raining cats and cats

one more funny thing about malaysia: there aren't stray dogs like we've seen in every other country. instead there are tons of cats wandering the streets. they're pretty friendly, not feral, and don't seem to have a lot of fleas. most of them have stubby little tails, which is normal for cats in malaysia, from what i've read. purrrr- i love cats.

one more country down

we leave malaysia tonight, on a train bound for singapore. we've had a good time here. we spent a few days in penang, known for the delicious food of chinatown and little india. i have to say that the indian food we had there was better than some we had in india. but not as good as the best, for sure.

next we made our way to kota bharu, where the highlights were: scuba diving off the coast, taking a batik class, and seeing a master shadow puppet maker at work.

then we took the "jungle train" (beautiful ride) down to the taman negara rainforest. it's the oldest in the world at 130 million years! that's too ridiculous an amount of time for me to comprehend. while we were there, we went on a beautiful 11-kilometer trek to a hide, which is basically a cabin on stilts where you can look over a clearing where animals may come during the night. well, we didn't see any. on our way there we saw a little poisonous snake, and on our way out we saw a poisonous spider. though i hate spiders, i have to admit that this one was beautiful-- about 2 inches long, with a black and yellow striped body. we took the easy way out of the jungle by hiking 2 kilometers to a jetty and then taking a boat the rest of the way. my legs were sore anyway. too long without substantial exercise, i guess.

now we're getting ready for an overnight back on the jungle train. we arrive in singapore tomorrow morning, and we'll get to have a reunion with a friend we met in vietnam. fun. it's great to see fellow travelers down the road.

i'm still alive and well

i realize it has been a LONG time since i wrote last. what has happened?

morgan and i had fun traveling separately, and had a nice reunion. we met up again in mumbai, and left the same day for thailand. when we got there (the next morning) we went to our airport hotel to await the arrival of the parents. yup, my mom & dad (and good friends jane & rich) came out for a visit. we flew to koh samui, a beautiful island in the southern part of the country. our days there were spent luxuriating on a beautiful sandy beach. morgan and i went scuba diving one day, and were awed by a 5-meter long whale shark swimming directly above our heads. amazing! definitely a highlight of our travels.

now we're back in pai, where we have been a couple times before. we stay (and work) at tacompai, an organic farm run by a remarkable man named sandot. it's another home for us at this point. it was so fun to get to show it to my parents.

they left today for chiang mai, and soon they'll travel to cambodia and spend a week there. morgan and i are busy planning our upcoming trip through malaysia. anyone have any thoughts on places we can't miss? we need to be in singapore for a flight on february 28.

it's becoming hard to live in the moment now, as the end of our travel sneaks up on us. after malaysia we'll spend 2 weeks in fiji and then it's time to return to the states. i don't mean to complain, so please don't read it that way. but travel time is relative--a month remaining is a long time compared to the 2 weeks of vacation provided by my former full-time job. but it feels like a heartbeat after the (gulp) 11 months we've experienced so far. and what a trip it's been. i can't believe it's been so long, but then i recall all of the amazing things we've done and realize how lucky i am. there's no way that all of those events could have taken place in less time, and i can hardly believe everything that's happened in the last year. incredible.