She's gotta have her Dunks...this is the happiest she has been in weeks!
And we are off for spring break 1st stop Kuala Lumpur Malaysia! This was our 1st time flying domestic in New Zealand because we first had to get from Christchurch to Auckland. It was the easiest thing we have ever done. It was the most lax security ever; they didn’t just our IDs once. We had our 8-hour layover in Auckland, which was the worst. The Auckland airport is the worst and this is coming form a girl who was stuck in the Trenton New Jersey airport for 5 hours. They say you get 45 min of free wifi…what the hell only 45 min, you are an airport for god sakes. And that 45 min only comes if you can actually connect to the wifi, which we couldn’t. We finally got to check our bags and man it was the slowest line I have ever experienced at an airport. But it’s ok we kept our cool, it was hard but we contained our brash American instincts. Which is good because we made friends with the Air Asia employee checking us in! This came in handy because our bags were very over weight but he happened to be the one also boarding the plane, which meant he just let us right on through! We got a row to ourselves the whole 12-hour flight it was amazing!
Day 1
We got into Kuala Lumpur around 430 am but we handled it like champs. We checked into our hostel and immediately crashed. Mags does not handle Asia well. It’s very humid like July in the south so I’m very ok with it, especially because we just left the freezing cold in NZ. But poor Mags she starts to sweat just setting outside. Luckily the hostel has great A/C. However this means I’m still freezing at night. Mags like to have the A/C on full blast so she could use a blanket. I informed her that she in fact did not deserve a blanket. After we woke up from our little happy nappy we decided to go explore! Malaysia is amazing so much food, so many markets and the people are so nice! Because Malaysia is a Muslim country and we wanted to be able to go inside some temples and mosques we had to go find ourselves so head scarfs and sarongs. After a few hours of exploring we needed to find some wifi to figure out where the heck we ended up and we were hungry so naturally we found ourselves in a McDonalds because we are trash. We did get the Malaysian version of McDonalds, which was not the best decision. We ordered this slushy looking drink but it was horrible but it was cold so we drank it. As we were leaving to go back to the hostel it started pouring. Southeast Asia has 2 seasons, a wet season and a dry season, and of course we decided to travel during monsoon season. It was rain and thunder like I’ve never seen before it was crazy.
Day 2
Well we got locked out of our room! How? We don’t know, our key worked fine yesterday and today it decided not to cooperate. Of course this would happen to us, life is never easy it’s always gotta be an adventure! After and hour of waiting in the lobby we were finally let back in. We packed up our things for the day and headed out. Today’s adventure, the Batu Caves. This meant we had to work the public transit, which turned out to be pretty easy, it also turned out to be so nice and clean much nicer and smoother than the MBTA. However it was also so slow, way slower than the MBTA, which is really hard to do. The Batu Caves were really cool. We had to climb giant stairs in pants of course. If we weren’t sweating before we were 100% sweating now. On top of the exercise we were getting there was also the added risk of monkeys. These little monkeys are vicious, way worse than the baboons I experienced in Africa. These little things will latch on to bags and rip them to shreds not to mention bite and scratch the people.
We ate some street food and got some durian, a fruit that is only only found in Southeast Asia, and then headed into town to get our temple fix. We went to the Sri Mahamariamman temple, the oldest temple. It was crazy beautiful and full of color. For dinner that night we went to a restaurant suggested to us by someone maybe…we don’t remember how we found this place to eat but it was really good, we don’t know what we were eating but we never do in Asia. While we were eating there was a huge commotion outside and the presumable owner got involved there was yelling and pushing but no one seemed to be phased by it so we just kept eating silently until it passed (yeah no survival instinct between the 2 of us). Even with the commotion the most stressful part was figuring out how to pay. It has been different every time we have tried to pay so we watched people. Some just walked out with out paying others were brought a check and others handed cash to so man walking around. So we ended up sitting there long after we were finished until Mags somehow got the attention of someone we hoped worked there!
Day 3 Malacca
We decided to attempt the bus system to get to Malacca, which is a short 2-hour bus ride. If we thought the airport was slow than this Malaysian bus station was a dead stand still. How can something take this long just say where you want to go and around what time then leave. We waited in line for an hour and a half. When we finally got to the window our turn went way faster than anyone else’s…a bus station should not confused people that much. The buses in Malaysia are amazing and super cheap! Once in Malacca we ate some really good food and even more amazing smoothies. Because the tropical fruit is actually grown there and is fresh it hard not to drink 4 in a row! When they brought out our food they brought one pair of chopsticks and one set of silverware…I guess they knew how white I was! We went into more temples taking off our shoes, maybe even taking off our shoes when we didn’t have to. The rules are all so elusive here some times you take off your shoes, sometimes you can’t go inside, sometimes you can’t go to certain parts of the temple. On top off all the vagueness and trying not to offended anyone it was also Ramadan, which meant everything had strange hours and some temples and mosques were closed to the public. Being our awkward selves we didn’t ask anyone we just lurked around temples to maybe go inside and then chicken out until we saw other people go inside.
Day 4 Chiang Mai
We hopped on a plane to Chiang Mai, Thailand; we are amazing at airports and flying by now. We met up with cousin Katherine and cousin Nora who were also traveling for a month around Southeast Asia. The 1st thing Mags and I notice is Thailand is overflowing with white people and tourists and lots of Americans. So I was a little skeptical of how this trip was actually going to go. We try to go places where there are more people from the country we are visiting than tourists. If we wanted to talk to Americans we could stay in America. (Spoiler the trip turned out to be amazing) We grabbed dinner together which was interesting because whenever food is involved its always interesting because who knows what’s in it. Maggies family makes it even more interesting because one of her cousins has a weak stomach like Mags, it must be hereditary. So we get to play the game of will this upset my stomach and for how long. We decided to hit up the Sunday Night Market, which took up 2 main cross streets. It was huge don’t know how you could make it to the end nonetheless the end of both cross streets.
Day 5
We woke up got some breakfast and decided to take it a bit easier since we have all been nonstop since we arrived in Asia. We strolled trough some temples, ran into some monks, saw some elephant things. On Tuesdays you can sit down with the Monks and talks to them and ask them anything you want! Then a man approached us and said he could drive us around to temples for the whole day. It sounded good to us so we all hopped in his car. The temples he found were stunning and he took us to lunch at this kind of hidden really good Thai place! Coconut mango sticky rice is one of my new favorite things! We all hopped back in the car and this man started driving us really far away from the city. Nora was talking to him casually about Thailand and he said he was bringing us to factories, which was not what we thought we were going to be doing. And not to say that we are pessimists but we didn’t really want so see any mistreatment of factory workers and such which happens quite often there, so we kindly told the man no thank you to factories. Then he yelled “FACTORIES, WHY NOT FACTOREIS, YES FACTORIES, WE GO NOW”. We were all like I guess we are going to factories now. I wasn’t too concerned because there were 4 of us and only 1 of him, unless he took us someplace where we might be outnumbered. He dropped us off at a sliver factory and then left, so we went inside. Then we were guided to a silk factory and then a jade factory. They turned out to be really nice factories and we got to learn how things were produced. We did end up finding our driver at the end and we headed back into town. So it all turned out to be fine. That night we went to the Night Bazar and ate our hearts out! They had the rolly ice cream so of course I forced everyone to get one….you cant eat ice cream alone that’s just sad.
Mango sticky rice...easily one of the best things we ate.
Day 6 Cooking Class
Maggie is a great cook and her cousins are pretty good at it too so it was just me that was a little anxious to take this cooking class. And to be honest I think I blacked out a lot of it because I can’t for the life of me remember what I made or how it was done. But we signed up for a 5-hour cooking class. They first took us all to the market to show us where our food was coming from. We were mostly interested in the red spikey fruit (later we found out they are called Rambutan). When we got to the cooking studio we found out we were cooking with people form Malaysia so of course they set us up with a list of things to try when we went back to Malaysia! We apparently made 6 dishes and got a cookbook so maybe Ma’ will be able to recreate some of the food. I also got a certificate which will be put on the achievement wall right next to molly’s couple 100 1st place ribbons…take that Molly I’m making it on the wall! When we got back to our hostel we all piled into 1 tuk tuk, because it was beer o’ clock.
clearly Maggie's family cool calm and collected...
And then there is me just trying not to die.
Day 7 & 8 Elephant Nature Park
The bus came and picked us up early in the morning because it was about a 2-hour drive to the sanctuary. On the way there they showed us the saddest video I have ever seen. They showed how elephants were abused and hurt and used for rides, begging, or shows. There was not a dry eye in the car. Suffice to say we were all over joyed when we got there because for one it meant the horrible movie was shut off but two there were elephants everywhere. We, and by we I mean Maggie and Nora, did a lot of research to make sure this place was actually a sanctuary and were actually kind to loving to the elephants. A lot of “sanctuaries” are actually just tourist traps and they also harm the animals. This place not only rescues elephants but also took in dogs and cats after the big flood when people just abandoned their pets. You can tell they are all well loved and fed. Some of these dogs are quite chunky and the volunteers know it, they make fun of how slow they are now. Our volunteer guide’s name was K and we all loved him. He was so adorable! We first had lunch and man did they treat you well at meals! It was a giant buffet of all kinds of food with elephants roaming around the pavilion! It doesn’t get much better elephants and food. If for some reason you are a not into saving elephants because you are a soulless lunatic monster that wants to see the world burn then you can at least give your money to come to the Nature Park for the food!
After we were stuffed we took a tour of the property and saw all the water buffalo they had somehow acquired as well as the elephants. There are certain baby elephants that you cannot go near because the acting nanny elephant will attack to try to protect the baby if it makes any noise. However the baby didn’t get the memo because he loved playing with the people this meant that we did a lot of running away from this baby elephant that just wanted to play. So in a way the most dangerous thing there was the baby! It was pretty funny seeing hoards of people scattering when the baby started walking towards them. We did a lot of petting, bathing, and of course feeding the elephants because they eat 18 hours out of the day….what a life. We learned about their lives before the park and saw before and after photos and you just wanted to give these giant majestic animals the biggest hug you could!
That night we were suppose to be split up because the accommodations only house 3 in a dorm room. But as luck had it K pulled through and gave us a family HOUSE! We had 5 maybe 6 beds. This did not stop Mags and I from sharing the larger bed. And the elephants slept right in out backyard! The next morning we did a lot of the same, which was just fine with us we could have done that for months! But at the end of the day we did make some elephant food so they weren’t just eating fruits they got some grains too!
Maggie was clearly having a blast!
Day 9, 10 & 11 The Trek
The 1st day of our trek we met the people hiking with Leo, Mattel, and Cecilia, they were from France. We really lucked out with these girls they are amazing and super fun! We were dropped off at the end of a trail and were told to follow our jungle man. We had no idea where we were on the map because we had driven 3 hours and were told nothing about the next 3 days. Luckily Mags had some extra malaria pills just incase we were in the malaria area. We were 5 min into the jungle and everyone was so hot and sweaty, it was just so humid and even being from the south I thought it was too humid. It was a little hard to breathe. Our guide either didn’t speak English or didn’t want to talk to us. He would occasionally stop and squat next to a river or something and look out into the distance and we were all royally confused. We didn’t know if he was praying or meditating, mostly because he didn’t say a word…ever. We practice a lot of blind faith! After the 1st hour of walking we were no longer on a trail and there was no signs of even a path we were just tramping over terrain and jumping over trees and rivers, ducking under rocks and tunnels, sliding on our butts to fit through bushes, and finding waterfalls.
They did end up feeding us which we were not sure was going to happen. It was so cute it was rice packaged in a banana leaf, super economical and biodegradable! The 1st night we ended up meeting up with another group, except they were a group of 9 Irish girls. Man I thought Americans were suppose to be the loud people, well these girls had us beat by far. But they were really funny and so sweet. However their poor bland Irish food had them worried about all the amazing food the jungle people were giving us. They didn’t eat a thing; they brought their own cornflakes and peanuts. Our jungle man found passion fruits and instead of cutting into it he just punched it until it opened…that’s one way I guess. The best part was one of the jungle people gave us a bottle of moonshine and we drank it with out question! We later found out moonshine is apparently a very common thing of the jungle there. One of the jungle people must have drank a lot of shine because man that boy was a little off his rocker. He had a blast though singing songs and attempting to play the guitar. He did educate us about the jungle people and how they live and the 7 different tribes.
The next morning we got up at 5 to see the sunrise over the hills and started walking again. Today was more walking than yesterday and we were all concerned about our water levels. We walked through rice fields and learned the different growing patters and conditions for white rice, brown rice, and sticky rice. We were also shown a weed farm, which is funny because weed is technically still illegal in Thailand. We took a break for lunch and we all passed out for quick naps that were greatly needed. We finally found our campsite before it got too dark. We showered in the waterfall and ate dinner while the family at this place. They made a fire to boil some peanuts, so tasty. We finally got to know our jungle man a little better his name is Nav. He taught us some Thai Hello (Swasdi) and thank you (Kob Kun Ka or Kob Kun Chow if you are in Chiang Mai). We also played a few rounds of spoons except in their version if you lose you get charcoal swiped all over your face. This really upped the stakes because no one wants that. We all ended up getting some form of a marking except for Katherine because she is just a winner all the time! When we decided to go to bed there was a giant spider, I mean larger than my fist giant, in our sleeping area so of course we screamed because what else are you to do in that situation. One of the jungle men came in and took care of it for us. Even though the spider put us a little on edge these past 2 nights are the best sleeps I have gotten because guess what there’s no A/C in the jungle so I didn’t freeze at all!
The next morning we put on our old cloths that were soaking wet even though they never went in to the waterfall…that’s right folk that’s how much we had sweat. We also woke up to the surprise that Nav, our jungle man would not be making the last leg of the journey with us. We were now with Simon the jungle man who drank all the moonshine. On our way up we somehow picked up another group and it started to pour, gotta love monsoon season. We had to rock climb down a mountain and the French girls started singing Total Eclipse of the Heart…and I freaked I love that song and soon everyone joined in! We finally made it to the bamboo rafting. By raft I mean it was 5 pieces of bamboo strapped together and 4 of us were suppose to get on with out it sinking. It surprising didn’t sink at all. However our boatman was the worst and that made the ride terrifying. Nora was in the back and almost got decapitated numerous times. He would splash us and run us into things and then get his friend from the other raft to try and jump on to sink our raft. By the end of the little trip we were drenched head to toe, and it’s funny we were the only group that got that wet. We couldn’t wait to get back to the hostel to shower and do laundry! We got there and it was Sunday so no laundry for us. At this point we smelt awful and it’s not just us, it’s my shoes and my backpack, oh my god my backpack reeks it might not make it through the rest of the year.
We took a really long much needed shower, drank so much water and headed to the Sunday Market where Mags and I got our gifts to take back home and we all put on our big girl pants and ate bugs! Beer was for sure informing our decision on that one.