West Sumatra - Padang, Bukittinggi and Danau Maninjau

Are you ready for this? Today's post is gonna be a good one. Grab your morning cup of coffee or a cold beer depending on the time on your side of the world and come along. 

Saturday morning (Aug 23) I woke up to the sound of thunder and managed to grab my laundry off the line before the sky opened up. Our flight out of Singapore was at noon and needed my jeans to be dry enough to take along in my bag. Luckily they were, and I saved them from getting soaked. I had my bag all packed up and headed over to pick up the girls at Hall 8. Just Alisa and Annie this time because the others were off on their own adventures. Annie gave us all an apple for breakfast and we jumped on the 199 to Boon Lay MRT station. From there we took the MRT from the far west end of Singapore all the way to the east end where Changi Airport is. Once we got to the airport, we had to take a transfer bus from Terminal 2 to the Budget Terminal where Tiger Airways flies out of. In total, it was a good 2+ hours of traveling... and we hadn't even boarded a plane yet! 

We grabbed breakfast after check-in, changed money over from Sing dollars to Indonesian Rupiah. I changed $200SGD and got about 1,400,000Rph. Crazy huh? For rough estimates throughout the trip I treated 10,000Rph to equal about 1USD, when really that was a bit off. 

Sorry... I just took a break from writing to look at my pictures (all 335 of them!) from this weekend and I lost my train of thought. 

Okay so we got on the plane and flew to Padang, Indonesia. It was only an hour flight because if you look on a map, Singapore is nestled right at the end of the Malaysian peninsula and is only separated from Indonesia by the Strait of Malacca. 

Check this map for an idea (http://www.caingram.info/Sumatra/Pix/sumatra_map_2.jpg).

We had to get a Visa on arrival. Normally this is pretty simple, but we made it awfully difficult. Annie checked the list of countries available for an arrival Visa and could not find Canada anywhere on it. After asking a few people we found that we were actually on the list, only Canada is spelt Kanada in Indonesian. We'reeeeeeee dumb. After immigration we had to find a ride into Padang. Talk about being thrown into a strange culture. As caucasians, we were a target of every single taksi, bus, opelet, ankot and moped driver in the airport. 

One thing I should mention here is that very few people had an understanding of English everywhere we went. This is probably because tourism in Sumatra has always been extremely small. It was only recently (10 years or so?) that the Indonesian government has allowed foreigners free passage in. The 2004 tsunami that devastated Banda Aceh on the west coast and most of Sumatra allowed many foreign aid workers in to the country which helped open the door for tourists like us.  

Being the friendly guy that I am, I attempted to communicate with these guys and find us a decently cheap ride into town. Annie went to find an information desk and somehow we all ended up on a mini-bus headed into Padang. The fare was only 15,000Rph each but for good reason. We ended up being shoved into the back corner of the bus into 2 seats (obviously there were 3 of us). 

I'll post a description of these buses from the Lonely Planet Travel Guide for Southeast Asia::

"Hike all the peaks, visit all the ethnic minorities and read all the anthropological studies you want, but nothing gets you closer to the real Sumatra than hopping on the sweltering, uncomfortable, yet somehow exhilarating economy buses. It's a cultural experience like no other. There will be chain smoking, deafeningly loud indo-pop tunes, visits from roadside troubadours, rampant breast feeding, hitchhiking coachroaches and yes, vomiting. The bus driver will stop at random to pray, eat and perhpas get laid, and you and your fellow passengers are at his mercy. The aisles are packed with cargo and absolutly overflowing with passengers - at least three to a seat. At home we'd be disgusted, but in Sumatra slow lane boudaries erode, you drop your hang-ups and begin to go with the flow. next thing you know, a smiling stranger is urging you to share some exotic fruit, you're buying lollipops for children and chatting with someone who speaks broken english and loves green day.  And you will laugh and smile like a Zen saint drunk on life."

After about 30 mins we were dropped off at a small broken down building close to Padang with 2 fold out tables in front where 3 people were sitting. This, I guess, was their bus terminal. I went and got us 3 tickets to Bukittinggi. While waiting, we were stared at by everyone. This happened everywhere we went. It was a really uncomfortable feeling, one that I didn't shake during the whole trip except for a few hours at Maninjau. 

The bus ride took almost 3 hours, even though it was only an 85km journey. 

Now's a good time to go over the rules of the road in Indonesia. Rule #1: ummmm attempt to stay on the road at all times and not hit anything? Thats about it... In Canada we have to study the rules and take a test before we can drive because there are so many!! It was unbelievable. First of all, there are all sorts of vehicles on the road. Larger buses, smaller buses, mini opelets, skinny Toyota vans, mopeds and motorcycles of all shapes and sizes, bicycles, pedal wagons, bikes with huge sacs of water or bags of fruits or other people attached on the back, even horse drawn carriages. Second, the road was never larger than 3 lanes of traffic across and in some areas was about a lane and a half of space for two directions of traffic. Third, most drivers will pass at will even if there is clearly not enough room by my Canadian standards. 

I think I figured out the driving etiquette after spending so much time traveling! Basically, you honk when you want to pass someone in front of you. You honk when you are acknowledging someone or when you want them to acknowledge that you are there. You honk when someone pulls out in front of you. You honk when you see someone you know or who works in the same company as you. You honk at girls you find attractive. You honk when you want a traffic jam to start moving. You high beam people who are coming at you head on to convince them to break. You high beam people who will not move out of your way when you want to pass. But you don't do anything except break when someone flies past you only to force their way into the spot between you and a vehicle in front in order to avoid being hit head on. It's fricken bizarre man.

Okay so, after seeing the countryside which had tons of rice fields, trees, hills, a few waterfalls, some monkeys, tons of small markets or stands along the road and so many broken down homes we finally made it to Bukittinggi. Our planned hotel was supposed to be fairly easy to walk to, since you can cross the city in about 30 minutes, so we spent about an hour trying to find it. After going down multiple wrong streets and being stared at by everyone as we went back and forth past their shops we finally decided to take one of the opelet's offers and get a ride with them. Turns out that was definitely the best choice to do as it had been raining and we were so lost. After a very indirect route, we were dropped off by our hotel. First hotel that is. After we checked into our room, I tried out the toilet and found out that it did not flush. After telling the guy who owned the place he reacted by saying "I know," so were like peace OUT. I should mention that overall, this place was really sketchy. We walked down the street a bit and tried out a much nicer hotel. After settling in, we grabbed dinner and beers at a little Cafe down the street called Apache Cafe. Delicious food, cheap huge beers (20,000Rph for a large Bintang) and good music. The bathroom was super gross, but looking back it was one of the cleaner ones we encountered. 

Next day we had two plans. To go to a place called Koto Gadang because it is known for its awesome (and cheap) silverwork and then to make our way to Danau Maninjau which is a lake made from an ancient crater. It wasn't quite that easy though. We took an opelet asking to head to the bus terminal. After getting there, we were told that we can't take a bus to Koto Gadang and we need to take another opelet. So we jumped in one asking to go there and the driver just shook his head like he understood? After doing at least one loop of the city, we got out because he said he did not know how to get to Koto Gadang. A local who kind of knew English helped us out and told us to grab a specific opelet with the number 6 on it. When we finally arrived at Koto Gadang we had been in the back of a opelet a total of like 3-4 hours and I had almost had enough. If you want to picture an opelet, picture a small shaggin' wagon that has been decorated on the outside however the owner wishes (usually consists of some sort of cartoony character and an indonesian/english hybrid name), complete with subwoofers, speakers, audio decks and/or video screens that blast a combination of rap, love songs, backstreet boys and random indonesian pop. The drivers are all young males of the same demographic and everyone chain smokes. 

At least we managed to buy some awesome silver in Koto Gadang. Annie bought the store out and borrowed 150000Rph from me which could have been very useful later on in the trip. 

From there we opeletted it back to Bukittingi and then caught another to a 'bus terminal to Maninjau' which was actually just a spot on the side of a road where a single bus was parked. Haha oh my God, at this point I didn't care what was going on. I just made sure that the bus was headed to Maninjau and I passed out in a seat at the front of the bus. I caught the end of the ride however, and its a good thing. Coming down from the top of one of the huge hills surrounding lake Maninjau there is an extremely sharp and steep road consisting of 44 horseshoe switchbacks which are only wide enough to fit one vehicle at a time. This bus driver was nuts, no holds barred as he ripped around the corners. I was in a window seat, so I had a full view of the consequences of a small mishap. If he had slipped one wheel off the road (of which there were no guardrails) the bus would have barrel rolled all the way down the hill into the town of Maninjau and then most likely straight into the lake. Scary stuff kids...

Maninjau town and Lake Maninjau were beautiful. See the pics :)

We found a place to stay along the lake which was actually such an awesome location. They were small cabins right by a small 'beach'. The cabins were very basic, consisting of 4 walls with a roof and a bed. Also, a small squat style toilet and a bucket of water out the back. The girls took the bed and I, well, got a mattress. There were wild animals everywhere and when we first got to the place we found a bunch of young kittens sleeping on a mat. This mat would soon be my mattress lol, with a sheet and a blanket on top. I slept in my clothes that night haha, especially because it was just laying on the floor in this cabin that most likely has things crawling around it at night. 

The next morning we got up and grabbed breakfast at a cafe in town. Good food, decent atmosphere. We managed to find a spot to rent some canoes for a toot around the lake, so we got 2 for an hour. These canoes were awesome even though they were nothing like ones back in North America. Picture a tree trunk that has been hollowed out and cut in half. You sit on the wood and there is one wooden paddle. Anyways, so Alisa and I got into the first canoe and Annie took the other one on her own. With us both in the canoe, the edges of the canoe only came about an inch above the water. We had to maintain our balance extremely well or else the canoe would tilt just a bit and let in water. I would have been okay if we went under, but Alisa had her money belt w/ passport on her. I figured it out pretty quick, thanks to my canoeing lesson on Mckenzie lake back when I was about 12. J-strokes and drags saved my life. I managed to get us out into the lake and around to our beach where I dropped Alisa off because she had had enough. Once I was on my own, it was actually really easy and super enjoyable. Definitely the highlight of my trip!! I had my shirt off however and the sun was out for the hour I was on the lake (which was rare, it was really rainy the whole weekend), so I ended up getting a pretty bad burn all over my upper body. Ouch. Oh and I met a monkey.

We managed to get a semi-private ride in a van back to Padang via one of the English speaking cafe owners which was nice. Insane ride again, and it took about 4 hours to get all the way into town. Not to mention we dropped off 3 other people at their houses beforehand haha. The driver was really nice though and after dropping us off at Hotel Immanuel he waited around to see if we could get a room. Since it was full, he drove us to the other Hotel Immanuel (yeah two different buildings, it was weird) and dropped us off there. That was awesome. The hotel was pretty seedy but we got a room with 3 separate beds which was nice! We walked around looking for a place to eat and ended up stopping at this nice little bakery since it was dark and we really had no clue where we were. Definitely wasn't the most comfortable feeling, walking around in the dark with everyone staring at us. Then we chilled on a balcony at the hotel while a storm went on around us. Pretty cool. 

Next morning we awoke at 5am to a mans voice on a loudspeaker doing some sort of a muslim prayer.  We were awoken similarly the previous night. It's some sort of a chant where the dude takes a deep breath and does this ominous "ooooooohhhhhhhh" sound while increasing and decreasing the pitch. Any info on this anyone? All I know is that it is extremely annoying to someone who is trying to sleep! The girls couldn't get back to sleep until it was over and sure enough, 8am rolled around and it started again. I have a habit where I fall asleep listening to my ipod, so luckily it was close and I just drowned out the sound with some Jack Johnson.

 

Rolled out of bed, hit the bakery for breakfast and attempted to walk to a bus station and catch a cheap bus to the airport because we literally were almost out of money. An option was to pay a cab driver around 120000Rph to take us directly there but we only really had 75000 left! Anyways long story short, I ended up getting fed up because we were lost and I just wanted to go home that I pulled out my emergency US dollars and found us a cab. Oh and once we got to the airport we had to pay an 'airport fee' of 75000Rph each. What a bunch of crap! I used up the rest of my USD to pay for my fare and half of Annie's. We literally boarded the plane with no money left... Wow. 

Okay so there you have it. That was easily the biggest culture shock experience of my life and now that its over, I'm glad that I have it. Let's just say it's not likely that I will be going back to Padang any time soon. Its funny, when I got on the plane I told the girls, "Man I have had enough of this country for a while." I just got an invite to go to Bali next weekend though, so we will see if I can do that. The only problem is that my 2 week break starts the following weekend and I'm not sure if I can handle that much traveling in that little time so I might just have to pass. 

My Thailand/Laos trip is going to be absolutely amazing though!! I am trying to figure out how I will blog/picture take while I am there though, since my camera will fill up and I won't have access to a computer. Maybe I will just bring my laptop since it is small? I'll have to see. I am only bringing my backpack. 

So friends, let me know what you think :) I'm out for a bit. Stay safe. 

Todays Spin: Search Party - Wintersleep

Countin' all his diamonds.

Let's see, this week was no Taman Negara but regardless you still get to hear about it! 

I will start with the boring stuff, aka "education." So I didn't get into the language course that I was raving about last day, but I did manage to squeeze into an air pollution management elective despite it not being available for exchange students originally. Good news is that it will most likely count towards a credit with Waterloo, but bad news is that it is an extra 3 hours a week of listening to a heavily accented Asian man attempt to speak english fluently. Seriously, ohhhh my God! I thought Waterloo had prepared me well, but alas, it did not. 

Number 2 on the discussion list, money aka funds aka loonies. I've laid out my budget and it has come down to this realization, I'm going to be in debt after this trip. Haha no seriously, on an average Wednesday night we do the club scene because Wed is Ladies night everywhere and I guess that is motivation enough. Between cheap beers at the Staff Club beforehand, two cab rides, cover/line skipping charges, drinks or bottles and the occasional late night snack I drop between 60-100 SGD. Should be simple right? Don't go out, save some money. It's not that easy Mom! How else am I going to get my dance on and meet cute girls on a regular basis? 

Speaking of cute girls, I guess that would bring us to number 3. During our trip to Taman Negara you may recall our bus breaking down outside of Kuala Lumpur? Well while waiting on the side of the road we met two English girls, Sophie and Stacey. Their trip around Southeast Asia ended in Singapore this week, so Alisa and I met up with them for dinner and drinks down at Clarke Quay Thursday night. 

We did dinner at a Caribbean themed restaurant, went for a walk around Clarke Quay, got some Turkish ice cream (which was bizarre! Imagine ice cream that is so thick you have to chew it), and then decided to either call it a night or grab some drinks somewhere. Thanks to Stacey's energetic dancing, we decided on the latter. I had spotted a rooftop bar earlier and convinced the girls to try it out. Talk about ballin, this place was sick. First of all, a fake elevator/door to get in with a velvet rope that was opened for us? What!? Inside, we were told to grab drinks if we wanted to go to the rooftop because it was self service up there. 2 bottles of wine and 100+ dollars later we made our way up to the heli-pad, (I think that was the name of the bar as well). Pictures are attached, I can't really do it justice with my words. 

Hmm, what else? Chilled at the pool on Thursday to shake off the hangover from Ladies night. We went to the Gotham Penthouse, which makes you think you might run into Batman, and ordered bottle service since that was the only deal on for us guys. A 40 of Bacardi and a 40 of Tequila later, my memory blanks me...but I'm pretty sure I behaved! However, Ashley apparently got cut off at the bar and had a discussion with the manager on how to become one of his dancers. Hahahaha, oh too good. Here's the pool. 

So I'm off to Padang, Indonesia (West Sumatra) tomorrow until Tuesday. I'll put up a nice post after that. Wish me luck, I have to worry about: theft, diseases, earthquakes, tsunamis AND volcanoes. What up! p.s. Go Canada!

Todays Spin : Prince of Spades - Dispatch

(If you haven't been paying attention to the song's I've been posting, do start. These things are gold! "Always to a beat".)

HMC1 - Introduction to Chinese Language

The deadline to add or drop a course here at Nanyang was yesterday. Despite all of my efforts to get into an Chinese language introductory course, the Student Services Centre would not have it! Apparently for each of the language courses they only allow 3-4 exchange students in per semester. But Audrey, the lady at the SSC who I spoke to on more than one occasion, mentioned that the professors of the courses wish to have a diverse group of individuals attempting a new language together. Lets do some math here.

If there are 40 students in each lecture and if there are 8 different lecture series each week (for Chinese) that means that there are a total of 320 students attempting to get a grasp on the 4 tones associated with Mandarin at once. I am assuming Audrey meant 4 students per lecture series and not overall, therefore there are 4x8=32 exchange student spots for a Chinese language course (ie. 10%). 

Some statistics from the NTU international students website: 

There are over 19,100 undergraduate students currently at NTU.

There are 300 exchange students here on average from 25 different countries. 

More than 3000 international students from 40 different countries.

So, this means that there are 19,100 - 3000 - 300 = 15,800 students who are national students. Since Singapore has been independant from Malaysia since 1956 and you only need to live in S'pore for 8 years before becoming a permanent resident - all full time students should be PR's of Singapore. Now, assuming that since the official languages of S'pore are Mandarin, Malay and English, most PR's will have a general knowledge of all three. Since the introduction to Chinese course is designed for people with no previous knowledge of the language, most of these students will be exempt.  Lets be generous and assume that 10% of the PR's actually have zero knowledge of Mandarin and are eligible, leaving 15,800 x 10% = 1580

Also, some international students and exchange students will know mandarin, say 75% do not so 75% x 3300 = 2475. 

Total eligible = 2475+1580 = 4055.

Okay so how about the number of those who are interested? Maybe an average of 10%? This could be a terrible estimate but regardless, the math goes on. 

10% x 4055 = 405.5 *round up since there is no such thing as a half person (shut it Seany, your opinion doesn't count) = 406 interested and eligible

Allright now to my point. If there are 50 eligible exchange students (a reasonable estimate considering the amount of interest) wishing to take Mandarin, that makes up 50 / 320 * 100 = 15.6% of the interested students while only 32 / 320 * 100 = 10% actually get in!! ALSO, about 80-90% of the exchange students are only here for one semester and it may be our only chance to study Mandarin while immersed in a semi-Mandarin speaking country. International Students and Full time PR's have the full 4 years opportunity to fit in this course. 

WHY LIMIT US EXCHANGE STUDENTS TO ONLY 4 IN A LECTURE WHEN WE CLEARLY ADD DIVERSITY AND HAVE SHOWN THE MOST INTEREST AND DESIRE TO LEARN?!

boggles my mind... 

Anyways! So since I will not be taking a Mandarin course this semester I have a new plan. Follow me as I take you on a journey through my next 3 months of education:

Course #1: History of Singapore. 2 hrs lecture, 1 hr tutorial/ week

Course #2: Chemical Processes. 3 hrs lecture, 1 hr tutorial / week

Course #3: Environmental Management. 2hrs lecture, 1 hr tutorial / week

Thats it... NICE!

Obviously this doesn't fit into my Waterloo course plan, so I am going to take my last work term off (Fall09) and spend it in Waterloo catching up on courses and labs that I am missing this semester. That's right, a full year on the Waterloo campus. Big stuff... I know. This is good though, I can put together an Ultimate Frisbee team for two semesters in a row!!! There is always an upside.

You may be saying, "Hey Matt, aren't you going to have a lot of spare time this semester?" Well... Yes reader, I will. But don't you worry, aside from typing a lot of random crap in my blog like I am doing now, I will spend limited amounts of time on the computer. I plan to get back into shape by swimming and gymming often. I also plan to pick up a "do-it yourself" Spanish language for dummies book and hopefully learn that!!! I will also be renting out the music room as often as I can to practice drumming, and I will master "Piano Man" and "Hey Jude" on the harmonica. Any other suggestions? Hopefully, because obviously I am stretching my imagination here. 

Okay, enough for today. I am in the middle of planning an unbelievable trip for 2 weeks in mid September but I will get to that another day. I will leave you with something AWESOME! Enjoy.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHUuqsSCn5g

Today's Spin: Working Class Hero - John Lennon

Night out in Clarke Quay

Friday night I had an urge to get off of the Nanyang Campus. I find that if you spend too much time here, it feels like a regular university and that is a little bit depressing considering how many things there are to do around Singapore. Talking with the Canadian girls we decided to take an MRT ride down to Clarke Quay. I had been to Clarke Quay twice already, but only to pay cover and make a fool of myself in some night clubs so I really didn't get to experience it for what it is. Basically, Clarke Quay is a hotspot for nightlife and a great place to grab dinner at some very nice restaurants while enjoying the scenery of a river flowing through the middle of the shops. The place was very well done, and I was loving it since night shots are my favorite and I remembered to bring my small tripod!! 

After spending too much time deciding on a restaurant due to excessive prices, we settled on a nice little indian food outpost right on the edge of the river because their dishes seemed to be reasonable. Turns out, when you order a meat dish you really only get the marinated meat and need to buy rice or bread in addition. In the end, it was no cheaper than most of the other places that we checked out but it was definitely worth the experience. 

First of all, there were 5 of us on a 4 person table right beside the railing above the river. I was sitting at the helm, facing the river (best spot in my opinion). Annie and Ashley ordered a hoegaarden and Dave got a water, but I was feeling some wine and convinced Alisa to share a bottle with me. Angove's Butterfly Ridge Shiraz Chardonnay, from Australia. Mmmmm it hit the spot.  Now I'm not much of a wine drinker, but sitting in a place like this with perfect weather and some good friends might have just converted me.

As for the food, oh my God. We all ordered a main meat dish, mostly chicken with different spices and marinades and we got 6 flatbread's. Everyone took a sample of everything, and I think that was the way to go. Everything was delicious. And to top it off, because of Indian Independence Day we were given a complimentary dessert; small rolled balls of nuts, fruits and who-knows-what-else. Perfect. The bill wasn't too friendly, but it was worth it.

Afterwards, we dashed to a nearby movie theater to catch Mummy 3 presumably because Ashley is so turned on by Brendan Fraser. Haha, terrible movie complete with terrible acting but the special effects were cool and as such, it was entertaining. Cab ride home (since it was after midnight) cost us another 15 beans each. Choked.

Also, a side note. Is anyone paying attention to this guy? Unbelievable. http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/swimming/story/2008/08/15/olympics-phelps-day-eight.html

Anyways, I need to run and get some breakfast / hopefully meet up with some guys I met in my Environmental class yesterday. They were very interested in my ipod touch so I let them play around with it and afterwards they invited me to do some rollerblading/biking in East Coast Park (Where I know there is a cable wakeboarding setup that I will have to check out!!!!). I hear thunder though, so this may be postponed. Bummer. Anyways have a great weekend guys.

Today's Spin: Cemeteries of London - Coldplay

Jungle Living

This weeks episode: Jungle Living - Taman Negara National Park, Malaysia.

Okay, so to put this into context, I wrote this while bouncing around in the back seat of a bus headed from Jarantat to Kuala Lumpur. So give me a break if it lacks correct spelling, grammer and makes little sense. It's a long one too.

Michael Franti is rockin in the headphones and Alisa, Jenn, Ashley, Annie and Dave are all trying to sleep - which is understandable considering the 
last few days. Starting from the beginning:

Friday evening we left Singapore by bus. Pretty cool by Canadian 
standards; 4 of us had the lower level of the double decker to ourselves, the seats reclined completely into an almost-bed, and there were personal tvs and blankets. We left by midnight and all fell asleep quickly only to jump awake to "PASSPORT" echoing through the bus which we assumed to mean "please kindly exit the bus and present tour passport to the immigration official". 5 hours later we were hurried off the bus onto the 6am streets of KL by the same cranky Malay. Disoriented and sleepy we booked a Monday return bus from a stand in the street and then took cabs to out tour meeting spot at the mandarin hotel. After checking in I grabbed breakfast at a mcdonalds where I got a sausage mcmuffin and a coffee *note: sausage made from chicken. The bus which was headed to Taman Negara left at 8.

36 km's away from KL, when we had all fallen asleep again because thebus was crawling up hills at 20kmh - it comes to a quiet stall/stop in the middle lane of traffic.

30 mins later we are told that another bus is coming to pick us up and is an hour away. Convinced the side if the road is safer, we hung out there for 3 more hours until the bus was fixed. In the meantime, I lost in a game of cards and got a sunburn, and we witnessed a tractor pull the bus up the hill.

Our tour company felt bad so they gave us a free 6ringit lunch (about $2CDN) and let us take the bus the rest of the way instead of going by boat so we would not miss our night activity.

Our weekend tour guide, Atan, met us at the bus and gave us our keys. 
We had two small cabins rented with 4 bunks in each plus a sink/shower/ 
toile combination. Very different but overall it was sweet. We were 
given a set dinner at the floating restaurant consisting of rice, 
veggies, and a whole fish. Haha I dug right in and eventualy the 
others did too. It was great but we all stayed away from the fishes head.

We crossed the river and Atan took us on a night jungle trek. It was 
pitch black and the forest was sooo noisy with insects and whatever else. I bought a flashlight but eventually just gave it to Alisa so I 
could attempt some pictures. We saw lots if bugs and vegetation plus some large deer and a scorpion or two. Also some fungus that glows in the dark and a python.
Afterwards we grabbed a few beers at the woodlands hotel since it was the only place that served alcohol(Malaysia is mostly Muslim). Overnight a 
HUGE storm woke me up.

Sunday morning we had breakfast and headed out for our hike. We hiked about 4k to a lookout point at Bukit Terersak and then headed to the canopy walkway. 

The walkway is a series of suspension bridges held up 
over 50m in the air at some points for a good 500m in total. 

I was a 
little nervous at points and I'm sure the others would agree. Still, such a cool experience. After almost 10k of hiking in total we made it 
back to camp for some lunch and relaxation before we headed out again at 3. This time we took a boat for 5 mins to another hiking spot. 
There we found a small village of aboriginal people called the Buntan? Our guide told us about how they hunt for food, how they make their weapons and how they male primative fire. We then got a demonstration of all three! We also got to try out the blowpipe on a teddy bear.

Okay so this next activity was ridiculous. The place is called Gua Telinga 
and it is a set of caves that stretches for about 100m underground. 
Okay no big deal right? Beforehand, Atan told us there may be cockroaches, snakes, bats and a type of spider that is half spider and half scorpion inside. Oh and we couldn't bring backpacks in because we had to crawl through small openings. Shut your mouth Atan. After some hesitation we all made our way in. The first bit wasn't too bad, and then we came across I don't know, something like 50 bats sleeping on the 
cave top. We snuck past those little guys without waking up too many but then Atan led us on a shortcut to get around some slow (and larger sized) Asian tourists in front of us. That might have worked if *stuff didn't go down. Annie fell on the slippery rocks and smashed up her leg, Atan left the lead to help, leaving Ashley exposed to the bats 
who were now taking flight and losing their shit (both figuratively 
and literally, seriously there was bat scat everywhere) around the 
cavern. So basically we all stood around waiting for room to move 
ahead while bats were flying around our heads. This went on for about 20 mins since I was at the back and couldn't move at the pace I wanted to haha. I was EXTREMELY uncomfortable having the bats circle my head that once I got the chance to squeeze through the last army crawl tunnel I was so full if adrenaline I almost flew out. At least now I can cross "non-mickeymoused cave 
adventure" off my life checklist.

From there we did some rapid shooting, which is really an excuse for the boat driver to soak some tourists. In a small wooden boat with a 15hp we rocked some white water upstream and litterally took waves in 
the face. So fun haha. The driver kept going "Sorry, Sorry"  every time he got us good. Afterwards Atan les us to a small river heading into the main one where we could do some swimming and cool off. We capped it off with dinner and a few rounds of beer. Perfect ending to a crazy and fulfilling day!

So this takes us to today (Monday). Breakfast and then a 2.5hr boat ride down the river to meet our bus. Beautiful ride, I wish I had my camera because it felt like we were in a national geographic documentary it 
was so unreal.

Oh and I should mention this. Sat nigt after our drink at the hotel we were walking back down a dark road when a local skidded his moped in front of us and told us to stop because there was a snake 5m in front of us. Black 
with yellow he's a dangerous fellow or something like that? Turns out it was a 3ft long Krait snake just crossing the road. They are one of the most poisonous snakes in the world and we almost walked right into 
it... Thank god that guy stopped us!!

This story wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention the Reggae Bar in KL. We stopped in there for some beers and food and shisha before we caught our bus home on Monday Night. This place was awesome, true story.

Allright kiddies, this took a good 2 hours to write on my itouch so I hope you enjoy =) tune in next week, hopefully same matt time, same matt channel. Peace.

6 ft above sea level, I grab the mike because I like to take you to 
another mental level - Michael Franti


Sent from my iPod

Test, test. 1-2-1-2.

Roger roger little ducky this is big bird do you copy?  Just makin sure this thing works. 

OK so here we go. In my first few weeks here I decided that it is going to be way too difficult to keep in touch with everyone on a regular basis. Emails, skype and phone calls really take a lot of energy out of a guy. So the plan is to post a semi-regular update of my adventures so that you, my dedicated readers (probably just mom), can keep up-to-date with my AWESOME adventures here. So click the ol' favorite button and tune in every once in a while. I will be posting some pictures in here as well which will hopefully paint a nice little portrait of Southeast Asia.

Over and out.