10/31/04: From Bali to Singapore to Penang, Malaysia

Hello everyone and happy Halloween -

Hopefully by now, you're not sick of me. These emails also serve as my journal (since I don't know how to work that "pen" thing they invented a few years ago). Definitely let me know if you want to get taken off the email list...I don't want to be part of the spam problem by any means.

A few last notes on Bali - some a bit funny. We were taking a walk through some rice paddies in Ubud (thanks Lonely Planet) and were stopped to talk by a farmer who was 20 or so. His English was very good and he showed us his hut (very small, no electricity, in the middle of a rice paddy next to his parents "larger" hut) and his land. His dream someday was to become a taxi driver (which was why he practiced english, but could not afford the fee for school). Anyway, he actually climbed a cocunut tree, grabbed a coconut, cut it open and we drank the juice directly from the coconut...good pictures on this one. Anyway, we bid him adieu, gave him a little money and were on our way. Quite heart-warming or the best actor I've ever seen.

...In direct contrast to our hotel attendant/cleaner. We found an awesome little hotel looking out on (what else) rice paddies and a small brook - just beautiful - and for 80,000 Rp (less than $10/night). Well our "friend" spent most of the time completely stoned...at least we think so from his 25% room cleaning frequency. We weren't 100% sure, but when he came up to the deck next to us, said hi, then stood looking at us for about 10 minutes after our "conversation" (while we were looking down at our books) convinced us that he was on something...

On the last day in Ubud, we visited the Monkey Forest Sanctuary. There's about 200 macaques there (from my incredible powers of inference, a type of monkey). The monkeys were NOT afraid in the slightest and in a golden display of reverse evolution we saw a few kids and adults that didn't understand why the monkeys were jumping on them as they carried food through the park. Note to self: when the monkey grabs the banana, let him take it. One monkey actually jumped up on my leg as I was sitting...there were families of monkeys and the babies playfully fighting for bananas and such. They weren't the most beautiful monkeys in the world, but they were cute and fun to play with.

From there back to Singapore (oh the food...just amazing). Mom - I tried to find everything you ever made me (I do mean everything...I ate a LOT) - and everything was cheap, cheap, cheap. The food markets sell everything for $3-4 Singapore dollars ($2-3). I also found every CD, DVD that's ever been made for $3 each. They have a lot of stuff that's not out on DVD yet. I think they may even have a copy of Spider-Man 3 - created from Sam's notes on a napkin at a lunch.

Finally, from the "lessons" category. The rules for bus travel. Always ask:
1. Where is the bus going? Are you sure? Really?
2. How many times does the bus stop? Does it really go to the bus station it's supposed to? Is a Shell station really considered the bus station?
3. When you say "9 hours" do you really mean "12 hours"?
4. I see the pictures you're showing me of the "luxury seats". Does this mean that MY seat will actually look like this?
5. Does Air Conditioning mean the entire bus, or just the driver?

We took an 11 hour bus ride from Singapore to Penang in Malaysia. We had no idea what was going on the entire time. We got the very back row of seats where there's four seats across instead of the three that are in every other row. And the seats are smaller. And the seats in front can actually cut off your ENTIRE leg space just by reclining. It was great to see Deanna negotiate with the driver to change seats at one stop in a combination of Bahasa Malaysian, Engrish (proper spelling), and I thought I heard some Hokkainese as well. Quite the experience - at least the total cost was $10 each. amazing.

Finally Penang - a very cool city. Majority here are ethnic chinese... We're staying in Chinatown...it's so cool. So far we ate incredible Dim Sum (for $4 between the two of us), went out and had drinks - met some cool people - including two folks from Perth for Deanna's side jaunt in a few weeks to visit friends. And we're staying at the Cathay Hotel in Penang - it's 100 years old (very clean though) and played some part in the movie Beyond Rangoon (which of course, was the extent of the research I did for this trip...so perfect).