Malaysia, in a hurry

But first, a stop at the National Museum in Phnom Penh to see the treasures of Angkor that were stolen by looters and then given back to Cambodia by the Thailand!  Special times.

Our second arrival in Malaysia was a special one: due to a delayed flight out of Phnom Penh, we were forced to make a harrowing (slash asthma-inducing...bleh) sprint through the Kuala Lumpur terminal to catch our flight to Kuala Besut.  But we made it!

Traveling in style, the Asian way!  Unfortunately the in-flight meal was VERY strongly seasoned, and the face mask essentially gives you your own personal breath-smelling chamber.  Awesome.  But it's better than getting H1N1!

We had made our hotel reservation in Kuala Besut on a pay phone in KL, and I had barely managed to give the guy my first name and flight time when the money ran out.  Magically, they still managed to successfully retrieve us, and we spent a night in a hostel whose 2 main qualities were: 1) kittens running around everywhere and 2) chicken sheets!

In the morning, took a taxi to the jetty with another random guest from our hostel, a girl who had been traveling for months and had stopped wearing shoes completely.  Interesting.  A short boat ride later, we were at the beach on Pulau Perhentian Kecil, the idyll marred only by the fact that we were carrying large backpacks and had nowhere to stay.  A little wandering around netted us a rather suspicious-looking tin-roofed hut for the eminently affordable price of $10/night.  There was only electricity at night, and the shared toilets had no seats, plus there were lizards in the stalls.  We looked elsewhere, but all the nice places were full.  Oh well!

It looks nice outside

Our sketchy hut

Next plan of action: do nothing all day.  And by "nothing" I mean "assiduously reapply sunscreen every 15 minutes and hide out under umbrellas."  I had a realization upon our arrival that my skin was pretty much the exact same color as the sand, that is to say: insanely white.  But unlike sand, skin is burnable!

Day 2: Snorkeling!  Soooo many awesome fish, and I jumped off the top of a lighthouse into the water!  (probably about equivalent to jumping off my 4th-floor balcony, and definitely the farthest I've ever fallen)  Unfortunately, we didn't discover until afterwards that you could buy underwater cameras.  Sorry.  Night: go out, make friends with a couple of British guys who ask us to explain the American fraternity system to them.  The more we try to explain, the less they believe us.  Fun times.

Day 3: Despite choppy weather, rent a kayak to try to do some independent snorkeling.  Get around the first point before deciding to give it up.  After a strenuous row back, run into problems getting the kayak out of the water.  Breaking waves near the shore fill the kayak with water and sand, making it too heavy to get out, but the force of the waves coming in to shore makes it difficult to get it back out in the water either.  Vicky goes to get help from the man who rented it to us, but he is nowhere to be found.  After much struggling, finally manage to get kayak back in the water and turn it upside down to get all the sand and water out.  Ditch kayak and decide to go snorkeling on our own beach.  Evening: go back to the place where we've been having breakfast every day (and trying unsuccessfully to move into) to pay back the 50 cents we were short at breakfast.  They invite us to have dinner with the staff.  Discover that Malaysian island dinner consists mainly of whole fish of various sizes and is meant to be eaten with one's hands.  Being as Vicky is vegetarian, I tackle the whole-fish-eating by myself.  I was suspicious, but it was delicious!  Stay and watch a movie with the staff.  We are totally BFF.

Day 4: Early boat back to the mainland, share a taxi to the airport with some other random foreigners.

Goodbye, hut

At airport, the only place open for breakfast is KFC.  Here are their only vegetarian offerings:

Fries and ice cream: the breakfast of (vegetarian) champions.

Fun fact: Malaysia has more candy stores per capita than any other country!*

*Okay, I made up this statistic, but there is NO WAY it is not true, because you can't throw a rock in Malaysia without hitting a candy store.  THEY ARE EVERYWHERE.  The airport alone had like 3 of them.  My feeling is that they should change the national slogan to "Malaysia: Land of Candy!"

Flight to KL is actually shorter than the bus ride from the KL airport into town.  Take monorail to hostel.  Don't know why Kuala Lumpur has a monorail in addition to the subway lines.  Just for fun, I guess.  Make friends with some Swedes, walk to Little India for Indian food.  Apparently Little India is mostly full of textile stores and not restaurants...what??  Go to Indian restaurant by hostel instead.

2 Fun Facts About Sweden That I Learned In Malaysia:

1) traditional Swedish high-school-graduation-day breakfast: strawberries and champagne

2) Ikea is actually pronounced "ee-KEE-ah" (the middle eeee is drawn out)

See what you can learn by traveling???

We were too lazy to go to the Petronas Towers (Taipei 101 is taller, anyway), but we did get to see this guy:

BTW, our KL Hostel (Bedz KL, in case you ever make a visit) was a totally sweet hostel, featuring the most NICEST CLEANEST MOST CIVILIZEDEST SHOWERS that we have experienced in this whole trip.  GLORIOUS.  Leave at an insanely early hour the next morning for airport.

Airport breakfast: seriously, who taught these people how to butter toast?

Spend most of flight back to Taipei watching movie previews, because on Air Asia in-flight movies themselves are not free.  Saddest part: not getting to fly on the Raiders Plane!

This is an unusual feature for a plane

Annnnd that's all!  Sorry for being a slowpoke.  And for this slightly mixed-up post.