FEBRUARY 2014…a little late

February 2014

Well we are nearly through March at this point, but regardless here is a little February update.    After the Air Asia- Philippines debacle Mark and I returned from Krabi, Thailand ready and rested for a 5 week stint until our next vacation.  I know we lead a very difficult life, as I am constantly reminded of by my family and friends J  5 weeks of solid work time is pretty rare here in Malaysia as they have a ridiculous amount of holidays.  This is mainly because of the many religions/cultures that the population is composed of; but over this span of time, nothing! Oh well, Mark and I have the Maldives to look forward to in the second week in March. 

Valentine’s Day….always an exciting time of year….well I never used to think that, but Mark has helped increase my interest/participation in this day.  For this day Mark worked until 6:30pm which meant lots of relax/WAITING time for me (who finished work at noon).  The night was a special one with Mark successfully cooking Chicken Pad Thai, a specialty of his.  He had cooked it twice before V-day, one successfully, and one horribly unsuccessful.  Thankfully on this night it was a successful dish.  So we enjoyed some tasty food, polished off a bottle of wine, and spent a nice relaxing night together. 

I have included a picture of my students who were asked to dress up in pink, red, hearts etc.  If all students in my class dressed up, we would receive ‘class points.’  All but one student dressed up….he came in to class wearing his normal clothes and we as a class decided that we would make him something to attach to his shirt (hearts, paper cut-outs, etc.) to get us those bonus points.  After we made a big fuss he quietly said, “I have a shirt, my mom made it for me, it’s too embarrassing to wear.”  Of course through peer pressure (compleeeeeeety from my students—not me attttt all), he went to the washroom, head hanging down to change into his Valentine’s outfit.  He is the one to the right of the picture in this shot.  His mom had stitched 3 big, pink hearts of a white shirt which he was so ashamed to wear.  Of course we told him he looked awesome and he should be proud, so he wore it for the rest of the day with his head held high (one of my favourite students by the way). 

Aside from mid- month Valentine’s Day night we have been watching a lot of ‘Oscar nominated films’ for 2013.  I have included my top 10 below. 

2013 BEST

1          Dallas Buyers Club

2          Nebraska

3          American Hustle

4          Cutie and the Boxer

5          Blackfish

6          The Wolf of Wall Street

7          Blue Jasmine

8          12 Years a Slave

9          Out of the Furnace

10        Enough Said 

We actually went to an Oscar Trivia night (Mark, Frank, Ash, Suz, Max and myself) and won the trivia night.  There were 50 questions about past Oscar films, Oscar parties, etc, and we took the competition (mainly with the help of Mark and Frank—the movie buffs of the crew—most likely they could have won without us, but we were there for moral support—and to eat delicious burgers/bar food of course).  Our winnings were amazing, here’s what we won (which we divided up amongst us): 10 Blu-Ray movies, 200RM+ in food vouchers, 10 or so free movie passes, a massive Oscar Book, Moleskin journals for all, and I think that’s it).  A pretty sweet haul for a few hours of trivia fun. 

Well one last story for the month of February.  Before leaving for our ‘never to happen’ Philippines trip we decided to book our hotel in the Maldives so we would have peace of mind, and hopefully grab our hotel before it became far too expensive.  So with this booked, the trip was just a few weeks away and our excitement level was increasing, especially with the mix up on our last trip.  Well, let’s just say that this didn’t flow quite as smoothly as we had hoped.  Here’s the story.

I arrived to work Monday morning.  Brendan and Jamie saw me and asked if I had heard that ALL flights to the Maldives with Air Asia had been cancelled.  They informed me that no they were not teasing me (as they normally do), but they were really sorry to hear the news, and that I should check our flight details.  I immediately called Mark (the booking was under his name), had him check his email, our flight confirmation etc, and NOTHING.  All was good.  Huh, weird I thought.  Maybe they were mistaken.  Well, they weren’t.  Through some research I found out through various Malaysian newspapers that YES, all flights to the Maldives were cancelled as of March 1^st.  We flew on March 9^th.  FANTASTIC.  Well over the next few weeks Mark received confirmation from Air Asia verifying our flight, allowing us to do a web check-in, etc.  Air Asia had yet to contact us before Mark tried to contact them.  He was given a 10 minute web-chat where he had to fit in his questions before being automatically booted of the system (because in 10 minutes all problems should be fixed, right).  Well they confirmed that our flight was cancelled, and that we had 4 options…..1. Full refund, 2. A credit to rebook, 3. Rebook a flight to another destination, or 4. Have them rebook us through another company.  In the 10 minutes that Mark had to chat he received that info, and then he was cut off with no questions answered about option 4….the option we were keen to take. 

Again, more time went by and nothing.  It wasn’t until the Friday night before our Sunday morning flight that we received confirmation that our flights were arranged and that YES, we would actually make it to The Maldives.  What a stressful time knowing that we couldn’t get a hotel refund, we had spent a pretty penny on a much nicer place than we tend to stay in this part of the world.  BUT PHEW, we were going to make it there!  

Until my next post….March, where I’ll fill you in on birthdays, The Maldives, and more.  Cheers!

JANUARY 2014: UPDATE EMAIL #1

JANUARY 2014

So with an amazing Christmas behind us, we spent the turning of a new year with family in Canada.  We checked off one of the last desired items on my to-do list while home (seeing a hockey game) with Mark, my Mom, Dad, Brooke and Justin.  We visited Mama and Papa just before midnight as they were excited for us to come, and knowing we were leaving the next morning meant every moment needed to be used with the people we love.  So the next morning I woke up at around 6am, went for a skate on Orr Lake, felt the cool breeze for one last morning before hitting the road to Toronto Pearson Airport.  The goodbyes were sad; tears were shed; boxes of tissues were used, and by mid-afternoon Mark and I were getting our last Tim Horton’s drink and snack in, then we were off, back to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for another year of international teaching.  Again, the flight was a battle, trying to keep emotions in check (and having fellow teachers directly behind us made me even more aware of my tearful 24+ hours of travelling).  I was able to compose myself as the time went on; I think Mark was seriously concerned for my mental wellbeing at this point haha, but I knew that once we were back here and busy, things would look up.  We arrived back to our apartment at 4am, spent the next several hours wide awake and went to work the next morning for 8am.  What a whirlwind!  

Skating on Orr Lake

Colts game New Years Night with the family!

Since getting back we have definitely been enjoying ourselves.  We are both as busy as ever. I’ve taken on a new ‘lead teacher/team facilitator’ role in which I have more responsibilities at school, but a challenge that --I feel being here a second year-- I am ready for.  Our extra-curricular activities are through the roof:

Monday: Volleyball coaching/practice in the morning; Frisbee League at night

Tuesday: Futsal

Wednesday: Laser Tag club (so hard I know.... and it’s just once a month), occasional badminton sessions in there on other weeks

Thursday: More volleyball coaching/practice; and that’s the week. 

Mark and I have been running together now for over a year, which is a great way to keep us active in the early mornings (5am several days a week), but we wouldn’t change it;  well we may change the temperature if we could. 5am is the only time that we can both physically run, as afterwards temperatures reach 40+ degrees.  Not my idea of running temperatures. J

The month of January had an intense 11 teaching days.  I know, insane, right?!  Well we weren’t complaining as I am a holiday/long weekend LOVER!  My students this year are great so far.  I have yet to decide if I like them as a whole, as much as I did my amazing group last year.  Time will definitely help make that decision more clear.

With the 11 teaching days behind us, we just returned back from our vacation week away.  Now it may not have started out how we had intended, but it ended up much better than we intended I believe. 

Let me explain:

Mark and I planned a trip with around 12 other teachers to the small, diving town of Moalboal, in The Philippines.  Mark and I had yet to visit The Philippines so we were super excited to see a new country and hang out with some great friends, while doing our scuba diving certification (PADI-Open Water Course).  We arrived to the airport nice and early, checked our bag, and proceeded to the Immigration counter, which was the last step before the boarding area.  We get to the counter, I put my passport up, and was immediately questioned: “Are you still teaching in Malaysia?,” “When did you last enter the country,” yaddah yaddha ya, anyway he flipped to my Work Visa : EXPIRED!! ONE WEEK AGO!! He was sure to inform me in such a ‘polite’ manner, and then proceeded to tell us we needed to plead our case with ‘the decision makers in the office.’  Well it was an easy decision for them, nope, we weren’t able to leave Malaysia, and I found out I technically was living in Malaysia ILLEGALLY (even though it had just been a week since expiration).  We quickly inquired about our checked bag, retrieved it, sulked, cried (just me), searched for internal flights, and was told NO it was not advised for me to travel domestically either; I was to go hide and wait until my Visa was sorted (Mark’s Work Visa was valid till mid-February, so the kind gent he is decided to stay with me).  GREAT!! RIGHT!! Well that could have been the end to that story, but we persevered, went to our Human Resources department the next day, and had them deliver our newly instated Work Visas/Passports later that day.  We booked a flight for 7:30am the next morning to the easiest destination possible to get to, and so we landed in Krabi, Thailand within 48 hours of our initial travel debacle. 

Railay Beach, Krabi, Thailand

So the vacation: Krabi, Thailand as I said.  We arrived at 8am or so after the time change, took a taxi to Ao Nang (the small beachside town nearby) and we had started our Open-Water Dive course by 9am that morning.

The Dive course is something we were told by so many friends to get, as we are in a great part of the world for clear water, great coral and amazing marine life.  Well we were both gung ho for this, and now I can say that we are both certified Open Water Divers.  Now, you may have thought that would go off without a hitch, I’m sure.  Day 1 took us to a swimming pool where we did some basic skills.  Terrifiying experience.  Day 2 took us to a local island area, where we went into the open water, the OCEAN, for some more skills and some ‘looking around.’ Terrifying experience.  And Day 3 took us to Ko Phi Phi (near the beach where ‘The Beach’ was filmed), and we went down to a depth of 22 meters as our deepest depth and had to perform our final skill sets and again once we were finished, had some time to ‘look around.’ Yet again, TERRIFYING!  

Now, why terrifying you might ask?  Well it was a combination of a couple of things:

-the fact that you need to remove your mask underwater at 18meters down and clear it: TERRIFYING!

-the being unable to communicate underwater (well easily at least): TERRIFYING! (especially for someone as talkative a me)

-the fact that you could ‘freak out’ down there and have an escape route that may cause death (or serious sickness) if surfacing too quickly: TERRIFYING!

-understanding that you don’t need your nose to breath/survive and that yes, you can just rely on your mouth for air intake...but what if I choke/can’t catch my breath, etc. : TERRIFYING!

Right after completing our Open-Water Dive course (I am over the moon exciting that we don't have to go back in haha)

Let’s just say that yes, I did successfully pass, and I am very happy to have the certification complete, but I am not certain if I will use it again, out of sheer terror something may go wrong underwater.  We did see some cool fish, anemones, eels, etc., but I am just not certain on this one.  Who would have thought skydiving/bungee jumping/mountain trekking would be such a breeze in comparison.  Haha

On a positive note, Mark loves diving! He’s hooked already, and excited for many future diving trips with friends here.  I’m just not sure if I’ll be able to stomach it, and fulfil being his buddy for this one.  Will keep you posted on this front! 

Aside from that we did a day of rock climbing at Railay Beach just outside of Ao Nang, an amazing experience where you get to showcase your inner monkey abilities (I loved it; I think Mark was fairly impressed with me on this one too).  We spent lots of time soaking up the sun, drinking Chang/Leo beer (Thai favourites), eating great food/thai pancakes, and hanging out together.  We had an excellent vacation in the end, even though it started out in a debatable kind of way, but we wouldn’t change it at all! 

Rock-climbing on Railay Island, Krabi 

Back to work Tuesday morning for us (they decided to extend our vacation by a day on this end), so Monday will allow us to prep for our next 5 solid weeks of work.  And then to The Maldives in March for us!  Will keep you all posted as of the first week in March with all of the updates. 

Lots of love to you wherever you are!!  Thanks for reading!  * LiVe LaUgh LoVe*

Megan

Courtesy of Mark…he just couldn't pass this photo op up.

Thai Pancake; absolutely delicious! 

Pad Thai! Can't resist it!

Another great holiday come and gone! 

Ao Nang Beach, Krabi, Thailand

Random Malaysia

As you may have read before, there are good and bad aspects to this new country that we call home. You know about my love of sidewalks and Malaysia’s lack of them. We live in ‘Sunway City,’ a Malaysian suburb, which is bordered on all sides by highways. You can’t walk out of the ‘city’ without encountering a highway.

Because using your legs is discouraged, the alternative to get anywhere is taking a taxi. Getting a taxi can sometimes be a frustrating event. You wave and hail and they just keep on driving. Occasionally they stop, and even though it clearly states ‘Haggling is Prohibited’ on the side of the taxi, this fact doesn’t stop the driver from refusing to use the meter. Your first question is ‘Meter?’ Most times, they shake their heads. Thus begins the haggling. Sometimes you get a good deal, if you get a bad deal and they won’t budge, you can try for another taxi, where the whole process begins again.

We’ve gotten into a few arguments with cabbies: they agree to use the meter but then take you for a leisurely tour of the city or they simply refuse to go where you want: “Traffic is too heavy…” The police do nothing to encourage the cabbies to use the meter. Meg and I have started to go to the taxi stands where there is a set price before you get in. Recently, an American female tourist in KL got into a taxi alone and was kidnapped and then gang raped. Apparently, this particular taxi was ‘rogue,’ meaning it had been stolen but out on the streets picking up people. It’s not recommended for women to use taxis alone here.

Presently, Megan and I are at home in preparation for the results of Malaysia’s national election. All our students were asking us: “Teacher, will there be school on Monday if there’s a riot?” Such inquisitive students. On Saturday, our state declared a public holiday for Monday. Two days notice. This is ‘officially’ due to the fact that Malaysian voters have to travel back to their home to vote, ie. Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem. The ruling party has ruled here since 1956, when the country achieved independence. This is a record. Today may see them toppled from power by the opposition.

The political system here is quite corrupt. The ruling party has control of most of the newspapers and media: all the newspapers run editorials and articles supporting the government and scaring readers by saying the opposition will turn the country upside down. The newspapers also explain why there are no political debates: since the voters are choosing the party and not the leader, it would be inappropriate to have a debate. So, no debates. Youtube here has been dominated by mandatory ads suggesting one vote for the ruling party. The icing on the cake: last year, the leader of the opposition was arrested on charges of sodomy. They were later dropped since the accuser said he had been forced to lie. By who? No idea…

So, there may be a riot tomorrow, which is the unofficial reason for the holiday. Megan and I will be staying at home today and tomorrow just in case. Some teachers want to go downtown and take pictures; others are stocking up on beer. Our students and even our cabbie yesterday suggested not to go outside whatsoever.

Postal Service: It was Megan’s birthday on the 15^th of March; her family sent her a birthday package before that day. Well, it is now May 5^th and still no package. What gives?

Films: The movies here are interesting. We get a lot of Hollywood films at the theatre, but they seem to have been slightly edited. I didn’t see the new movie ‘The Host’ but apparently every time characters kissed or hugged, there was a strange edit. All such scandalous scenes were edited out. I was also confused by the ending of Iron Man 3. Big fight scene and then, nothing. Apparently the villain had been killed, but this was not made clear. I guess he must have died gruesomely, but this was all gone. Very anticlimactic, but maybe that’s what actually happened in the movie. In the past, Malaysia has banned such movies as ‘Babe’ and ‘Zoolander’ here. ‘Babe’ because it’s a Muslim country and you can’t have a story of a charming talking pig because maybe people will want to eat it! ‘Zoolander’ because the main plot involves stopping an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister of Malaysia, a country depicted as full of sweat shops. Anywho, here’s the rating system here:

U - General viewing for all ages
PG13 - Parental guidance is advisable for children below 13 years old
18SG - For 18+ with non-excessive violent/ horrifying scenes
18SX - For 18+ with non-excessive sex scenes
18PA - For 18+ with political/ religious/ counter-culture elements
18PL - For 18+ with a combination of two or more elements 
18 - For 18+ with elements for mature audiences (violence, horror, sex, politics, religion, counter-culture)

I like how one needs to be warned that there are political, religious or counter-culture elements and that one must be over 18 to watch them.

That’s just a little rant. Don't be scared for us; we feel quite safe. 

Bye for now.

Vietnam: March Break

Meg and I hadn’t gone on a trip since Singapore and we were definitely feeling the travel bug as March Break approached. The teacher culture is unique here: as holidays approach, we’re all asking each other “Which country are you travelling to?” Hong Kong, Phillippines, Thailand are popular spots. This time Meg and I would be jetting to Vietnam.

In preparation, we watched Oliver Stone’s 1986 film Platoon to get a feel of the country during the War. Megan had only really seen the Vietnam War through the eyes of Forrest Gump. Platoon was two birds with one stone since it was about Vietnam and also a Best Picture winner (to scratch it off Megan’s list).

After a late night birthday bash for Megan (more on that in another post!), we woke up at 3am, caught an airport “limo” and caught our flight to Hanoi around 6am. We had applied for ‘Visas on Arrival’ beforehand and paid for the service; what we didn’t realize was that there was a processing fee to actually get the Visas after disembarking from the plane. No, they didn’t accept credit. No, there wasn’t an ATM around anywhere. Luckily we had enough joint American/Malaysian money to pay for the visas. Otherwise, we may have been sent back! Not bringing the local currency may seem reckless, but our SE Asia adventures have consisted of always arriving in the country and getting that country’s currency from the ATM. Pretty posh. Next time we’ll read the fine print and bring enough extra dough for those extra fees.

Hanoi, Vietnam: the capital. This is one busy town. Our hotel was in the Old Quarter of the city. The buildings come right to the street and there are no sidewalks to speak off. When I say Old Quarter, I mean old; this was one of the original neighbourhoods of Hanoi dating back to 1010 (the city itself dates back to 3000 BC!). There was an old building made by the French originally called the Hotel Metropole; it’s a nice colonial building facing a major roundabout; now, it lodges restaurants and bars, as well as a KFC. How times have changed.

 We were staying at the Dragon Rising Hotel; there are a lot of hotels named Dragon something-or-other, so it’s important to know exactly where your hotel is. There seems to be no law and order when it comes to traffic. Everyone honks at everyone which seems to defeat the purpose of honking since it becomes almost white noise, but the kind of white noise that can make you go absolutely bonkers. Motorbikes are everywhere and fly through intersections honking at people and things to get out of their way. Intersections involve vehicles inching their way forward from all sides, creating a slowly moving gridlock of sorts. It was a headache to walk these streets. I had the morbid fantasy of clothes-lining some of these motorbikers off their bikes, to which Megan gave me an eyebrow raise of concern. We couldn’t stay in this city long. 

Exercising. 

Our first full day consisted of walking around Hanoi and visiting a few of the major sites. We first went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. We waited in line for roughly an hour, had to check our camera and water (who checks water? We picked it up later), and eventually strolled past the embalmed body of Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh. Like Mao and Lenin, he is encased in glass, looking like a waxwork statue. No pictures were allowed, unfortunately. People just silently did the route around the body and exited right. Megan later asked me ‘who was that?’ I explained to her. She had misunderstood the reason for the visit. “I knew it was called the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, but I didn’t think we’d be seeing his creepy dead body.” We laughed about this confusion.

We later went to the Ho Chi Minh museum (no dead bodies), and later the Temple of Literature. This was recommended as one of the hot spots, but it was a real letdown. Very small and crowded. Maybe I worked myself up by the name ‘Temple of Literature.’ Sounds like a place I’d want to visit and hang out in forever, right? Well, the answer is no.

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.

Statue of Ho Chi Minh.

The Temple of Literature.

We strolled down to the former Hanoi Hilton (Hoa Lo Prison), the prison-turned-museum. The prison used to contain Vietnamese Communists when the country was ruled by the French and later American POWS when it was ruled by North Vietnam. One of its famous occupants was Senator John McCain, whose plane had been shot down in North Vietnam during the war. He was a prisoner there from 1967-1973; during his imprisonment he was tortured; his wounds left him with lifelong physical limitations. 

Hanoi Hilton.

Before leaving Hanoi, we visited the Water Puppet Theatre, which consists of having puppets dance upon the surface of the water. The puppeteers are hidden behind curtains. It’s a cool effect, but Megan didn’t love it. To tell the truth, it was a bit hot and cramped in the theatre which caused us to be slightly drowsy. A fun event, nonetheless.

Halong Bay. We booked a one night, two day trip aboard a boat to the much visited UNESCO World Heritage Site of Halong Bay. We shopped around for a good boat: lower cost would definitely produce a lower result her; we got a good deal for a honeymoon suite on one of the ‘junks’ that had a balcony. Halfway on the bus-ride to the boat, our tour guide tells us we can’t have our suite. I say ‘no way, we paid for it. Fix the problem.’ It seems like they had overbooked it, which wasn’t surprising. He came back and told me the problem was fixed. Apparently, he fixed the problem by telling the other couple who had booked the balcony room that they couldn’t have it; they passively accepted this. Lovely. Dog eats dog world. 

The boat and room met our expectations; we could have travelled on that boat for years. The scenery was gorgeous despite their being a lot of other boats in the area and a fair share of garbage floating on the water. We explored some caves, travelled through a floating village by kayak, and jumped off the top of boat. Megan worked herself for the jump; I went for extra. 

Engine Trouble.

Waiting on the Engine Trouble.

We met a nice Dutch couple named Neils and Roos, who felt like kindred spirits. We ended up playing a board game named Carcassonne with them while the crew pained our ears with screeching karaoke. Sleeping on this boat and waking up to the view of the island peaks was divine. We simply didn’t want to leave.

Roos and Mark

Meg and Neils

We returned to Hanoi and went souvenir shopping; Megan haggled down a painting using her mad skills. Her story was that she only had a specific amount of money left since we were going home and that we didn’t want to take out more. They agreed to the lowered price… did we get a good deal? Hmm… 

Buying a Painting

Our painting: bottom-left

Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon. We took a domestic flight in order to save time travelling from north to south and arrived in a completely different city than Hanoi. Saigon is a completely westernized setting. They have sidewalks! We felt relaxed and able to wonder around comfortably. Here, we woke up at 5am in the morning (thanks to the hotel wakeup call) and went jogging around a park located next to Reunification Palace (formerly the Presidential Palace). We had also jogged in Hanoi around the Hoan Kiem lake in the Old Quarter. In both cities, there were so many people up at this hour exercising, but almost none of them were jogging. Most walk or do cardio dance moves to music. It’s a great feeling to wake up that early; you see a completely different side of a city. It may become a new hobby. However, we still stood out as foreigners since we were the only people jogging. 

Cu chi Tunnels.  About 30 minutes outside of Saigon, there is a replica of the old Viet Cong tunnel systems that plagued the American army. The system is quite extraordinary. They had nearly everything underground: even a kitchen. The smoke from the kitchen would be pumped out a ways away so that the Americans couldn’t accurately locate the tunnels. There were terrifying booby traps whose only goal was to maim and kill. At one part, our tour guide stopped and asked if we saw it. We couldn’t. She then swept her foot and revealed a tiny lid in the ground; underneath, was a tunnel! Both Megan and I tried it out, descending down into the entrance, but I forgot to keep my arms straight up since your shoulders get stuck in the entrance if you don’t. For a second, I thought they’d have to dig me out. 

The entire time in this jungle was spent listening to thunderous discharge of machine guns at the gun range. It felt like being in the War. Meg and I both thought it wasn’t appropriate to get our kicks at a gun range in a spot where so many people had died, so we declined. However, we did accept the offer of travelling 100 metres underground through the tunnel system. Only 3 of us did the full 100 metres which was the longest option; the tunnels were widened for tourists; I can’t imagine what they had been like before. The tunnels were quite an experience; I can’t imagine being in them with an American army above the ground looking for you.

Back in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), The War Remnants Museum was quite a traumatizing experience for two reasons. One, the pictures of citizens affected by Agent Orange during the War were horrendous. The images seemed right out of a horror movie. Second, the propaganda in most of the exhibits was nauseating. The atmosphere was so one-sided and anti-American. It was a messy war, yes, which is a bit of an understatement, but the museum only depicted the North Vietnamese as heroes fighting the evil American empire. The Americans did commit atrocities, but what about North Vietnam? Nonetheless, there was a great photo exhibit, assembled by objective photographers that had no propaganda; it detailed the photographs taken by journalists during the War. Quite a powerful exhibit. 

Some Propaganda

On our last day we visited the Mekong Delta. The Mekong was an old friend. We had travelled down it on a boat for two days in Laos; we slept beside it for a few nights in Don Det. And here was its end as it spread out into the South China Sea. Meg didn’t feel great, so our exciting fun was limited this day. We visited Handicapped Handicrafts, an interesting play on words, where persons with disabilities put together crafts. We drank honey tea, ate coconut candy, took a nap in a hammock and were ferried down a tiny river by guides who kept asking for a $5 tip. I poked my finger into a bee hive to get that juicy honey and also wrapped a giant snake around my body like a flamboyant fashion accessory. It was quite a day! We also saw a school group all wearing the same neon blue Playboy t-shirt; it was strange and hilarious seeing tweens wearing a Playboy t-shirt so innocently.

A Dab of Honey

Honey Tea

At the end, we grabbed our rolled up painting and our tickets, then hopped on a flight back home to KL!

Until our next trip! (Which will be actually soon!)