Hey Hey we're the monkeys

Here we are now in Kuala Lumpur… We were staying in China Town… and got in a bit late.

Once again we had drinks at another reggae bar… This night I managed to talk Kim into going out w/ us… holy difference a drink makes in that girl… anywho… it was all pretty fun… as you can see from the few pics I managed to take.

The next morning, everyone was feeling a little rough… so we had breakfast at Pizza Hut. Actually… rewind a few hours… first we rolled out of bed super early in the morning to stand in line to get tickets for the petronas towers. For those of you who don’t know, the PT’s were, a few years ago, the tallest buildings in the world (now second to a building in Dubai). So you wait in line for hours… and the tickets are free, but there is a limited number… so you get there around 8:30 and your ticket is for 1:30… so you have to kill time… there’s a mall like structure… you wander around it… and end up at Pizza Hut at 10:03, it opened at 10… This picture creeps me out b/c I look a lot like mom.

Now that I’ve told you all about the Petronas Towers, here they are from the bottom… On a sad note, I always presumed I would get a chance to get a better picture… but that opportunity never really came up… I was also pretty sick by this point… I had developed a nasty cough in Krabie, which was full blown sinus thing by this point… so I wasn’t particularly happy/pleasant/observant of photo ops.

So then after hours and hours of wandering around the mall aimlessly, we finally got to go up. We got to watch a corny little movie… not so much about the towers, as it was an add for Petronas… an oil company… that basically owns and controls all of Malaysia… they set up schools, the run everything…

We didn’t get to go to the top of the Towers… which is sad… you only get to go halfway up to the glass walkway… which I’m thinking is about as high as the Eifel tower… it was still about 40 some odd stories, and as you can see above, it’s a great view.

Our next stop was the Batu Caves a bit outside of town, where we got seriously ripped off by the taxi drivers…

As usual, there are lots and lots of steps, and a big gold statute in front

Inside, the caves are really super huge

But the real entertainment are the monkeys… lots and lots of super cheeky monkeys. These monkeys supposedly growled at Holly causing her to throw her bag at them and then they proceeded to eat the entire contents of the bag… which had no food in it… just random things like face wipes… they really liked the face wipes.

"Flicka flicka flicka, here you are, cata cata cata, caterpillar girl"-- "Caterpillar Girl", The Cure

I continued with my communing with nature in the Cameroon Highlands, where we went and visited a Butterfly Farm.

Here’s Matt w/ a big beetle

Then there’s the guy with all the scorpions… which he then put on Matt… apparently scorpions only sting you if you poke them in their back… good to know.

Here’s a leaf insect

And a giant moth…. Check out Holly’s face

And then there were the butterflies… that just let you hold them… and wouldn’t get off your hands.

On the way back we stopped at a strawberry farm.

The sunset was gorgeous…

That night we headed out and had some drinks… well Holly and Laura had a lot of drinks… and the creepy guy… had even more… oh yeah, he was really really really creepy.

The next morning we got up bright and early to check out the tea fields….

They are pretty amazing…

This here is something that crushes the tea leaves… tea factories smell heavenly.

Now here is one of beefs w/ SE Asia… they only serve Lipton tea… or other tea in teabags… no fresh tea… its sad really… in asia, and all I can get is liptons…

"Who gives a damn about the prophets of Tesco?"-- "The Fallen", Franz Ferdinand

For those of you who don’t know, Tesco is a British grocery store… and once we rolled into Malaysia, that’s exactly what I saw… a giant Tesco.

In general, Malaysia just kind of blew my mind… as most things in SE Asia have. Malaysia is a Muslim nation that has managed to integrate western lifestyle… not something you would ever hear about on the news at home… and it would really make an incredible place to base a research paper on the subject. When we got there I was kinda shocked… it looked a lot like being somewhere in the states… scratch that… it looked like Florida… or what I imagine California to look like… Palm trees, well planned, clean, modern… not really anything like the rest of SE Asia. It wasn’t catered to western tourists… in fact we went a couple days without seeing any other westerners… which was a little odd. But there didn’t seem to be any conflict between religion and development that we hear about all the time in other Islamic countries.

One of my favorite parts about being here is reminiscent to the time I spent in Egypt. Several times a day, the loud speakers go on throughout every city and call people to prayer… It is incredibly beautiful… and sets a certain atmosphere.

The first stop was the island of Penang. Penang reminds me of Pittsburgh… it even had the golden glow that Pitt had the first time I came to visit.

We checked out a museum, a fort, and up above is Selat Utara

The Chinese families here live in clans… that own whole streets. Or in this case… they owned whole piers.

We then headed to the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy. As you can see, its pretty big, beautiful… and has a fantastic view.

This here is the giant Goddess of Mercy statue

And I don’t know who this guy is supposed to be… but I think he’s awesome.

We then headed to the snake temple on the other side of the island. The story has it that the monks built the temple and the snakes came down from the mountain and made it their home… which the monks took to be a good sign… so they just let them stay… and then started a snake farm in the back…

First up we have an albino boa

Then there was this lizard, which the guy thought would just be great to put on my head

And then there was the giant python… so cool

And lastly we have a nice view from my room…