Singapore is beautiful!!

5 hour ride from Kuala Lumpur and we made it to Singapore.
Right off the bus a cute Chinese lady, Evelyn, immediately took us in and gave us a first hand tour of her city. She said she traveled around before too and knows how good it is when someone shows you around. haha. While we knew we could find our way around perfectly fine by ourselves, she was very sweet to take time out of her day to make sure we got where we needed to be. Right into the "Inn Crowd" hostel where we are sharing a room with 6 other people.

Tonight we went to a Chinese New Year parade. It was beautful. The outfits that all the dancers were wearing were so intricate and creative. There was one float where a girl was dressed as a pineapple and another had on a dress completely made of stuffed animals. They had a little firework display afterwards as well.

It was a great first night! And this city is the cleanest city we have ever seen!

Love at first TASTE

We have fallen in love.

Yes, true love.

Roti bread!! It is the key to all existence. Pure deliciousness!

Right across the street from our guesthouse we had our first encounter with this delicacy. Banana Roti. WOW! We tried a plain one today. Just as yummy. We can't figure out exactly how they make them. They are somewhat similar to crepes, but so much better they really don't even compare :)

Today, our last day in Malaysia, we made our way out to the Batu Caves. We had to fight the bus system to get there but after about an hour of trying to find the bus, we found it... bus 11.

The caves are huge and they are usually used for ceremonies. We either just missed the ceremony or they were just getting ready for one in the next few because they had all the stages and stuff half prepared for something huge. And speaking of huge, they have a Buddha at the bottom of the stairs that pretty much reaches the top of the mountain that the caves live in. Bright and shiny gold.

So we climbed up the 267 stairs barely noticing all the monkeys that were climbing with us. No joke, they were right next to us. Everywhere. Jenna you would have been in heaven. There were a few kids with food and they practically would crawl all over them until they got the food they wanted. You could look up the walls of the caves outside and see them crawling and jumping all over the place. It was pretty cool.

Off to Singapore :)

Hop on, Hop off - The Hopper!

We are in Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia. Today we were 100% tourist. We rode a hop on - hop off bus all around the city. It was great! I think every big city should have one of these. Took us to all the major buildings / attractions around the city. We got picked up at stop #7, right in front of our guesthouse. We road the bus pretty much all the way around picking the stops we wanted to get off on next time around. There were 22 stops total so the whole round trip took a good hour.
Our first stop was the two towers. They were pretty amazing. Very similar to our late Two Towers. We got tickets to go up to the top to see the whole city but the only tickets left were at 6pm. We didn't make it back in time to go up to the top and acutally the weather here wasn't very good for anything at 6pm. It has been raining everyday around 3:30 and keeps on raining until about 8ish. We haven't had rain at all on this trip before here so we kinda like it. Makes this humid hot city a little cooler. We might start cursing it if it continues to hang around when we make it to Bali.

Our second stop was at the Menara building. This one we actually did get to go up to the top of. 441 meters high (or something like that). You can walk around the top and see the entire city from all the angles. They even give you a little dvd player to walk around with that tells you history and different facts about buildings and the city.

But the best part of the Menara was right out front...

The Malaysians apparentley think it is a good idea to keep a huge Christmas Winter Wonderland out in front of this building. We have no idea why by the end of January they still haven't taken it down or changed it or why they treat it as an amusement park. A little silly, but definitely good for a few pictures.

There was also an Animal Zone right next to the Menara. It was filled with snakes and turtles and lizards, but there were also monkeys and racoons and birds AND my new favorite animal:
The Fennec Fox. He is soooo cute with his huge eyes. He definitely wanted us to take him home.

The HUGE African Bullfrog was pretty awesome too!

Besides sunsets, we of course are also very obsessed with flowers. Along our hopper trip there was an Orchid garden that required a lot of our attention. It was so beautiful.

Combined we probably have about 50 pictures of these flowers. It was amazing to see how many different kinds of Orchids were growing all around the garden.

BE-A-U-TIFUL!

Phuket - Koh Phi Phi - Malaysia

We actually flew directly onto the beach in Phuket. If you look closely at that picture you can see the beach right behind the trees. Runway was practically the sand. As we were landing we both just looked at each other with the biggest grins on our faces. Like it was Christmas for the next four days!! We stayed one night in Phuket town which was nothing really special. We did stay in our first "dorm" hostel with four beds. well two bunk beds (jenny, just like mine and yours in our first apartment but a WAY smaller room!!) We got the top bunks of both beds. We met our roomate but only enough to see who he was. we all were waking up at 7 am to head over to Koh Phi Phi Island, so sleep was needed.

It was about a 2 hour boat ride to the island. The weather was perfect and we snagged seats on the top of the boat. When we arrived we checked into a guesthouse and immediately headed to the beach. We pretty much didn't leave the beach for the next two days. Absolutely gorgeous.
I mean we honestly rolled out of bed onto the beach and didn't leave until sunset. We lathered ourselves with 30 sunscreen and still managed to get a little color. It was sooo hot out but the water was perfect. Crystal clear and perfect white sand. Honestly a paradise beach for sure.

The island got hit pretty hard by the tsunami, but they are doing a really good job getting it looking nice again. Tons of hotels and restaurants and little shops.
This is a view from our guesthouse balcony. You could pretty much walk from one side of the island to the other in about 30 minutes max. AND if you played your cards right you could get free buckets of alcohol every night. Yes that is right, buckets. It is a very popular thing over on this side of the world. They are usually whiskey and coke which neither of us like, but when you do run out of money... a free bucket here and there can be a great time.

We also met some really fun people over here. This one guy opened a restaurant called the Banana Sombero. He was from Washington D.C. so we were immediately "American buddies". But the crazy thing was... he used to go vacationing with his family in PALM COAST!!! They actually owned a house there. For those of you who don't know, that is pretty much where I grew up. We met another guy that lives in the exact same town that April is living in right outside Sydney where we will be heading in March. Seriously small world!

We unfortunately had to leave Phi Phi, but we discovered the very cute town of Patang in Phuket. The beach was just what we needed after our hard long days in Phi Phi. hahaha. We were only in Patang for one day and night, but we both really loved the city. Like a way smaller Santa Barbara. The beach is covered with yellow umbrellas and beach chairs. Suzy has discovered the Color Accent on her camera and it is definitely a fun way to take some different pictures. Notice the yellow is the only color really showing up. hahaha. we amuse ourselves!



We made it to Malaysia today. Kuala Lumpar. Big city. Smaller than New York but definitely similar. Very clean though. In fact the airport was spotless. The cleanest quietest airport we have ever been in. They even had reclining chairs in the terminals.

Our guesthouse is very cute. A new one call the Tropical Guesthouse. TINY. ITTY BITTY! I mean the smallest rooms we have ever stayed in. Check us out...

Chang Mai

1.5 days to spend in Chang Mai is definitely not enough time. We flew in yesterday around 2pm and headed directly to a fabulous cooking class. Our chef was great and they gave us a cookbook to take home. Hopefully we can remember everything he taught us. I think the fried bananas were definitely my favorite. We also made Tom Yum soup, Curry, Stir Fry and Pad Thai. (And yes, even Suzy cooked)

Elephant snot. We can safely check getting elephant snot all over us off our list of things to do in our lifetimes (although I never knew it was on my list until today). Suzy finally got to ride an elephant today (hooray!) and as you ride along on your elephant he perioducally stops and asks for a delicious banana snack by throwing his trunk back. Well, I think our elephant, Vadi, had a bit of a cold as every time he threw his trunk back for a snack, we got an elephant snot shower. mmmm....it was still great fun though.

We continued on our tour through a village of Karen people and later through a Hmong village, which were both actually interesting to see because our guide was great and told us some things about the different tribes rather than just walking through. Life in the suburbs sure is easy with our neat gadgets like electricity and running water! We also stopped at a waterfall between the 2 villages, get excited for more waterfall pictures!

Suzy also made her first strides towards making the 2012 US Olympic arching team today by shooting her first crossbow. She still has some room for "improvement" before trying out for the team.

After lunch we did some bamboo rafting, very Tom Sawyer-esque. Alana did a great job row, row, rowing our raft down the stream as well as being the choosen victim of our guide, Cosmo's, continuous attempts to throw people in the river - "no wet, no fun!"- twice. Although she did manage to bring him along with her once.

Wish we had more time in Chaing Mai, but the sun, sand, and Chinese New Year festivities beckon us South to the Island of Phuket.

For anyone else planning on coming here two things:

1. If you come from Laos make sure to switch out your money beforehand or you will be stuck with unwanted kips. No fun at all

2. There is a tour where you can actually play with Tigers. We met several people that said this was awesome and from the looks of their pictures it was.

Oh and, think we fixed the comment error. Comment away now :)

All by myself...

I think I have walked up about 2000 stairs in the past two days. Hiking waterfalls and temples. If I can keep this up I will have a mighty firm tush by the time I get back. The V-neck tshirt farmers tan will come with it. nicceee!








Quite the adventure today. Suzy was sick so I had to hang out all alone which I decided, 20 minutes into it, I am not at all a fan of at all. We had planned a tour to ride elephants and to see the second waterfall in Luang Prabang. The elephant riding was fun, kinda. They are very slow and very smelly and actually have really sharp hair on their hides. But, my guide let me pretty much take the reins of my elephant friend. I got to steer him around the entire trip. It was pretty cool. We waded through like a 4ft river. My toes almost touched the water. The elephant was a good sport though. Posed for a bunch of pictures with me.

After that I was taken to the Tad Sae waterfall. Nothing compared to the one we saw yesterday but it was very beautiful. You could play in the little pools of water.






Laos is really a great place. They have street buffets for .75 cents where you can fill up a plate with as much food as you can fit on it. We walk away from the stand looking like total fatties, but usually eat the whole plate. The pineapple, rice, and green beans are the favorite. Although we did have a bite of a friends fish and it was amazingly delicious. We were planning eating that tonight, but since we are unsure what took Suzy out, I think we are going to stick with a very simple meal tonight.


There are animals everywhere here. Cows, chickens, goats, dogs, cats... everywhere! In the streets, on the side of the street, in houses. They pretty much rule the town for sure. It is really funny to see all the cars and motorcycles and bikes have to stop and wait for the cows to mosey across the road followed by the chickens. We do dispise the roosters though. Up before sunrise everyday. Makes for sleeping very difficult.

We are off to Chaing Mai tomorrow!!
Get better Suzy!!!

Vang Vieng: Yahoooweee!

This is Suzy and I being extreme adventurist!! It was really fun swinging over the water like that! I felt like I should have been doing some flips or something though. More like they do in the circus. Maybe next time!