Vacation Ramblings

So I havent written in awhile, sorry about that! Id rather write about my vacation for free here at work instead of paying for it elsewhere.

Our trip was definitely interesting! First we stayed in Kuala Lumpur (KL) for a couple days and met up with my friend Yin Yee a few times. It was great seeing her again and seeing where she lived and such. She took us at one point to eat traditional indian food.. well we didnt realize HOW traditional it was! You sit down and they give you a giant banana leaf for your plate. Then they slop on some rice, various veggies and various curries. Then you eat it all up using your hands! (your right hand of course, you left is for other less pleasant activities...). Anyway, the food was great, and it was a worthwhile experience. In fact, we liked it so much we went back a couple more times!
We then headed to the island of Penang which was a pretty quiet and family oriented place. Although, Christmas morning we were awoken at 6am by the Muslim call to prayer blasting outside our window.... unbeknownst to us, wed booked a place next to the town mosque... no wonder it was so cheap!! Anyway, Chistmas was a little odd because of that and the fact that it was hot, sunny, and everyone was wearing santa hats and playing xmas music, even though they were muslim...hmmm.....We spent our nights shopping at the night market where we bought 30 DVDs for about $30....not bad! then wed head to a friendly bar, have a couple drinks, smoke a hooka, and chat with the bar owner. A really BIG guy named Ben. He told us that because of the fickle weather, we should head to Phuket, Thailand, where wed have a lot more fun and better luck with the weather. So we did that!
We took a minibus (a van) for 12 hours through north malaysia and into thailand.. that was hard on the backside! Phuket is an island and we were on Patong Beach which is a huge party town and tourist trap. Full of prostitutes, lady-boys, bars and Thai boxing tournaments it proved to be a very interesting place! during the day most people were either sleeping, taking tours, or tanning on the gorgeous beach (most of the people there were definite skin cancer candidates.... and mostly european, meaning topless, old and young and not always a pretty sight!). We took a tour where we rode and elephant named Mr. Moo through a rubber plantation! I loved that! my favorite part by far! And then the next day we took a canoeing tour out to the bay between Phuket and the mainalnd. It was the most gorgeous place Ive ever seen. We would get off the main boat and canoe into these caves where it was pitch black and you could hear (and sometimes feel) the bats that lived there. Using just a flashlight we wound through the caves and out into a lagoon where there were monkeys sitting on rocks and chatting to each other. it was better than national geographic!

After Thailand we went back to KL for New Years which we spent with Yin Yee and her friends. at the stroke of midnight we we stuck on an overpass. Everyone got out of their cars, and went to the edge to watch the fireworks show, which was definitely worth it!! very cool! then we went and hung out with her friends.

Vietnam was definitely interesting. A very watered-down communist country though. We spent the first couple days in Ho Chi Minh City (known to most as Saigon) where we had dinner, roamed around and bought presents. We also took a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels and a Cao Dai temple. The Cu Chi Tunnels were built during the vietnam war. Most of the town moved down underground into these tunnels where they would love out their lives sabotaging and killing american soldiers who were trying to ruin their town. Anyway, we got to see booby traps, crawl through some of the tunnels, and realize the ingenuity of the vietnamese during that time. it was very interesting and amazing even though the tour was kinda made into a theme park and the tour guide was smiling the whole time while talking about killing the enemy. It was so one-sided and hard to see it that way when many people Adam and I know (ergo, his dad, and others) had been there and suffered. We then went to the War Remnants Museum which had formerly been called the War Crimes Museum, dedicated to making the americans look like baby-killing barbarians. There was a huge section on the after effects of Agent Orange, which was really sad and hard to take.... anyway, kind of a bummer of a day.
The Cao Dai temple though was really interesting. Cao Dai is a hodgepodge of many different religions put into one and its big claim to fame was that Victor Hugo was a member..hmm... we got to see one of their ceremonies, which was interesting for about 10 mins, then got boring like any other normal church service. But all in all, very cool to see.

Then we headed up to a beach town called Nha Trang where we decided to relax and enjoy the last leg of our trip. We took a boat tour, enjoyed a floating bar and TERRIBLE vietnamese wine (vinegar with a dash of sugar) that got nicely flavored with salt water as waves would come by...... it was a riot though, loads of fun. We met some really cool people, 2 English and 1 Aussie. We spent our days on the beach and reading, collecting shells etc. Anyway, Adam and I each got some kind of food poisening at different times, his the night before we were to come back! It was really worrisome for awhile, but we made it back in one piece and with no bird flu to speak of, although that last night we were wondering a bit!

It was a great trip with highs and lows. definitely eye-opening! i cant write about all the details here as it would take way too long, so if anyone is interested they can just comment, or ask me and i can fill you in!

As for today... back to work as usual... woohoo!

By the way, I'll put up pics soon. No worries, be patient!