The Gap Year Adventure....

hellloooo from Penang, its been a few days and a lot has happened so thought it was about time to write a quick update.

After Kuala Lumpur we went to a small island near Kuala Kangsar to live with a Malay family for 2 days. The family live on a small island in the middle of a lake which was created by the first dam ever bilt in Asia. We arrived on the evening of Friday 13th and were welcomed by a beautiful dinner of traditional malay food (such as rice cooked in banana leaves). we spent the evening playing traditional malay games and speaking to o ur hosts - Aziz and Asiah and their 3 year old son Azam.

Saturday saw us getting an early start to go across the lake to a local malay village where we were able to see traditional malay homes and the rubber tapping industry that these people survive on. Most of the trees in the jungle were rubber trees and it was really cool to see the pots attached to the trees and the rubber comming out. We carried on further into the jungle on a pretty hard trek to a waterfall. Due to the fact that it had rained most of the previous night and all that morning there were LOADS of leeches so we were given lemons to squeeze on them to get them off. They are the most foul creatures i have EVER seen!! They were all over my legs and i even ended up with one on my back and one at the top of my thigh :-( NOT good!! The waterfall was beautiful though, as was the jungle we had to walk through, so it was very much worthwhile despite the leeches traumatising me! We spent the afternoon swimming in the lake before we got dressed up in traditional malay sarongs to enjoy a traditional malay mean. This was all traditional malay food eaten whilst sat on the floor. You can only eat with your right hand as, ion their culture, the left hand is used for toilet duty! It was pretty hard to master picking up rice and sauce with only 1 hand, and messy too, but really really good fun!

On Sunday morning we left at 9am to go around Kuala Kangsar. we visited the Sultan's mosque which was beautiful although not as large as many others we have visited. We also drove past the palace and visited a street market next to the river which sold loads of wierd and wonderful local fruits. We then caught a bus and ferry to our next stop, Penang.

Tom and I were in a Taxi with another couple (trish and Nick) and the taxi driver decided that he couldnt remember the name of our hotel despite our tour leader having shown him a map and the address! this was a problem as none of us knew the name of the hotel so after driving round Penang for an hour on what was supposed to be a 20 minute journey we abandoned the taxi and trish and i sat in a barw ith a drink whilst the boys went on a search for the rest of our group. Luckily we had ended up only a 5 minute walk away from our hotel and found a cool bar selling mexican food at the same time! We spent the afternoonw andering around local shopping centre (its GIGANTIC!!) before goign to a local night food market for dinner. I ended up spending the grand total of 85p on my dinner which was roasted duck with noodles and a can of coke - the BEST duck and noodles ever :-D All od the weight i lost in tanzania is quickly goign back on - all the food here is so fatty and greasy and so so good! All the people seem to do here is eat!

After dinner we went back to the hotel and hahd a party in our tour leader's room as he had a penthouse room with a rooftop terrace thing. Needless to say everyone apart form myself got ridiculously drunk and had a great night!

It's now 12:55 on Monday and we are in an internet cafe after only gettiing up and leavign the hotel at about 11 - it was a really good night! Time to go now and explore penang before we leave for Thailand tomorrow.

miss you!

lou

xx

hellloooo! i'm currently in Kuala Lumpur on our second night here so thought i'd write a quick blog to update you on what we have been up to.

On Sunday (8th April) we spent the day wandering around Chinatown in Singapore before meeting our group (there are 12 of us in total) at 5pm. There is another couple in the group, Nick and Trish who are both English, an irish guy called noel, an australian guy called Ben and an English girl called Meeta as well as an Australian family of 4 which is quite cool. For the suatralian family this is the first time the parents have left Australia in over 25 years and the first time ever the children have left the country or gone more than 2 hours away from home (they are 19 and 14) which is quite strange for us as they are very very VERY naive - especially the 19 year ofl girl, we thought she was 15!! Everyone is really nice - only slight downside being that they are a bit quiet and not as much fun as the greenforce lot, possibly due to the family being a large part of the group and also the mixture of ages. Everyone gets on really really well though which is good as we have some really long bus journey's!!

Monday (9th April) - Today we set off at 8am to Melaka which was a 6 hour bus journey. I thought this would be a killer but, aside from when we were crossing the border from Singapore into Malaysia, i slept for the ENTIRE journey!! The pillow nan mason bought me is really comming in handy - it is SO comfortable! Melaka is an old port town which started off as a small fishing town but now, mainly due to tourism, is pretty large with a big shopping centre etc. It was really nice to spend the afternoon wandering around the small shops down the narrow streets -VERY different from Singapore! In the evening we went on a trishaw tour of Melaka and stopped to visit the oldest chinese temple along the way. The temple was beautiful -considering it's age and the materials it is made out of it is in wonderful condition and it was really interesting to hear about the history of why it was built there. The trishaw's were AMAZING! we had seen trishaw's before in Singapore but didnt go on one but these were in a different league - they were so so elaborately decorated (the one Tom and I went in was shaped like a boat and COVERED in fake flowers and fairy lights) and many had music and flashing lights! I felt awful when we learned that the driver (or rider maybe?) was 65 as were most of the other riders! I felt like I should sit him in the back and I should ride - especially as it was a pretty long ride (about 45 mins) up some hills! We had great fun though and it was a great way to see a lot in a short time.Melaka is the type of place that i would like to have more time to explore - we arrived at 2pm and left at 11am the next morning so didnt have too much time and the winding streets and wooden shoes that they make there were calling me!!

Tuesday (10th April) - we set off to Kuala Lumpur today, a slightly shorter bus journey at only 5ish hours. Our hotel is in the mioddle of Chinatown which is really cool and right next to Petlang street which is a big night market selling LOADS of gucci bags and rolex watches etc - im sure you get the picture. The only difference is that these are REALLY good quality and ridiculously cheap! It's a really fun vibrant place to wander round and the haggling is great - i'm ruthless!! Our evening meal was in a cool (and very cheap) chinese restaurant where the food was amazing. We just spent the evening wandering around the night marketbefore getting a relatively early night.

Wednesday (today - 11th April) - Today we went on what was supposed to be a half day tour of Kuala Lumpur but we set off at 9am and got back at 3.30 so more of a full day really!! Fist we went to the King's Palace, the grounds were gorgeous and so so well maintained and the building looked amazing but obviously it was a long way back from the gates!

We also visted the largest Mosque in Kuala Lumpur which was very very impressive although we wernt allowed to go into the main prayer area for some unkown reason as we are usually allowed to. The women all had to wear full length robes (alter server style) and head scarves - these were so HOTand claustrophobic, i really dont know how the women wear them all the time!!

Next was Petronus towers - unfortunately we didnt get to go up as it would have meant several hours queuing but we went and stood at the bottom and got some cool photos - they really are GIGANTIC!! They are more commonly know here as the twin towers (for obvious reasons) and since September 11th, they are now the tallest twin towers in the world - 88 storeys and stand at 452 metres above sea level.

Then onto the Royal Selangor pewter factory - the largest pewter factory in the world where wee went on a guided tour and saw how they made most of their stuff. It was really cool to see the really detailed engravings being done - such monotonus and manual jobs though, very hard work and SO boring! We saw the largest pewter bear tankard in the world and a really big model of patronus towers made entirely out of normal sized petwer been tankards which was pretty impressive. Unfortunately everything was REALLY expensive so souvenirs were out of the question! :-(

Next was Menara telecommunications tower. It is one of the tallest concrete towers in the world, standing at 421m. It is the tallest tower in south-east Asia and ranks fourth in the tallest telecommunications towers in the world. We got a guided tour so now i'm an expert on this tower!! Despite the fact that it was raining we got a really good view over Kuala Lumpur and took some cool photos. The view would have been awesome if it hadnt rained but it seems to do that a lot here!!

Unfortunately, due to the heavy rain we didnt get to go to the botanical gardens but we had a really really good day and saw most of the main places in Kuala Lumpur. We ate at a dodgy chinese/malay street restaurant for tea and had some really nice noodles :-D

And now im sat in an internet cafe writing to you! Tomorrow we go to Kuala Kangsar for 2 nights where we stay with a traditional malay family and visit some waterfalls and the beach which should be cool!

In the mean time i have sent another CD home when i wa sin singapore with photos on but the links below will take you to all of my photos - some of them you will have seen but many are new...

My Birthday Party:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4020&l=77a94&id=602500397

Mid phase Break:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4024&l=0a748&id=602500397

Mid Phase Break continued:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4026&l=f0ad0&id=602500397

Camp:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4030&l=b3608&id=602500397

Meserani Snake Park Pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12751&l=7b84f&id=602500397

Eluai Pics: (Eluai is the name of the Maasai village we lived in):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12755&l=f7ec7&id=602500397

Random Tanzania Pics:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4022&l=5b9e8&id=602500397

Zanzibar Pics:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12757&l=905f9&id=602500397

Singapore:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12764&l=cc02e&id=602500397

Melaka Pics:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13489&l=4b359&id=602500397

Kuala Lumpur pics:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13493&l=20f2a&id=602500397

If you cant click on the link just copy and paste it into the address bar at the top

Enjoy!!

miss you

lou

xxx