Merry Christmas from KL.

Apparently Malaysia gets pretty revved up about Christmas, it's still only November, but decorations are everywhere (I know Van would be happy). We arrived in Kuala Lumpur on the 30th of November and will fly to Phuket, Thailand on the 2nd.



A Christmas tree in the world's second tallest building would have to be at least kind of big.




If you look closely you can see Christmas decorations behind those Chinese lanterns, which is exactly what I was trying to capture in this picture. You can see it, right?





I suppose it is no surprise that "colonial" architecture is evident in KL as Malaysia (or Malacca as it was called in ye olden days) has to be one of the most colonised countries on the planet, first it was the Portuguese, then the Dutch, then the Japanese, during WWII and finally the Brits (who would eventually encourage independence in 1952. I learned that today in the myoo-zee-um).





Finally, the obligatory picture of the Petronas Towers. It demonstrates that other influence in Malaysian architecture (i.e. Islam).

Merry Christmas!

Bali/Lombok

From the 15-28th of November Farrell and I were hanging out in sunny Indonesia. We spent most of our time laying on the beach on a small island east of Bali called Lombok and scuba diving off of an even smaller island called Trawangan. We did spend a few days in Bali, but we decided to try and avoid that overcrowded and overhyped resort island, which payed off as the beaches on Lombok were just as nice, but with absolutely noone in sight.

We did try surfing, but our efforts were somewhat curbed by a lack of "proffesional" lessons and the overwhelming desire to just relax and do nothing. Scuba diving was an absolute blast, sea turtles were surprisingly common and we were lucky enough to glimpse a manta ray as we were surfacing from our third dive. Trawangan itself was an interesting spot where a few restaurants advertised mushrooms of the magical variety and nightly parties were really the only thing going on (other than the diving, of course). I must admit I was slacking in the picture department when we visited Trawangan so I will defer to Farrell for those.




Lombok.




The views were nice too.









OK, Bali wasn't all bad. These pictures were taken in Ubud where they like to dress up statues, monkeys hang out and the sunsets over the rice paddies are worth a look.

Mistah Kurtz, he dead.

A long time ago, or at least it seems that way, we visited a little town called Pai in northern Thailand. The living was easy with comfortable temperatures (about 20-25 degrees celcius) and for the most part the only noise competing with Bob Marley piping from a restaurant's speakers was the Bob Marley piping from the speakers of it's neighbour. Farrell and I also decided to take a two day rafting trip in the jungle, which turned out to be an amazing experience (except for the rats scurrying by our beds at night). Anyway, here are some snaps of our time in Pai and our sojourn into the heart of darkness, er... I mean into the jungle. Enjoy.




A bridge over River Pai.




Our camp. Luxury be damned.






Our guide "Mike" holds up his catch. Farrell was slacking all day.




Natural waterslides and hotsprings were the highlights of the trip.

Cuisine Art

Now that we've had our fill of our adventure (and the danger of being hit with a firecracker is now over), we decided to engage in some calmer (and somewhat safer) activities, namely a Thai cooking course at The Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School. I thought I managed reasonably well in the kitchen today, but our instructor, upon trying both Farrell's and my dishes, promptly noted, "Her's is better". Well, I can't argue with that I guess, but hopefully I can import some of my newly found skills and impress friends and family alike.

"Heeeere, fishy, fishy, fishy!" Shopping in the market.

The finished fish with red curry, coconut milk, bamboo shoots, aubergines and chili (of course, chili).

We ate waaay too much today.

I should also note that we made green papaya salad today, which at full spice (about 10 green chilis in a serving for two) is essentially inedible for westerners, so if anyone is looking to "have their heads blown off" (instructor's words), then just let me know and I will make some up for you when I get home.

Skinned Knees and Whitewater

Chiang Mai is definitely the place to partake in outdoorsy type things in Thailand. I recently indulged in some whitewater kayaking with Farrell, as well as mountain biking and white water rafting. I wanted to post some pictures of the rafting here, but I forgot the CD at the hotel (Farrell is doing a post on the kayaking, which is probably more exciting in any case).

I should also note that I flew over the handle bars on my bike and subsequently sustained some injury, and I should warn you that some of the following material isn't suitable for the faint of heart...or for those wanting to make fun of me.

Some of the crew, mixing it up and having a good time.

The views were nice...

...but then this happened.

I ended up a little worse for wear, but it was good day in the end. Hopefully I will have most of my skin back before we hit the beach in Indonesia next week so I can work on my tan in full.

Loy Kratong

Over the past two weeks we have been hanging out in Thailand's northern capital Chiang Mai. Every year Thai people celebrate the Loy Kratong festival during November's full moon. Essentially the festival consists of flying paper lanterns into the sky (for good luck), launching orchid/banana leaf boats with burning incense down the river (to rid yourself of the previous year's sins and bad luck) and the setting off of fireworks (whether it be into random crowds of people, traffic or in the middle of the night to keep everyone else awake). We also witnessed paper laterns hitting power lines and police drinking beer on the sidewalk during the festivities. All-in-all it was zany, loud and a little bit dangerous, which are all requisites for having fun in Thailand.

Over the past few days Chiang Mai has become an overwhelming crush of humanity, gunpowder and lanterns.

Launching boats onto the river.

Sending up a lantern of our own.

We witnessed thousands of these lanterns go up over the past few nights, enough to make the sky look like it was filled with stars.

The obligatory Thai Boxing match (with two farangs no less).

Luang Prabang

After a manic three weeks in Vietnam and a marathon 22 hour bus ride to Laos, we came across one of the chillest places on earth in Luang Prababang. For about five days we just wandered around town, eating, swimming in waterfalls, watching the sunset over the Mekong and generally relaxing as much as possible. And, if you don't believe me, here are the pictures to prove it.

Morning alms in Luang Prabang. (Alas my camera has the annoying habit of taking bad pictures in the dark, or maybe its just me).

The sunsets and 60 cent vodka sours made some of us extremely happy.

I call this picture Old Meets New (or at least I would if I were trying to make some obvious and shallow observation about the effects of tourism on developing Southeast Asian countries, which I'm soooo not trying to do).

Ahh, the old swimming hole.

In and around Hanoi

Our last week in Vietnam was insanely busy, which is appropriate given the Vietnamese people's propensity for everything fast, loud and crowded. After visiting Halong Bay we trekked in Sapa (and consequently got quite drunk on rice wine provided by our host family during our homestay), visited distant pagodas and were a part of one of the craziest taxi rides of all time.

Sapa provided some of the most beautiful scenery yet.

Drinking the local spirits can cause headaches (as we found out.

White people in Sapa (and Vietnam in general) are usually accompanied by a gaggle of kids looking for money and/or selling stuff.

The Perfume Pagoda is a Buddhist temple set in a large cave.

Notre Dame, Hanoi style.

Minh's Jazz Club in Hanoi. The most recognizable American art form in northern Vietnam, I dug it.

This one is just for GT.

Random Assortment

Since we haven't posted in a long time I will post some pictures here to give you some idea of what we have been up to over the past little while.


Picture of a street in Hoi An's Old Quarter. Hoi An is where we spent way too much money getting clothes tailored and then sending them home.



Eating Hoi An's specialty dish the "White Rose" (shrimp dumplings).




We only stopped in Hue for about four hours on our way to Hanoi, but we went to a 700 year old Japanese covered bridge where we saw this guy harvesting snails from his boat (which was more interesting than the bridge itself, unfortunately.



Rice paddies in Hue.



Fishing boat in Halong Bay.

Tonight we are headed on a train/trekking tour of Sappa, which is a northern hilltribe town. Hopefully we will be able to post again when we return and before the 18 hour bus ride to Vientiane in Laos.

Halong Bay

Sorry about the extended period of time between posts, but we have been travelling around a fair amount and just spent three days of a boat tour of Halong Bay. The bay is filled with massive limestone islands (about 2000 of them), which house gigantic caves and empty beaches.



Monks on a pier. Monks always make a good picture with their saffron robes.



We were able to kayak to some "remote" beaches. It was a far cry from the insane noise and traffic that pervades Hanoi and much of Vietnam for that matter.



The sunset was great the night we slept on the boat.


The sunrise was also great, at 5:30 in the morning no less!




The caves were huge, but crowded with tourists of course.