Malaysia: Georgetown, Cameron Highlands, Perhentian Islands, Kuala Lumpur

A long bus ride from Krabi brought us to Georgetown, a smallish city on the island of Penang. We spent a couple days here wandering the streets, walking through little india and drinking extremely pricey beers in Chinatown. Malaysia has the most expensive alcohol that we have found so far (three times more expensive than Thailand).

Our next stop in Malaysia was the refreshing cool Cameron Highlands. We welcomed the cool, fresh air and we were actually cold for the first time on the trip (other than on an overly A/C'd bus). We did a tour of strawberry farms (we had the best strawberry shakes we have ever had), insect zoos (I held three giant scorpions on my arm at once!), honey farms, rose gardens and tea plantations.

Across the country to the east coast is the Perhentian Islands. We stayed on the small island at an isolated beach only accessible by boat (and a footpath to the other side of the island). Huge Monitor Lizards roamed in front of our room and chilled below our deck. The beach was a minute from our room and the water was crystal clear. We did another snorkelling tour and saw sharks, giant sea turtles and a school of fish that must have numbered in the thousands. At the center of the school you could look in any direction and only see fish. It was fun diving down through the school and watching the fish react as if they were one entity. A full day of snorkelling tired us out and we spent the rest of the day drinking M&M peanut shakes and eating food.

We are now in KL (Kuala Lumpur) and spent the entire day yesterday walking around the city. We paid to go up a 421m tall telecommunications tower that has an observation deck with an amazing view of the city. Included in the tower visit was a mini-zoo experience. We saw raccoons, pizotes, monkeys and held a huge snake, a cockatoo and a parrot at the same time. We then walked over to the Petronas Towers (the famous twin towers of KL) and checked out the mall at the base. Tonight we are catching a train to Singapore. We will arrive tomorrow morning, on the 5th. Dave and I fly to Bali on the 6th and Paul flies back to Vancouver on the 8th! I am suuuuuuper stoked for Bali and Lombok! I will spend a full month there before I fly back to Vancouver. Dave is thinking that he will leave for Nepal mid-September!