July 20 - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Its been a few days since we last posted, so again we apologize, but we had to go out and make the stories before we can tell them to you. We had been on Langkawi, a small island with nothing but beach "resorts" (half decent mini hotels, really), Asian seafood restaurants, and Malaysian Rastafarians. The beach is gorgeous and the Rastas are nice. We are now in Kuala Lumpur, the bustling capital of Malaysia, and really enjoying it. There is so much to say about the city, but first to paradise...

Monday July 17th we took a ferry from Penang to Langkawi Island. (Before we left Penang, we discovered that, just like Vietnamese street names, it is also a lot of fun to shout 'Penang!' with the gusto of a Southern Baptist minister. Try it: PENANG!) The boat ride was long and arduous, many people filled their complementary plastic sanitary bags, but Ari slept most of the way and Jillian discovered she could actually medidate (but only when she really has to!) A taxi took us to our hotel, the not-so best Best Star Hotel. The hotel was located right on the stunning beach, so we shouldn't really complain.

Our group took a short walk down the beach to a cute little beach cafe run by dreadlocked locals and had a meal that took a shockingly long time to prepare. Jillian's little egg sandwich - called a Banjo for some reason - took so long we wondered if they were waiting for a chicken to lay more eggs. It turns out, as you might suspect, Asian Rastas living on the beach are just in no hurry to do anything. I guess we're not in New York anymore, Toto.

We took the opportunity to relax on the beach, which we hadn't done since Nha Trang, Vietnam. You may remember we weren't feeling well in Nha Trang, so we didn't get as much out of the beach town as we otherwise would have wanted to. So we spent several hours on the beach, which was nice and quiet and had plenty of lush white sand to squish between our toes.

Our whole group met up for a family style dinner of Malay seafood, which was quite good. The fish was really fresh and the seasonings were delicate and delicious. The meal was included as part of our tour package, so we ate a lot to make sure we got our money's worth.

After feasting on fish curries and vegetable stir fries, we met up with a handful of people from our tour group for drinks at the cute beach cafe where we had lunch. The Malay Rastas were playing reggae (of course) and some hip hop, so it was a chill, laid back atmosphere. We ended the night with a stroll down the beach under the stars. Sounds like the kind of night you're supposed to have on a honeymoon, eh?

The following day, Tuesday July 18th, we took a boat tour around the waters around the island. Pulau Langkawi (which means 'Langkawi Island') is located in the Strait of Melaka, the body of water between peninsular Malaysia and Indonesia, near Malaysia's northern border with Thailand. We cruised in a small boat that took us through beautiful bays and past smalls islands peaking up above the water. The boat dropped us off on an island that had a fresh water lake for us to swim in. As we walked toward the lake, we realized we had been in the city too long when we confronted with the local fauna. An enormous lizard was sunning himself right on the rocks and though it didn't threaten us, (it didn't move at all really,) it scared the ba-jesus out of us. We walked past the lizard without any trouble and made our way, if somewhat warily, to the lakeside for some swimming and horseplay. It was pretty mazing to have a freshwater lake tucked between the mountains which were themselves only surrounded by salt water.

Much to our dismay, more woodland creatures came to visit as we swam. The trees near the water were soon filled with monkeys that were jumping, climbing, and doing other things that we can't describe in case younger eyes are reading the blog again. And, if that was not enough, a nice long snake was waiting for us on the path on our way back. We're not sure how big it was because as we told the story to the other people on our trip, the snake seemed to get longer and longer, but we think it was around 38 feet long.

Glad to be back on the boat, we went to a small secluded island which was little more than a small beach and a few trees. We were even more glad that these trees didn't have dirty monkey inhabitants. We jumped into the blue murky water, but were alarmed to find what we thought was a sea snake swimming next to us! Oh man, would nature just leave us alone? Jillian shrieked (yelped? squealed?) and made everyone get out of the water as she felt the snake brush by her ankle. With the whole group standing by at the water's edge, our brave tour leader went after the beast with a stick and pulled it out of the water. The 'snake' turned out to be a gnarled peice of rope, but he gave it a good whack for good measure. With the sea serpent vanquished, we were able to better enjoy the serene scene.

Lastly, the boat cruised up next to some seaside cliffs, where we noticed a large number of eagles soaring overhead. Our skipper through a generous amount of chum into the water and an awesome spectacle began. For several minutes, the eagles gracefully swooped down to the surface of the water and effortlessly pick up the chunks of fish. There were eagles of varying sizes and colors, and we noticed the larger birds definitely ate before the smaller ones could get near the fish pieces. The whole show was pretty amazing. So maybe nature isn't all that bad (from a distance) though we were really glad we weren't fish heads at that moment.

After the boat ride, we returned to our hotel and wandered across the street to a small restaurant for a lunch buffet of Malaysian food. Again, we were impressed by the food and how different it was from anything we had tasted before. There were crispy deep fried hard boiled eggs in a spicy red sauce, fillets of fish in rich curry, fried eggs topped with mango salsa, and some other meat dishes that we didn't try. We then spent some more time sunning on the beach and splashing in the water.

We snuck away from our group and had dinner by ourselves, this time Thai seafood. The food was scrumptuous and it was nice to have some quiet time. We met up once again at the beach cafe for drinks on the dunes. One of the Rastas suggested some music for us to check out once we get back to the US. It was kind of funny to get suggestions about American music from someone who lived so far away, but that is the global village we live in.

The next morning, we woke up early to walk the beach one last time before flying to Kuala Lumpur. In case you hadn't figured it out, we made it here safely and are having a great time. Unfortunately, it looks like you will have to wait to hear about our adventures in Kuala Lumpur until later because it is getting late and we have a long day of travelling tomorrow.

Lots of love,
Jillian and Ari