Malaysian Invasion

Last weekend I took my first international trip since arriving in Thailand on May 8th. FINALLY!! I had been waiting for this moment for a long time. The Thai visa and work permit system is actually the most absurd thing I have ever had to deal with and until that was settled I was not permitted to travel outside of the country. Seriously though Thailand... you seem to make a whole big deal about making sure that your foreign teachers are legit YET somehow you manage to hire old disgusting ex-pats who are teaching Thai children that fish are not animals. Yup, that's correct. He said they were fish and that fish were not animals. When asked if he meant mammals he said no, animals, mammals are a group of animals. Hence, even when given the benefit of the doubt, he still failed. If we could vote people off of Thailand he would be my first choice.

Anyway, Malaysia. I had no idea what to expect going into this weekend. I had never really heard much about Malaysia and when I looked at pictures it seemed similar to Thailand but thankfully not the case at all. It is so much more developed and built up... and the people speak ENGLISH. Like, a lot, I might even say most, speak English. This obviously made it a lot easier to get around although their infrastructure is pretty advanced anyway so it would not have been too hard. We flew in late Friday night, got through customs, took a shuttle to Sentral Station in Kuala Lumpur and argued with a cab to take us to the hostel. 2am and a success.

the number of Malaysian flags on this cab is unreal

The next morning we got up at 7, ate breakfast, and were ready to go at 7:45 so that we could make it to the Patronus Towers (once the tallest buildings in the world, now the tallest set of 'twin towers' in the world... you will see later in this post more examples of how proud Malaysians are and how they need to qualify all of their attractions as being the 'biggest or best or largest or tallest'). Oops. 7:45 is already too late. We learned after talking to Susy (cute girl that ran the hostel... very helpful) that we really needed to have already left for the towers at 7am in order to make sure that we got tickets to get up to the top. The Patronus Towers are free to go up, however, they only let like 10 people up at a time for 15 minutes at a time during certain times of the day. If you want to go up them and to the sky bridge you have to arrive on sight at 7am, stand in line for 2 hours (they don't start giving out the tickets until almost 9am) and then try and figure out a time that you and your party can come back later that day. Getting there early enough means that you don't have a super awkward time like 11:30am or something where it is not enough time to go and do another activity really but like you don't want to wait around at the towers for 2 more hours waiting to go up. It's complicated, obviously, but really cool if you don't mind getting up early.

As a result we pushed back the PT visit until Sunday and went on our own walking tour of KL instead. We started off walking up through Chinatown, which unfortunately was not that poppin' yet since we had gotten up really early as we had planned on doing the towers. However, I did manage to buy a fake Longchamp that I have been wanting so success! Next we headed north to Masjid Jamek, one of the oldest and most beautiful mosques in KL. Unfortunately, due to Ramadan, the mosque was not open to visitors so we just got some pictures on the outside.

Next, we walked over to Dataran Merdeka (Independence Square) and gawked at the amount of Malaysian flags AND the TALLEST FLAG POLE IN THE WORLD. Are you seeming the theme? 2 stereotypes in one area. Ohhh Malaysia. Anyway, it was pretty cool and we got some great pictures there too!! Afterwards, we went south towards Masjid Negara (National Mosque) hoping that we would have a chance there to go into the mosque despite the holiday. SUCCESS!!

I was really excited to go into a mosque for the first time. I was not sure what to expect but wondered how it compared to a church. It very different. Basically, it is very plain and has a lot of open space because you are just supposed to pray and not be distracted by anything or anyone. Lots of floorspace for the crowds to kneel and pray to Allah in silence, no pictures of any people or living things in general (this is because you are not supposed to be examining or thinking about anything when you are praying, and lastly, no pictures of Allah! Muslims are very strict about this and teach children when they are very young never to try and draw a picture or even imagine what Allah could look like because he is unlike anything your mind could possibly fathom. It can be punishable by death to describe or even silently imagine what Allah could look like. The main room was circular and had some stained glass windows lining the wall to let in light (blue because calming) and the rest was white and some of it had a simple decorative design going around it. That's all. The women have to wear burkas (doesn't mine look fabulous?? PURPLE!!) and yeah, that's pretty much all I can remember. There was a Muslim woman there answering questions and giving a little history so that was interesting to hear. I would definitely go back to a mosque but I have to say that the churches of the world are a lot more ascetically pleasing. Whatever, I just wonder what Muslims do with all of their donation money since I feel that Christians tend to squander it on decorations. Maybe burka purchases for tourists. That sounds about right.

At this point we decided to go to the Lake Gardens to check out the Bird Park, Butterfly Farm, and Orchid and Hibiscus Gardens. We paid 45 ringit or almost 450 bhat to go into this Bird Park (which, by the way, is the WORLD'S LARGEST, WALK-IN, FREE FLIGHT AVERY). I'm telling you, if Malaysia were a person it would be the Jon Goselin of SE Asia. Doing all right on it's own, got the coolest thing on the block (Patronus Towers = 8 adorable kids and a hit TV show) then loses the title and just goes nuts trying to salvage any part of it's (mind you, newly made) identity. Insecure is the understatement of the century.

I hate birds. Like actually detest them. So dirty, they always fly at your face, make a lot of noise, and they poop on my balcony. Hate them. But Clinton and Martha Stewart had both visited the Bird Park so obviously it was a must-see ?!?!. Pretty cool birds. If you go and miss the bird show think of it as a blessing. It is definitely someplace I would never want to visit after the age of 8. Did i mention I hate birds?? Across the street were the hibiscus and orchid gardens so we checked those out and skipped the butterfly place. Thank god. Afterwards we headed alllll the way back up north by Masjid Jamek to have 'lunch' in Little India. It was 5pm. I was displeased about having lunch at early-bird special time but it was delicious so can't complain too much.

I was perfectly happy leaving both the KL and Patronus Towers until the next morning as Suzy had suggested but Lauren really had it in her head that she wanted to go that day so we went. It was definitely cool. In fact, I liked it a lot more than the Patronus Towers. You had to pay but got an audio with a whole tour of the city so that was pretty cool. We also got to see the Batu Caves in the distance, which gave us a good idea of where we would be heading Sunday afternoon. All and all a very good and jam-packed tourist day in KL.

That night we hit up the night scene. Knowing we had to get up at 6am to do the Towers we didn't go too crazy but got drinks at a few different bars and finally ended up at this Irish place and hung out with some French guys for the rest of the night. One of their names was Gale. Spelled Gael but still pronounced Gale, as in one of my elder relatives in Kansas. Obviously, I couldn't possibly take him seriously (still makes me giggle).

on the sky bridge at the Patronus Towers

The next day we got up early, did the Towers, got out by 10:30 and took bus 11 headed to the Batu Caves. The Batu Caves are one of the major Hindu retreats outside of India. It is basically hundreds of steep steps leading into a mountainside where crazy birds, rambunctious monkeys, and strict Hindus roam free. The caves were honestly one of my favorite sights of the trip. I do not know much about Hindu practices or rituals but the Indian people there were in traditional clothing and the infants had this muddy yellow stuff caked onto their little bald heads. I have asked a few people and am not sure exactly what it was for but interesting nonetheless. I do know that every year there is a particularly large gathering of Hindus there for some holiday and as part of the ritual the people hang heavy objects off their body piercings and proceed to climb up the mountainous steps into the caves. I can tell that's all the info I really know about it but TOTALLY worth checking out if you are heading to KL. Also, we took the train from the Caves back to Sentral Station (much better AND cheaper than going on the bus, do that).

That rounded off our adventures for the weekend. We finished the Batu Caves by 2pm and our flight was not until 9pm. I am still bitter that we rushed to do the KL Tower on Day 1 since we had nothing to do but hang out at a train station and airport for the next 7 hours but ah, mai pen rai. I had a huge smile on my face heading back to Thailand, home sweet home.

English Day

This past week at school we had English Day. It is actually a language day since the Japanese and Chinese teachers have booths too but a vast majority is English related. Finally, an event where I can understand what people are saying.. YES!!

So the first day was for the younger kids, who are technically not mine but I was there to help out and run some of the activities. They played scrabble, had a spelling bee, and read aloud facts about themselves to be judged on pronunciation. ADORABLE. Some of the winners were my prathom kids from my Intensive English Program so I was able to cheer them on and give them candy the next day in class :)

The next day was for the Mattyhom students and I actually planned most of the activities. They did topics and timing, read a fable from a book to be judged on pronunciation, and had a singing event/dance contest. SOOO Funny. Great video of my girls doing the 'Nobody' dance from the Wondergirls... Kpop... look it up on youtube. They did really well except that it went really slow. We could only run one activity at a time because some kids were doing multiple activities and others just wanted to watch their friends compete before they did. Also, as it got later, a bunch of kids couldn't stay and had to get back to class.

Overall it was great. They really loved the Japanese teachers who wrote their names in paint (in Japanese of course) and the singing competition was awful but so funny to watch. Some were so into it while others just stood there in a comatose state. I was also able to snap some pics of my Thai teacher crush, Love, without seeming like a complete sketchball. Anytime I can avoid complete embarrassment it's been a good day.

naaalak. so beautiful.

Leeches are Foes

great hornbill

This past weekend we went on a hiking adventure! Yup, that's right. Outdoors, in the jungle, in Thailand. Wooo hooo!!!!! We have been wanting to do this trip for awhile so it was definitely overdue. Khao Yai National Park is about 2.5 hours NNE of Bangkok. Other than being a favorite place for bird enthusiasts and Thai people wanting to escape the city it is also a UNESCO Heritage site, therefore, internationally protected.

In the jungle (baaa in Thai, also is the same word for crazy... kind of makes sense) there are over 200 species of birds (including the great horn bill), monkeys, gibbons, elephants, tigers, leopards, bear cats, snakes, scorpions and of course, leeches... basically, think of an exotic animal that lives in Thailand and you can find it in Khao Yai. It's also the rainy season (thankfully it did not rain when we were on our trek) BUT it had rained the night before really heavily so everything was very damp or in some cases a legitimate flood/mud like quicksand caught us by surprise.

gibbon

green viper snake

We arrived in Khao Yai Friday night after grabbing a bus from MoChit. I made another friend on this bus ride. Apparently I have a type and that type is random Thai men on buses. Eric and I met Sarah C, Sarah B, and Reuven at the hostel and we agreed to a tour of the jungle early the next morning. We started off the tour by spotting a great horn bill, gibbons, and even some deer from the main road in the park. We got some excellent pictures with our guide's camera zoomer (I'm sure there is a more technical name for this piece of equipment but it was great nonetheless). Next, we stopped at the visitors center, took a bathroom break, and leech guarded ourselves up for the trek in the jungle.

asian scorpion

Now, just for some background information on the leech situation... as I mentioned, it is rainy season in Thailand. The types of leeches that they have in Khao Yai are not the kind that live in rivers like you may have seen in movies (Amazing Panda Adventure... the best, look it up) but instead they live on land and wave around in the air like little blades of grass (except they are brown, very skinny, and maybe an inch long) and just try and attach to any heat source that moves by them. They move by slinkying themselves end to end up and down the person or animals body. Once they attach your not supposed to pull them off because you'll bleed a lot because of the anticoagulant that they inject in you when they bite. So, basically, your screwed. The good news is that leeches aren't really bad for you (they don't carry diseases like mosquito's) and you should just let it eat and then it will fall off on its own. We all had on long pants and leech guards (basically the most basic Christmas stocking you can imagine with a drawstring at the top to tie around your calf) and I had bought knee high soccer socks just for the leech occasion. Bus spray is supposed to help keep them off you but there is no proof of that from our trip.

Okay, so basically, we were very freaked out. We had all of our recommended gear on and then some but we were all crawling with at least 15 leeches at any point in time. They would crawl in and out of the air holes in our sneakers trying to get to some skin. It was crazy. At the end of our 3 hr trek we all took our sneakers off and just stared at them looking anxiously for any creepy creatures to climb out, and they did!! Thailand is insane.

Other than the leeches, we saw a lot of cool stuff and never could have done it without our guide, Lek!  As I said we saw the great horn bill, some deer, and a family of gibbons before we entered. Then, we spotted a viper snake that was bright green and apparently deadly but he was hanging out on a bush and is a nocturnal animal so he wasn't super conscientious of the foraaangs staring at it and bursts of light sounding off as our cameras flashed. We found a few more gibbon families as we moved throughout the jungle. Also, really cool bright orange mushrooms and other strange plants. Lek even coaxed an asian scorpion out of it's hole in the group and we got to hold it!

baby camelion

bambi wanted to eat lunch with us after the trek

I am pretty sure those were the only 2 animals that we actually saw while walking through the jungle but there was plenty of other things to hold our attention. We were all sweating profusely constantly doing leech checks on ourselves and one another. Also, since it was so muddy, it was pretty much like walking up a slip and slide at times. I personally got stuck in the mud (both feet, halfway up my calf) and had to be rescued by Lek. Lek also pulled me up a hill when i was slidding backwards and had no grip except for Sarah Cortes' kneed. Shit. Thai people are really good to me. We were also all decked out with the mosquito bracelets that Gateau sent me from the states (thanks Grams!) which I think helped with the bug issues.

The last part of the journey included a long song taew ride through the jungle but on the main road again as we searched diligently for elephants. None were found, however, we did manage to squeeze in a watermelon break and a dance off. Not too shabby. Next time I come to Khao Yai I really want to do the bat caves but unfortunately it was too short of a trip to get everything we wanted done this weekend. Can't wait to return!!