Mount Kinabalu beat us down

At 4096m Mount Kinabalu is considered to be the highest mountain in Southeast Asia (although there are higher mountains in Indonesia), and taking only 2 days to summit, is supposed to be a very do-able feat for the "average person".

First off I have to say that I'm glad we did the climb (Shameiz on the other hand won't let me say the "H" word -hiking). It was very challenging and the view from the top was blocked by clouds at sunrise, but the scenery was beautiful, and we really did have good luck with weather considering the time of year (it only poured like a biotch on the way down). We however are still confused at how we could have been so slow relative to all the average times given by our guide (who by the way was smoking like a chimney the entire way up), and being constantly by-passed by young-ins and hard-core older people. I guess we are just too out of shape. It took us 3 days for our leg muscles to heal enough to be able to not walk like retards and another few days to be able to walk up and down stairs without having to turn sideways .. although my right knee does still hurt (I know, I know, Jill, Julie and D.. wah wah wah my knee hurts).

Before the pics I'd just like to mention one more thing. It took us 5.5 hours on the first day to reach Laban Rata, 3.5 hours to summit and 7.5 hours (yes I said 7.5) to get all the way back down and with the help of a walking stick. The International Mount Kinabalu Climbathon in 2006 clocked the fastest male and female at 2 h 41 m and 3 h 14 m respectively to get all the way up AND down. Plus they started further down the mountain then we did! Amazing is all I can say.

Here's a pic of the mountain from the base:


Views on the trail:


Summit:



On the way down:

Palau Penang

Ok so we're alive off that damn mountain and in a place called the Cameron Highlands checking out Tea Estates..but I digress.

After Langkawi we took a "Ferry" to an island further south called Penang. Penang was once the focus of the British Empire in Malaysia and the architecture is very old an colonial. Unlike the seclusion of Langkawi Penang is BUSY! Traffic everywhere. We spent one night in the main old colonial city of Georgetown and then spent 2 days relaxing on the Beach at the resort area of Batu Ferengi.

Notice I used the "" around the word ferry...that's because the High Speed ferry was a ghetto tourist / diving boat co opted to run tourists between Langkawi and Penang, the 2.5 hour journey was ended with dropping us off at the ferry terminal, note the decrepit looking picture below. A tad creepy. Burly south Indian men then scammed us into taking cabs to our hotels while trying to sell us tours of the island..fun.



Also, that night we walked along the boardwalk in Georgetown and ate at the hawker stalls. Most of the food was great, however, Mel has forever been traumatized the furry stuff above the boiled lettuce. It tasted like a Spider meets Fiber Glass at a fish processing factory and got married and had a kid named Throwup...Mel can usually eat anything...She had nightmares about this stuff. We think it's a vegetable...Anyone know what it is? THe reason we don't is cause we got all brave and went to 4-5 different stalls and asked them to give us their best stuff...Tourist Mistake #1.

Going Dark

Hello All,

We're off to climb Mt Kinabalu day after tomorrow. Our flight to Kota Kinabalu leaves tomorrow. We'll try to post when we're done the climb, barring any unforseen toe injuries... :P

Peace

Langkawi

This Island is very similar to those you'll find just north in Thailand. Not much to report, we are staying at the Berjaya Resort which is a spalled out mass with little cabins spread across the hills.

Our Hut:



Dinner Last Night at the outdoor Chinese Restaurant:


A random sign at a hotel close by:

We're not sure why they have a no Durian sign, it's sold everywhere...Maybe the stinkiest fruit in the world attracts monkeys?

Diving Palau Payar Marine Reserve

The weather has been great except for the a few windy days which were coincidently on the day we went diving..We went diving on an a little island called Palau Payar 35miles from Langkawi on the way south to Penang. They have designated the island and surrounding waters a marine sanctuary. Mel and I have never dove with visibility that bad, this picture of Mel is one I took at around 10m below she was 1m away...couldn't see a thing past 2-3 meters. Still saw some clown fish (Nemo) and a Lion Fish see below. That being said both dives were cut short as the other 2 divers in our group could not keep watch over each other. The first time one of the guys couldn't keep bouyant and surfaced..after a minute or 2 of realizing he was gone and then trying to find him we all had to surface 30mins into the dive. Dive 2 had a similar ending with the same guy getting lost in the low visibility and then surfacing again 30mins into the dive..we secretly think he was an air hog and just ran out of air but was to embarrassed to admit it...

Here is a Nudibranch:


Clown Fishies and a Lion fish:

Found in Translation

Happy New Year!!!! + 3 days

going to rewind a little...before we got to Malaysia we were stuck in Shanghai 1 night, we didn't really do too much there as we are going to spend a few days on the way back...SHOPPING! But, from the brief glimpse of it I gotta say I love China...Not in the I love you cause you're soo hot kinda way but more in the I love you cause you're my quirky chaotic nerdy cousin kinda way...Let me demonstrate with pictures:















Yes...Yes it is..


And also the honesty:















And then the actual Hairy Crab Follow through:
















So the pure hilarity of the engrish translations are ripe for a coffee table book. I hope someone takes the time to truly capture how awesome some of the translations are..I'll do my best in the 2 days we have, but you really need more time..

Finally in Langkawi

Air Canada sux.

Our flight from Toronto to Shanghai was delayed for 3 hours because they were trying to "fix the entertainment system". 3 hours went by and they decided it couldn't be fixed, so after de-icing again, we finally took off. At least we had an exit row so lots of room for legs. And I have to admit the food wasn't too bad- something like General Tao chicken but it was pork instead. ..And the sleeping pills we took were fantab- knocked me out for 7 hours straight and Shameiz for about 5 hours. .. And even had a flight attendant, a nice lady from Quebec, be really friendly to us, telling us funny stories and giving us some travel tips for Malaysia (big surprise for Air Canada where, in my experience, all the flight attendants seems to hate their jobs and therefore hate you too). But alas, after 17 hours, when we finally disembarked the plane, we found out that we had just missed our connector to Kuala Lumpur. We were told that Air Canada would put us up in a hotel and the AC representative gave us instructions to go to customs and another AC rep would meet us there. HA! The AC rep was nowhere to be found. Luckily we were not alone. Joined by 6 others, plus Shirley who took up the role of tour guide, after a long couple of hours we had found our way through customs, pinned down the Air Can agent, and made it to the Ramada hotel.

Here's a pic of the group waiting for the shuttle bus to take us to the hotel:

Mini review of Ramada Inn.

Hotel room: Clean, a bit cramped, no cockroaches, beds as hard as rock.
Food: Dinner = meh. Wine tasted like water and green curry was just ok. Breakfast = awesome. Buffet of Western style and Chinese food. Hashbrowns fried to a golden crisp, fried rice spiced to perfection, and some yummy green vegetables (yes, I said vegetables). Yumm.

Kuala Lumpur is kinda small.

And there is not a lot to do there. So really the one afternoon and evening we ended up having in KL because of Air Canada wasn't too big of a loss. We visited the Petronas towers, which don't look that tall when you see them in person, but do look pretty cool at night when they are all lit up:

.. and then took a cab to go to Chinatown for some shopping at the night markets. Our cabbie was pretty cranky probably because we bargained him down to 10 MYR from 20 (he wouldn't use the meter and we knew that 10 was more than enough) and the traffic was pretty bad, so he dumped us in Little India and told us to walk a few blocks to Chinatown. No bother. Little India was interesting to see.. lots of stores with fried foods... and lots of garbage on the sidewalks. Hmm kind of reminded us of Delhi. :-)


Chinatown was pretty interesting too. Night markets with the usual- watches, clothes, bags, belts, clothes, perfumes and colognes, foodies, you get the picture. McD's with Red Bean desserts and a "Prosperity Beef Burger Meal". Here's some more pics of Chinatown:




Too bad we didn't get to go to the Reggae Bar. Jet lag took over at approximately 8pm and we had to boot it back to the hotel before we both passed out.

Mini review of Renaissance Hotel in KL.

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Had both a dry and wet sauna. :-)

Langkawi.
... to be continued...

Bored at the AeroPorto

So..it begins...

We're in the Air Canada Lounge thanks to some spare passes Julie gave us...Thanks Julie!

So we'll be in KL in roughly 23 hours...yah..flight to Shanghai is ONLY 14hours, we figure 5 hours of Movie watching and then some sleeping aids ;) should make life easy.

We spend 2 days in KL before flying to Langkawi, which is a resort town in the Andaman Islands just south of Thailand..We hear there's nothing to do..:)

l8s

Mexico - Snorkeling Akumal Beach / Diving

Nice Snorkeling - Definitely in the top 5 :)
Diving was meh - did see a Nurse Shark though

It might be time to change the tittle of this blog..since those 180 days are finito and now we're just piece mealing these vacations...ahhh the good old days

New Zealand - Fiordlands

We we're there for 3-4 days travelling through the sounds and area.

Tongariro Crossing in New Zealand's North Island

A fairly difficult (but no Kilimanjaro) 1 day hike up and over Mount Doom!