Malaysia

We've been in Malaysia for a week now and it's been fun. We spent four days walking around in Kuala Lumpur, sightseeing and doing all the touristy stuff that tourists do. Chinatown market, National Mosque, Little India, National Lake Gardens, Petronas Towers, KL TV tower, McDonalds, the worst KFC I've ever had, and Papa John's. By the way, the fact that we are from Kentucky raises our stock tremendously is this part of the world. They love KFC. There are plenty of white tourists in Malaysia, but still relatively few Americans. Most whiteys here are European and Australian. We've seen three Americans since we've been here, two in Indonesia and one here. When a local asks us where we are from (half the time they'll just take a guess instead of asking) it often goes like this:

"You are German?"

"Holland?"

"Australia?"

"America you idiot!!!"

"Oh America..." they perk up a little bit

"What state?"

"Kentucky."

"Oh, Oh, Kentucky....(comment about KFC)....ya, ya, Kentucky!" and they're ready to shine our sandals.


From Kuala Lumpur we came to Tanah Rata, in the Cameron Highlands, where we've been for the past few days. It's nice and cool up here, with lots of well maintained, marked trails to explore. The town kind of has a Colorado mountain town feel to it. Tea and strawberries are the big crops here, and we've been hiking all over the tea plantations, which are absolutely beautiful.
Here's a few pictures from Kuala Lumpur and the tea plantations. We just noticed that you can click on the pictures to make them bigger.

Our spot in Kuala Lumpur


Petronas Towers


Kyle took an absurd amount of pictures on the skybridge


Our tour buddy - she liked me better


Chinatown Market


The only picture of us in the market


On the way to tea plantation


Decided against this route


A view from the hike in


Another




Five kilos of Malaysian pure leaf


Factory Tour


Drinking Tea!


Along one of the Cameron Highlands hikes

We just crossed into Thailand a few hours ago, and it already looks like it's going to be a new challenge and experience. Just when our Indonesian/Malay language skills were starting to get decent (the same language is used in both countries, and it uses normal American letters) we're hit with this crap รายละเอียดหัวข้อ. It actually looks kinda pretty though, doesn't it? I guess we can at least enjoy looking at it. We are in Hat Yai tonight and are planning to head to Ko Kradan, a small island off the west coast, tomorrow afternoon. If we like it we may stay put for a little while and I doubt there's internet access out there, so we may be out of touch for the next week or so.

We love and miss you guys,

-Ryan