Kuala Lumpur

Well we are at our last stop, Kuala Lumpur (KL). But first a couple of stories from Penang. We were playing frisbee and saw the biggest Jelly fish we have ever seen--probably the size of 2-3 basketballs! A few minutes later, the frisbee flew into water, and Ryan bravely went out to recover it (I am sure you can guess the ending to this story:) Anyway, he got stung on the leg. We were assured he would not die (although by the way he was screaming, I wasn't sure--just kidding!), we poured vinegar on it and he lived to tell about it. Another funny tidbit, we thought that we were the tourists, learning about the culture of Malaysia and seeing the sights. Turns out we are just as much of an attraction to people, as we are frequenlty the only caucasians around. As we were walking down the beach, a group of Indian men asked to get their picture taken with us (and we had seen this happen with other people too). Then when they saw us later they all waved enthusiatically.
KL is a typical city. We have found that cities in any country are pretty much same, just the dominat culture is slightly different. We had hot showers for the first time in a week, saw the Patronas towers, walked around the city in the rain, saw some "ladyboys" (cross dressing prostitutes) and ended the evening with dinner at a great chinese resaurant. There have been protests in the city due to the Indians feeling that they do not have the same rights as the other cultures. The interesting fact we learned form our cab driver is that they have been locking down the city and putting up roadblocks (and causing huge traffic jams) to prevent more people from joining the protests. From reading the papers, it seems that these peaceful protests are seen as a threat to national security and despite it being a democratic country, the citizens are expected not speak out. The system here was originally set up make sure the Malays get rights, but that has taken a turn into discrmination of other groups.
We have enjoyed our trip a lot and feel that we have learned about the people and the culture here, as well as meeting lots of interesting people, but we also do look forward to returning home.
Oh, the good news is I did finally get my luggage back after 6 days. Apparently it had been caught in the conveyer belt, but I am happy to have it back! I can finally stop washing out my underwear every night--it was extremely hard to find new underwear here.:) Recovering the bag was fiasco in itself, taking us 2 hours at the airport just to track down where they were keeping it.
Ryan says to check back in a few days and he will post some pictures from the trip. Thanks for reading!