Singapore and Borneo -- Part 3 ... again...

So I wrote about the final leg of our journey and was uploading some cool photos when my computer decided she'd had quite enough and rebelled against me. As a result, I lost my entire blog post and am now having to re-write it. I'm not nearly as enthused about writing it a second time so it might just have to be short and sweet.

(On another completely unrelated note, something very interesting happened to me last night on the train. Adam and I were in line to get on and I noticed one woman kept glancing at me. This is normal so I didn't think much about it. She then sat right across from us on the train and kept staring at me. Needless to say, it started making me feel very self-conscious. After double-checking with Adam that I did NOT have a booger or anything else unpleasant on my face, I assumed she was just a little nuts. Well, she then proceeded to take a pad of paper and a pen from her hideous Prada bag and started to sketch something. Only as she was sketching she kept looking up at my face! She was drawing me!!!!!!!!!!!! Honestly, I was struck-dumb and didn't know what to do. I was feeling very exposed and uncomfortable and starting to feel angry that she didn't even ask if she could draw me. Adam said, "make a goofy face or stick out your tongue or something. I'll stick my finger up your nose or in your ear if that helps". To which I replied, "No thanks!" I didn't end up making a face or saying anything, but maybe I should have.... Oh well. Interestingly enough, this doesn't surprise me nearly as much as it would have 2 years ago.)

Ok, now back to the trip. We left KK and headed for Kuala Lumpur (from now on KL). The hostel we stayed in was really nice -- same one we'd stayed at previously and it had toilet paper! Woohoo! (Never realized how much of a perk that actually is, hehe.) Anyway, we didn't have a whole lot of time in KL so we spent the first day taking Kendra, Josy and Marc to the Petronas Towers (formerly the tallest buildings in the world and recently surpassed by the Taipei 101 Tower). After that, we went to a bar and met up with Yin Yee and her boyfriend, John. We spent a little time catching up and exchanging gossip about Vashon and our mutual friends, which was really nice. Then she and John took us around the corner for dinner at one of their favorite hawker stands. It was Chinese food and soooooooooo good! We ended up ordering a lot of spicy food that was even spicy for them, but man was it tasty! Such a relief from the blandness that is Japanese cuisine. We then proceeded to shop for pirated DVDs, only to find out that the price had gone up from about $1/DVD to about $3-$4/DVD.... not such a big deal and we came away with quite a few!

The next day we decided to go to the Batu Caves a little outside the city. The caves are in a big limestone hill and house several Hindu shrines. (For better and more accurate info go to this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batu_Caves) In order to get into these caves we had to hike up 272 steps which were conveniently numbered! (No, I didn't count them all the way up!) We took time to take pictures and watch the macaque monkeys along the way. Most of them were very cute and stayed out of our way, but they have been known to steal and snatch at purses and bags (!!!). One monkey had a little baby clutched to her and he was sooooo cute in a very wrinkly and homely sort of way. Anyway, we perused the cave a little and took our pictures with a giant boa constrictor this guy had. He offered to let you hold it for a picture for 10 ringgit (so like $3). I think it was worth it since I love snakes. This one, however, was a bit "affectionate" and was trying to hug me a little too tightly... I got a bit nervous and was told Kendra to hurry up with the picture before the snake got any other ideas! I didn't notice until now, but the snake was getting friendlier than I thought with his tail there....! Then we took a tour into the "Dark Caves" which were, as the name suggests, very dark! We had headlamps to help us see and it was pretty cool. I must say that the caves Adam and I went to in the middle of nowhere Texas were much cooler.... but these were fun as well. After that we headed back into KL and since it was our last night there, opted for eating in an Irish pub since we were craving western food!

So that's about it! We had a wonderful time and had some crazy experiences for sure. Josy was the one with the camera so I'll be posting more pictures when I get them from her -- I only have a few. I'll also work on downloading the software for transferring the video to the computer so I can email it or post it somewhere for you all to see. Hopefully, I get that done soon!