And..... We're back!

It's been about 3 weeks since I last posted. Susan Jane came to visit and we spent about a week and a half exploring Malaysia. Then it took me about a week and a half to catch back up on all the work I put off while we were away. I'm finally caught up, so I wanted to update you on the places we visited and share some pictures.

The first 2 days SJ was here, we stayed on the island of Penang. We went shopping at a local mall, super market, and an outdoor market on the first day. The goal was to keep SJ awake as long as possible to help her sleep thru her first night on local time. Turns out she didn't need much help, and she managed to sleep 14 straight hours - easily the longest I've ever heard of anyone sleeping on the first night after they arrived.

On the next day, we toured the Penang Botanical Garden. One of the most interesting parts of the Botanical Garden is how many free-roaming monkeys there are there. I only got a few pictures of them, but I took some pictures of the signs warning against them (and some videos too, altho I haven't figured out a good way to post them yet).

Then we went to Penang Hill and took a Funicular train up to the top. There were stops all along the way for people who lived up the hill, which was odd - there's no other way for them to get home but take this slow, crowded train up the hill! Once we got to the top, we saw a Mosque, a Hindu temple, and a hotel - I can't imagine how they got the materials up the hill to build it all.

After that, we went to Kek Lok Si Temple, a large Buddhist temple in Penang. We actually didn't take any pictures of it, but the Temple area is huge. By this time, we were exhausted so we went home to eat and pack for our trip the next day.

If you haven't already viewed them, pictures of our Penang site seeing are available here.
If you'd like to read about Kek Lok Si Temple, click here.

On the next morning, we drove down to the capital of Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur (KL). It's about a 4 hour drive. Most cars here don't have cruise control, so it can get a bit long. However one thing I wasn't prepared for was driving at high speeds in metric. At times I was driving 150kmph, which didn't feel that fast until I did the math and realized that was over 90mph in a car smaller than a Toyota Tercel. Fortunately, we made it there without any problems.

Once there, we checked into the JW Marriott - easily one of the nicest hotels we'd ever been to, and only $100/night. I am still a platinum member from all my traveling to San Diego last year, so they treated us pretty special with a full tour around the hotel, lots of introductions as VIP guests, special gifts in our room, etc. To top it all off, our 2 nights there were free because I used my Marriott rewards points. It was very nice, especially when trying to impress your wife so she thinks you're an important person!

The first afternoon, we walked around the city and took taxi's to some of the more obvious landmarks. There are an insane number of shopping malls in KL (I've been told this is true for most Asian cities) - at least 7 malls within walking distance of our hotel. And these aren't the standard 2 floor malls we have in the US - each of these is 5+ floors with very expensive brand name stores (Louis Vuitton, Rolex, etc). It's unclear who can afford these stores in Malaysia, but there are a lot of them.

That afternoon, we went to the 2nd largest building in the world - Petronas Towers (also known as KLCC). They only allow about 600 people each day up to the bridge between them, so we didn't get a chance to go, but as you can see from the pictures, it's only about 1/2 way up the tower.

Then we went to the Menara Communication tower - the 4th largest freestanding comms tower in the world. You actually get higher in that than you can in the Petronas Tower. We took some pictures and then walked around outside. Turns out there is one tree outside the tower which is so rare, they spent millions of dollars to move the tower away from it - certainly an odd planning decision in the center of a city.

The next day was our busiest day of the trip. In the morning we visited the Orchid Garden, the Butterfly Park, the Bird Park and a chocolate factory (YUM!). We took lots and lots of pictures there - I've posted the best ones on shutterfly (link below). Then we went back to the hotel, grabbed a quick bite for lunch and went back out on tour. This time we went drove down Ambassador's Row where most of the embassies are in KL, including the American embassy which, ironically, is next door to the Iraqi embassy. Then we went to the Royal Selangor Pewter factory where they demonstrated how they make Pewter and related products. They actually have the Worlds Largest beer stein there, which is certainly an unique achievement. Then we went to a Museum of Aborigine People of Malaysia - this was a surprisingly well kept Museum with all sorts of tools, musical instruments, and pictures from the approximately 18 different Aborigine tribes in Malaysia. Next we went to the Batu Caves, a 400 Million year old rock formation that has become a Hindu temple and a popular destination during a yearly Hindu holiday (they told us that more than 1.5million people go there in just 3 days). We wrapped this tour up with a visit to a Batik factory and a Leather factory. Finally, we headed back to the hotel - phew!

If you haven't already viewed them, pictures of our KL site seeing are available here.

The next day we packed up and headed to Perhentian Island. There is no direct way to get there, so we had to take a taxi 1 hour out of the city to the airport. Then we took a 1 hour plane ride to the east coast of Malaysia. Then a bus took to the port where the boat would pick us up (45 minute ride). Then we took a boat over to the island, which was another 45 minutes. By the time you add all the transfers in there, it was more than 6 hours from when we left the hotel to when we got to our next room on the island. If only there had been a train ride somewhere in there, I think we would have won a prize. :) Fortunately, we had 5 days to recover on the white beaches before we had to do it all over again. While there, we went snorkeling and saw a shark and a large sea turtle, as well as lots of coral and fish.

If you haven't already viewed them, pictures of our Perhentian Island site seeing are available here.

Finally, it was time to come home. We got back to Penang and went out to dinner with some of my coworkers and their wives, then SJ left the next morning.

After all that, I almost need another vacation to recover! This week I'm headed to China, so hopefully I'll have some more interesting stories to share next weekend.