wondering around were quite big!
At 12:30, we decided to check out a bird show, which was actually quite funny. Here are a couple of sample clips.
I wanted to keep,walking through the park, but it was high noon in sweatsville and we were all in need o f,a change. I grabbed the first taxi I could and it turned out to be a wild and wacky ride. I've posted a jerky video of the inside of this guy's car, but let's just say he was an extreme collector. The weird thing was that he was quite serious (even insisting we not out seat belts on in case we would ruin some of his decorations. Half bizarre, half hilarious. It turned out to be "the world's most decorated Malaysian taxi that the Tyndall's had ever ridden in".
Simply Enak was the name of our next food tour adventure. I'd found our guide, Mimi, on trip advisor (yes the same place I'd found the North Borneo train experience on.....sigh) and booked this a couple of months ago. Long story short if you want to skip ahead.... It was excellent!
Mimi was 25 - a Muslim Malay former Samsung employee turned food tour guide. She was very engaging and formed a rapport with everyone pretty quickly. We were joined by a Muslim Aussie with Albanian roots named Sylvie who was in KL by herself for a week.
Mimi was taking us through the Chow Kit area, which is actually a lower middle class area with many Indonseian immigrants. It, like KL and the rest of Malaysia, is a bit of a melting pot of cultures, languages and foods. We tried biscuits at a Chinese family-run shop that totally reminded me of the place Fiona took us to in Hong Kong. This triggered many questions about "Halal" because Sylvie couldn't eat any of the treats that had been made with pork lard. I'm sure most of you know, but I will record here for future reference, Halal is kind of the Muslim equivalent of the Jewish term Kosher - a designation that ensures the food on offer has been sourced and prepared in a manner that is consistent with religious guidelines. For the meat part, Halal means no pig! Goats, chickens and cows must be slaughtered in a specific way and after reaching a particular age (no veal or lamb for these people!).
The whole discussion prompted many questions regarding the Muslim faith which Mimi was more than happy to answer. Could she eat at non-Halal restaurants? Yes, SHE could but some Muslims would not. In Malaysia, non-halal certified restaurants will be very open with what menu items are Halal and what are not, and she could trust the owners to tell the truth. The places might not be Halal certified because they sold liquor (a no-no for Muslims) or just didn't want to go through the process of getting certified.
Mimi came from a devout yet flexible family. She was not "forced" to wear the hijab (head covering), but rather she chose to begin wearing it in her early twenties as a sign she was getting more "serious" and devout. It was fascinating really. She told us about weddings (average 1200 guests... From the bride's side only!). She also told us how much food was woven into Malaysian culture (so much so that the country seems to be the only one in Asia we've seen that has an apparent obesity problem) - even expressions and greetings relate to food "hi, have you eaten?". Social gatherings and business après-meetings always have food at the core. In many ways, food serves the same purpose that alcohol does in our culture, but because they're Muslim, they just can't go to the Squire for a few Hoegardens (Drool-cleanup on aisle 3 please!!!).
We tried a lot of street food as we wove around and through the alleys of Chow Kit. Here is a pic of a typical roadside street food setup - deep fried sweet potatoes, bananas and breadfruit. Yum.
In between food stops, we would duck in and out of markets, and continue the exploration through Mimi of Muslim customs. I kind of thought Sylvie would chip in with her perspective - I haven't found too many reserved Aussies! However, getting her to say more than yes or no was a little bit like pulling teeth.
We sat down at a little place along one covered alley and had some amazing satay - beef, chicken and goat, followed by cucumber and shallots. Apparently those veggies have anti-carcinogenic properties and Malays eat them with satay as sometimes the meat on the sticks get burnt a bit. We also tried an assortment of drinks - iced coffee, tea, carrot, padan leaf and condensed milk and lime juice. The whole juice culture here and many places in Asia is interesting - almost everywhere you go you can see signs with dozens of different pictures of different coloured juices. Most that we tried were good - though the padan one tasted like bubblegum - it had a ton of condensed milk.
I give total props to the satay cooks: They stand next to white hot coals all day, cooking stick after stick of meat satay, occasionally fanning the meat so it doesn't cook too quickly. Abby gave it a quick try...
We ventured into the fruit market, with Mimi offering to show us what any fruit we wanted to taste was like. We'd tried most by this point on our trip and we were all trying to manage not to eat too much based on our now extensive experience with food tours. Robin was trying to coax Sylvie into trying fruits ("you really should try this durian - just to know you did it, you know??") but she would always respond "I think I'll pass".
We stopped at a stall that sold Murtabak. Oh, that was awesome. I only had one eighth of the beef curry onion paddy with egg covering but it was so good. The paddy was only 3 ringett ($1) which is crazy - but again consistent with what we always learn on these food tours - local food is good and cheap.
We stopped and watched a guy make a pancake for us. We'd seen these a lot around Birneo, usually made with sugar and peanuts in the middle. The girls requested chocolate inside this one. Everyone was salivating watching the making of the dessert - even Sylive cracked s smile..... Until they spooned in sweet corn all over the baking shell... what the "frick" is up with the obsession with ruining dessert with corn in this country!!!
We walked through a very busy wet market that had huge cow hooves and cow heads on display. Mmmmoooooving on, we stopped to sit for a coconut juice and more cultural investigation. We were really surprised to learn that Mimi had a Korean boyfriend. What we know about the fun loving Koreans is they love eating meat (especially pork) and they love to drink. Her boyfriend would have to convert to Muslim if they were to marry - no ifs ands or buts about it. It did sound like he liked Malaysian food - he came to Malaysia with a six-pack and left two months later having gained 12 kilos. It was so shocking, Mimi said, that her boyfriend's mom called Mimi and asked her what she'd done to her son! Malaysians love their food. We walked through a patch of chow kit that is a bit of an anomaly in KL - an undeveloped area that is owned by native Malays who refuse to give up their land and also refuse to develop it. Weird but wonderful.
We stopped at a Chinese place for some nice noodles. I loved that we were moving through the three main Malaysian cultures, because that would mean.... Yes.... Indian was next! We ordered a bunch of different roti - Canai, onion, cheese. All amazing. The girls watched the chef make the rotis.... So cool.
They also served some rice and chicken. I was stuffed at this point, but Robin dove right in, Muslim style. She had no qualms about sinking her right hand into the plate and scrounging for a good finger full of food. This one, out of the four of us, just does not hesitate. Her favourite expression is "when in Rome!".
We said our goodbyes to Mimi at around 7:30. It was a great experience, ranking up there with Tommy from Hoi An and Fiona from Hong Kong. In fact, I'd wager to say that Mimi is the "world's best Chow Kit focused, Muslim food tour guide with a Korean boyfriend".
It was time to say goodbye to the clan Versly. They put on a brave face for 7 in the morning....
...But we all knew how they really felt. We weren't much better - it just wasn't documented!
There was some drama with Kim and Alex's flights - they had two flights through Brunei to Hong Kong, then a quick 90 minute turnaround (then a quick 24 hour turnaround in Toronto before the kids went to camp!) and they weren't allowed to check bags right through to Toronto. Fingers were crossed.
We had a less dramatic day, a single Air Asia flight from Kota Kinabalu to the nations capital - Kuala Lumpur.
No drool? No problem!
The kids are getting used to distinguishing prayer room signs from bathroom signs - handy skill in a bathroom emergency situation.
Robin was under a food watch - just making sure she ate basic foods for 48 hours to make sure her stomach was settled. She'd been taking such good care of her cupcake box, we probably should have put her sunglasses in there (they've been lost quite a bit on this trip, and replaced three times).
The airport is located over 50km from the city. They built it as part of a huge expansion in the area that they were just talking about in 1997 - an area called Putrajaya that they were attempting to turn the middle of the jungle into a digital city and IT hub. It has not helped their internet access in this country, I can attest to that.
We arrived at our hotel after a speedy drive - the hotel is quite nice. I think I may have been thinking of the dump we stayed at in Chinatown the last time we came here when I booked this hotel. Unfortunately, the family room we'd booked was being renovated, so we were stuck with two rooms for the same price! Yes, that was sarcastic.
We hit the ground running, setting out on foot towards Chinatown and the Central Market area. What a change. Chinatown was now a modern, covered street largely closed to traffic, filled with vendors of all kinds. We spotted a fruit vendor that had tons of presaged, cut up fruit so we bought 8 bags and moved on. Most of the vendors were selling knock off clothes and other trinkets so we moved on.
The central market was not what I'd remembered! It was now a two story, fully modern mini mall of multi cultural tourist craft shops. There were many Turkish, Indian and Chinese shops, scattered with the occasional Malay shop selling batik artwork and clothing. There was also a substantial food court upstairs that I'm sure we would revisit.
Outside the market, there was a very cool pedestrian street that had all kinds of different things for sale. We bought some tapicoca, rice flour, coconut and palm sugar treat that was very good - You could practically see Abby's pupils dilating from a meter away. We decided to keep wondering. We stumbled upon our first sighting of the famed Petronas Towers, the symbol for KL.
We eventually ended up at Quil City Mall....meet another very modern, huge and not very busy shopping mall in Malaysia. Beth and I had a perfect dinner - Japanese rice balls....mmmm. The kids had burgers featuring melt in your mouth beef. These malls almost have more restaurants than stores - it's kind of crazy, but we would perhaps find out why tomorrow.
We ended up going upstairs for a movie - the girls went to Paper Towns, while I opted to take a second look at Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation to squeeze out any nuances or Easter eggs I hadn't seen on my first viewing,:-). When they got out and told me the plot of their movie, I strongly felt I'd made the correct decision.
We took the monorail home - every time I see a monorail station I can't help thinking of Entrapment, the Sean Connery heist movie filmed largely in KL. We are all pretty impressed with our first half day in Kuala Lumpur. It will remain to be seen whether we'll give it the "world class city" stamp of approval, but so far, so good.
The Versluis family left today. Feels very strange to be back on our own now! We have really enjoyed the interspersed visits from Stephen & Kris, The Mudfords and The Versluis gang. We certainly had an incredible time with Alex, Kim, Jeffrey and Matt and cannot believe how in sync the two families were. Through boats, planes, trains, mini vans and taxis, we travelled incredibly well together for two and a half weeks. Made some lasting memories for sure and most certainly strengthened an already strong friendship. One of the great gifts of travel!
I have officially lost track of the days of the week and the dates. I do know that we are nearing the official halfway point which will no doubt delight the grandparents. Flying to Kuala Lumpur today and my city girl (Abby) is excited to be heading to yet another big city. Hope it lives up to her (modern) expectations. Lol. We are ready for a change of scenery as we move to peninsular Malaysia, but have truly enjoyed our time in Borneo.
Some exciting things planned for the remainder of the trip. Need to remind myself to stay focused on the moment at hand and enjoy every second. I'm sure it will go fast. Embracing the 24/7 togetherness of our foursome again! (please remind me of this the next time we are in a cramped room for four and all need space).
