I Went Surfing and Survived Lah!!!

After our not-so-sunny days on the islands of Southern Thailand, we had to divert our plans due to some pretty terrible flooding -the worst in 10 years. We ended up flying from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur and so begins our Malayzing experience (that was Andrew's contribution).

KL was a pretty cool city. We spent most of our time there in malls. Yep, regular, unexciting shopping malls. I don't really know why. Anyway, we did go up the Petronas towers (which happen to loom over a mall....this may have had something to do with it) which are something like the 3rd tallest buildings in the world. AND explore the city quite extensively on foot. This was interspersed of course with the eating of delicious food and the buying of pretty things. :)
After KL, we ventured about 150km south to the UNESCO World Heritage town of Melaka which was a pretty cool place to wander and hang out....After KL, came Singapore. They speak singlish there, just put lah at the end of sentences. It was great to visit Jon and get some well needed R&R. There weren't all that many things to see in Singapore ....but we did take part in the mandatory drinking of a Singapore Sling at Raffles hotel, and had a pretty decent night out.

After Singapore, May left us :( But she is now in China visiting the Terracotta Army which I guess is pretty cool.

Andrew and I (once again) detoured from our original plans for Indonesia because of the volcano eruption and recent earthquake. We made the sacrifice and flew directly to Bali, with our new plans including Bali, the Gili Islands and Lombok.

I went surfing in Bali! Ha, I only stood up 3.5 times in the entire lesson but I'm going to call it surfing anyway. It was really really fun! Also, we stayed in a very very sketchy place and there were bed bugs and it was not pleasant. Anyway, after surfing in Kuta we went to Toya Bungkah to climb a volcano. It almost killed me, but we woke up at 4 am and hiked up in time for sunrise which was absolutely stunning. It was probably worth it. Ha!

Following our volcano trek, we made our way to the Gilis (Gili Trawangan and Gili Air specifically). These are tiny, car-free islands between Bali and Lombok. We had a few good days of leisurely bike riding, lazy afternoons on the beach, and some pretty awesome snorkelling...with turtles!!!!

We are now in Lombok and you are caught up!!! Tomorrow we fly to Tarakan, before crossing the border into Malaysia.

We've been travelling for 83 days. 29 left to go. We're tired and smelly (well, not that smelly)....but we're having fun, damn it!

That's all for now.x