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Hi there fellow travelers!

Well, we've made it back home safe and sound. We'll now be using our regular blog, www.dynotravels.com , where we will be posting pictures from our trip shortly. Thanks for watching!

More of Darcy's pictures

Here are a few more. The orangutan is from a park near Kuching and the rest are from Bako National park.

Darcy's pictures

Before my camera broke the first week, I was able to get a few pictures. These are from Singapore.
We will post more later.

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!

Latest Pix

here's some more pictures from today, our trip to Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia. Please note, you can click on the pictures directly for bigger versions. And yes, I'm never coming home, we are going to earn our way via peddling away!

Penang it is!

So after much debate of whether to move on to another island or stay here, we chose to stay here, and are happy to have a few more days in the same place (although we did move 2 doors down to another hostel). Yesterday we went on a hike in the national park here, which was a nice, although at times difficult to find, trail along the coast to Muka (monkey) beach. Living up to it's name we did see, monkeys chasing each other through the trees and even saw a huge lizard-ish thing. We are enjoying the beach area where we are staying and returned home to tasty food on the beach.

We had our first day of sun here, which Ryan was hoping for, but as true Oregonians, we were soon hoping for some clouds and even a nice shower, as it is blazing hot and humid. Today we took a trip into Georgetown, the major city on the island. Saw some sites, including a Chinese Khoo Klan house, which is part temple, part meeting hall for Chinese of the same clan or surname. The stone carving both here and at the many temples in town was remarkable! We have found Indian food to be some of our favorite here, so we headed for little India, which was a vibrant colorful area, with Indian music blaring from the shops, lights and glittery paper hanging across the streets, and bright colored clothing and sari's in every shop. One funny thing we have found at almost every restaurant is that as soon as they give you the menus, they expect you to order and will stand at your table and make suggestions. We are big fans of Tandoori chicken and Roti Canai. We had a fun ride in a trishaw and our driver had moved from India when he was 7 and starting riding the trishaw at age 20 and had been doing it for 40 years!

The taxi drivers here take driving to a whole new level, it is at the same time terrifying, as they cut in and out of lanes, cut in front of people and send pedestrians scrambling, and amazing as they seem to drive effortlessly and follow some (unknown to us) code of the road. We just strap on the seatbelts and prepare for a wild ride! We have one more day here, which we plan to spend at the beach. Today we threw our frisbee for while and attracted the interest of a lot of the locals, who have asked to play with us tomorrow because we "have a good frisbee.":) Then it is off to Kuala Lumpur for a whirlwind tour and our flight out on Tuesday.

New Pictures

Brunei
Penang

Brunei>Kuala Lumpur>Island of Penang> Batu Ferringhi

Hi there from Batu Ferrenghi, on the island of Penang. We arrived yesterday early afternoon, and enjoyed relaxing on the beach. Plan to head to a national park today, undecided if we will head to another island tomorrow.

Here's a quick pop quiz-

You know you are in a Muslim country if...
A- you see tourists being pulled behind boats up into the air fastened to a parachute, but whereas in Mexico you would see them in swimming suits, here some are fully dressed, and the women have on headscarves
B-you are browsing the market, looking over the pirated DVD's of US movies that are just getting into the theaters at home, and you are next to a couple, with the man in normal beachwear, but the woman only gets to expose her eyes underneath a full burka.
C-you are enjoying a Tiger beer on the beach, and the Air Supply Greatest Hits being played at the bar [complete with the male waitstaff singing along to all the words in falsetto], and it's just barely loud enough to drown out the afternoon call to prayer [you can hear examples of the call to prayer, called Adhan, by clicking here].
D- you are also awoken at 5am by the earliest call to prayer [they do it five times a day], because the building next to your hostel is a mosque. They pipe the calls to prayers out of loudspeakers atop the minarets.

If you answered 'all of the above,' you win!

Brunei is not cheap

Ok, Asia is cheap, but not that cheap. When I said the mongo house in Brunei cost US$350, it should have been US$US 350 million. No small difference.

London, Syndey, Ho Chi Minh City....

Any of these locations, and many others are included in the all-expenses paid trip for Darcy's luggage. What we do know is that none of her checked luggage is with us, nor are the bulk of her clothes and a majority of our souvenirs for self and others. Apparently when they asked Allah to bless our flight from Kuching to Brunei on Dec 4th, this did not include checked luggage.

Brunei> Back to Malaysia

Heading down the Brunei homestretch as I write this. Our visit here, while brief, has included some astounding architecture, opulence, and out of hand wealth. We spent the evening touring with a guide who approached us while I was taking copious pictures of Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque at sunset. He drove us to take more pictures of an even larger mosque, that of the current sultan, the Jame'Asr Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque . Of course, that one only can contain 5,000 worshipers. Much to small for the sultan, who only visits the Jame'Asr around 10 times a year [but still has his own private entrance, complete with an escalator, that can only be used by him!]. So our guide Abdul also took us past the sultan's palace, the Istana Nural Iman, which we overlooked from a park and dined on Indian and Chinese food we picked up at a local street market. How big is this palace? How about 1788 rooms, 200 toilets, and a banquet hall that seats 4000. Price tag? $350US. And the private mosque? Big enough to hold 8000 of the faithful. This morning we also toured the Royal Regalia Museum after more tasty indian food. Last night's tour also included driving by some of the homes of the prince and princess's houses. The "smallest one" included a 20+ car garage. I almost forgot all the other people in the country. Very nice, very friendly, and many live in villages on stilts on the water front, in an area called Kampung Ayer.

Off to Kuala Lumpur tonight, then Penang in the morning.

Brunei Fun Facts

Coming of Age in Brunei

• Age of legal responsibility - 18


• Age of consent [heterosexual] - 14


• Driving Age - 14


• Drinking Age- never [for Muslims]


• Voting Age - never [for anyone!]

from Lonely Planet's guide to Malaysia, Singapore & Brunei

Kuching> Brunei

Landed safely in Brunei this morning, landing in the capital city of Bandar Seri Begawan [BSB]. Part of the draw of coming to Brunei was that it is the most outwardly Muslim country on our trip. We knew we were not in Oregon anymore when, just as we were pulling away from the gate on our Royal Brunei Airlines Flight to BSB the attendant announced that we were going to have our plane blessed, the monitors lowered, and on the screen we were treated to a long prayer in Arabic [though on the screen it was captioned in Malay and English]. While people have been friendly everywhere on our trip, the Bruneians are incredibly friendly, helpful, and welcoming.

The city of BSB is very manageable [the whole country has much less of a population than Wyoming!], and the Indian food here is as good as everywhere else [Indian, Chinese, Malay, and to a lesser extent Thai, are the dominant foods]. Nearly every woman wears a Sari. As in Singapore and Malaysia, every sign is in English [as well as Malay in Malaysia and Arabic in Brunei], and nearly everyone speaks English. Also, alcohol is banned in the entire country.

And the winner is...

...both! Due to flight schedules, we are going to stay in Kuching for one more night [what, a day of rest?]. Then we fly out bright and early tomorrow morning to Brunei, stay for one night, leave the next day in the evening for Kuala Lumpur [KL] for a one night lay-over. Then we head up to Penang for four days [probably shoehorn in another island north of Penang [Pulau Langkawi], then back to KL for a night or two, and then done.

Kuching>Longhouse on Indonesian border

Yesterday we traveled to a traditional long house, which lie on nearby mountain ridge from the Indonesian border. This particular long house was in the Bidayuh tribe. There was much cloak-and-dagger, with our guide first approaching us in a museum, and then not telling us where exactly we were going to ostensibly protect the privacy of the tribe. The red flags were being raised quickly to the top of the pole, thanks to being scammed in Bangkok in 2004 [from then on introducing the term "being boat-tripped" into our relationship vocabulary, another story all together]. With some relief, the trip met all our expectations, though being challenging at times. We visited one of the largest long houses in all of Borneo, with 400 people , 27 families, under one roof. Our guide, a Bidayuh tribe member himself, offered passage into this unique part of the world, where less than a 100 years ago a man would prove himself husband material by beheading a number of the neighboring tribe. We had lunch with the chief, and struggled to cross the great cultural and language divide. It couldn't be more-removed from the bustling North-American world to which we are accustomed. We visited another Malay village, a Muslim village, and a jungle market, where the tribes come down from the hills to sell their wares. Strangest moment? At a loss for what to say, watching very bad Malaysian TV via satellite dish while sitting in a one-room house where his family has lived for generations [The chief's grandmother, who joined us for lunch, was born in that room, and will likely die there as well]. Apparently,you don't have to understand a word to recognize bad TV.


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Next stop...Travel Fun Facts!

Well, it's 10pm Sunday night, and we have no idea where we are going to sleep tomorrow night. Either Brunei or Panang. We haven't decided yet, but are sure to by the time we board the plane tomorrow. Small difference?

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View Larger Map

So, in lieu of making a itinerary decision, now for the promised fun fact, sponsored by our new Canadian friends Crissy and Andrew. Apparently Koreans [including medical doctors] believe that one can die from sleeping with a fan on or air conditioning going. It's a condition called fan death. Ha! This is not a joke. Crazy!

Good night all.

Bako National Park

We went to Bako National Park and got a healthy taste of monsoon season. It started with a bus ride that felt more like a water park ride with the water pouring in through the windows as we went through puddles, followed by a foggy boat ride in a small, uncovered boat in the pouring rain. But the rain did stop and we took a jungle hike to a beach, saw lots of interesting plants, Bearded Pigs that are the size of boars, and 3 different kinds of monkeys (proboscis, macaque and one other) that will literally jump over our heads in the trees. It rained, or actually poured, all night and the next day, and the park was starting to look more like a swamp. There is really no way to ever get dry, as the lodging are stilt houses over pools of water. We went on hike to see the "cobra" sea stack, a rock formation off one of the beaches. The destination was nice, but hard to see due to tides and rain, but the hike was quite the adventure! The "trail" was absolutely flooded with water, so we did the whole hike in a river (that was getting deeper as the rain continued) with the final stretch being down a waterfall of sorts. Water was pouring off the huge roots that form staircases on the trail and cascading down the rickety ladders and boardwalks on the trail. We were soaking wet, but loved the hike! And we didn't even get any leeches, which are apparently small enough to fit through you socks! We were happy to return to Kuching, where we can get dry. Today we are going to a long house and the rest of our trip is up in the air as we form new plans hourly. Maybe to Mulu National Park, which has lots of caves, maybe to Brunei, and maybe back to the other peninsula for a tour of the west coast. We look forward to the next adventure!

Back from Bako, Pictures

Hi all, just wanted to fire off a couple of heads ups. We just got back to Kuching after a great trip to Bako National Park...will blog more later. Sorry not too many pictures posted, it takes a while. Also, please note that the pictures in the actual blog aren't taken by us, only the ones linked to via smugmug. The blog pix are usually pulled from the internet. Honesty in blogging:) Bye for now...