4 Countries - 4 Weeks

Sorry for the long delay!  We've been "on the go" and the times when we've taken a break, the internet connections haven't been easily accessible or affordable.  Our last post was in Bali and since then we've visited 4 countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia).  We've only just arrived in Cambodia, so I'll focus most of the attention on the other 3.

We flew from Bali to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and almost immediately boarded a train headed for Singapore.  A retired Singaporian banker, now photographer named Phillip found us outside the train station in Singapore pondering over a map of the city as we were trying to decide the best way to proceed.  He guided us to Chinatown and was determined to find us budget accommodation.  Using determined in the previous sentence was a huge understatement.  We followed him for 1.5 hours before we even saw a "budget" hotel.  We finally settled on a hotel that had a dorm style room with 6 beds and it was outrageously priced at $50/night (which was actually a huge discount from regular price).  My aunt Mary described Singapore best when she said to expect a huge shopping mall.  She was 100% correct.  In fact, you could almost walk through shopping mall after shopping mall to get anywhere you wanted to go in the city.  Steph and I aren't really mall-goers (AT ALL), but these malls were extremely refreshing.  They weren't refreshing because of the shopping potential, they were refreshing because of the air-conditioning.  The heat and humidity outside was almost unbearable and the a/c was a welcome retreat even if it meant becoming mallrats for a couple of days.  We saw a lot of the sights in Singapore in the 2 days including the art museum, Little India, Chinatown, Esplanade - Theaters on the Bay, Sultan Mosque, and many malls.

We took the train back to Kuala Lumpur and got in contact with Ezer (a college friend of Fuzz's older brother, Brian).  We ended up staying with Ezer and his mother, Molly, for several days.  Ezer was an incredible host and took us around to see some of his favorite tourist attractions which included A'Famosa and the Genting Highlands.  A'Famosa is a resort complex in southern Malaysia that has a carnival and safari center.  The safari was amazing!  We had a tiger come within a couple inches of our caged vehicle and we also saw lions, bears, hyenas, giraffes, camels, elephants, and lots of others.  Genting Highlands is another resort complex that has Malaysia's only casinos.  It was a little disappointing because they didn't have craps and only had high-roller blackjack.  So, we played some roulette and only lost a little bit of money and then headed back to KL. 

After KL, we took a bus to Cameron Highlands where we met an awesome couple (Eric and Paw).  We did some hiking together and spent the evenings just hanging out in the cooler weather of the highlands.  All four of us then bussed it over to Penang Island and enjoyed a couple days of sightseeing.  After Penang, Eric and Paw were headed to Borneo and Steph and I wanted to get to Thailand, so we parted ways.

Our first destination in Thailand was the island of Phuket off the western coast.  The most widely known beach on Phuket is Patong and after a night in Phuket Town we headed straight for it.  It was extremely disappointing as the beach itself wasn't very nice and it has been completely overrun with tourists and development.  We got out of there as fast as we could and headed for the island of Koh Tao which is off the eastern coast of southern Thailand.  We booked a night ferry to the island that left the coast at 11pm for the 6.5 hour journey to Koh Tao.  The ferry turned out to be a disgusting cargo ship that had a sleeping room on the second level.  Old, dingy mattresses were lined up under numbers on the wall indicating where to sleep and the boat packed in about 25 people, looking like sardines, for the trip.  The main attraction on Koh Tao is the inexpensive diving and we decided to partake.  We enrolled and completed an Open Water Diver Course that included 5-night's accommodation and 4 dives.  The accommodation was nice and the diving was excellent!  On our last dive, we saw a giant green turtle swimming through the sea and landing on a rock ledge.  Our instructor said we were incredibly lucky to have seen the turtle because in his 1,500+ dives off Koh Tao, he's only seen them 20 times.  We also saw blue-spotted sting rays and a ton of various types of fish.  We are now certified to dive down to 60ft and I can guarantee that we will be diving again.  It was awesome.  We stayed in Koh Tao for 5 nights and then started an epic journey to Cambodia.

Our 31 hour journey to Cambodia included a taxi ride, boat ride, taxi ride, train ride, bus ride, bus ride, mini-bus ride, moto-shaw ride(a rickshaw hooked up to a motorbike).  After what seemed like weeks of transporting, we now find ourselves in Siam Reap, Cambodia.  We took a boat tour of a floating village today which seemed surreal and tomorrow we're heading to see the famous temples of Angkor.  We plan to be in Cambodia for about a week and then move on to Vietnam, Laos, and then back to northern Thailand.

If anyone is still reading...thanks!