The sounds of booming Muslim homages multiple times a day, limitless supplies of Roti Cani, and the homeless traveler lifestyle was going to have to come to end some day. As the closing days of Malaysia quickly approached I was ready to leave to a land of dry clothing, non-odorous shoes, and where I could have more stuff then what fit into my tiny REI backpack. A valuable lesson I have learned for my friends and myself is take more then two days worth of clothing with you when you are going somewhere for two weeks.


1 Night and 3 Day stay special. The second night you have to fend for yourself. Sound to me like a family vacation just set up to fail.

The Anything Beverage taste like anything you want "Any Taste For Any Thirst" is their slogan. This to me seems like someone screwed something up and this is how they covered it up. I would do the same thing.

Welcome to the Snake Temple of Malaysia

Yes, they are real and really venomous. The worker continued to tell Pat to not touch them. I think he would have grabbed one if she had not dissuaded him. I mean it is only a viper.

It would be cool to have them if you had their fangs removed and you enjoyed the warm loving companionship of snakes.

Guess which one is the Monkey.


Slimy Tree Frog, He was actually fun to hold since he stuck to you and felt like a snot.

Here we have the Slim Frog, a Preying Mantis, and Monkey who really wants the PM.

I can not imagine what that poor lizard has to put up with from tourist.


Either the turtle took up smoking or the facilities are just not cleaned up as much as I am looking for.


You some times when you are walking down the street you can just smell grease and you know there is something good just around the corner? Well that is how this was. This doughnut type creation is only flavored by the wonderful oil that it is fried in. wow was there a lot of it, I think it lubed up my insides for the rest of the trip.


Patrick Gentry claims this to be the best fried rice in Asia. If you would like to dispute this with him please let me know and I will get you in touch. I have to say it was the best fried rice I have ever had but I will now have to try the rest of the rice in Asia to see if Pat really knows what he is talking about. I'll tell you that little dab of red on the plate is the hottest sauce I have ever had. I used about a quarter of it to spice the entire plate. I think Shannon used all of hers, yeah she can handle the heat.

I am only posting the picture of the 7up revive so in case you ever come across it you skip it and go to the next option. If you like a mildly sweetened citrus then this might be up your alley. For me though I prefer to with some of the green or the yellow. This day just happened to be a green day.
My taste buds determined this green concoction to be some sort of honeydew melon and perhaps a thickening powder. Tasty non the less and talk about refreshing on a hot and humid day. I mean how can you go wrong with a beverage that cost about 25 cents and is served in a plastic bag.

Patrick the great guy he is wanted to show ma'am sir and myself around his old school. Then he wanted to show us the lake of lizards. Since there was about 500 inches of rain the day before a little mud had collected along the sidewalk. Do not ask why we never turned back when we saw the mud because I do not know. Perhaps it was because some one else had forged their way through and there were foot steps already in it but we will never really know.


The final stretch of the mud.


There may have been a chemical spill in the ditch here but I am sure it will clear up in a couple of days. That is never a good sign when the liquid flowing through water ways is bright red.


This was the nicest bus I have ever been on while it being the luckiest bus ticket I have ever got. There are around 200 buses that go Penang to Kuala Lumpar every day but this was one of those days that was sold out. We asked around 50 ticket agents before finding one that only had luxury bus tickets. I think the money was well worth the comfort provided by this puppy.



I knew this was going to be one of the last times for a long time that I could get some Roti Cani. I went ahead and ordered two of them with the curry dahl sauce. mmmmmmm. It is so hard to describe how delicious and mouth watering this stuff is. If you like spice there is no better then this. Of course I had to have a traditional drink call a lemow ice. It is like sweetned lime water.
Then I went ahead and got more. This time with the Really spicy curry. oh yeah thats the stuff.

These shoes got wet during the down pour a couple of days earlier and would not even begin to dry. You can imagine the scent that was coming from them. I weighed my options here. I was headed to the airport and going to have to transport these to the Philippines or I was going to have to part with them. I have had them for a couple of years and I feel I got my monies worth from them. I figured there was no saving them with out a substancial effort on my part and I am not at a point in my life where I need to be saving worn out shoes so I deposited them in the nearest waste basket I could find. I am still very happy with the decion I made to get rid of them since the smell was so damn foul.

Stinky Shoes

If you were ever considering going to Malaysia or any foreign country for that matter pay particularly close attention to what airport you come into. This does not sound like any of much importance until you are running a ten minutes late and you only have 1 minute to spare. This scenario has bit me in my ass so many times you think I would take my own advice already.

Patrick and I were running extremely late for our plane and as you can imagine the taxi driver took us to the wrong airport. This was not totally his fault but still the wrong airport. unknown to us the ticketing counter for our flight closed at 12:30 a.m. and our flight left at 1:30 a.m. I mean really what good American shows up to their flight and hour before it leaves in a foreign country? The usual for us was about 5 minutes before the flights left and some how we always got on the flights. This one was different since the ticket counter closed at 12:30 we got there about 12:55 and could not get our tickets. Which meant that we could got get our plane back to the Philippines. The only place I wanted to go was any where in the Philippines because that meant that I was going to catch my flight home but there was no way I was making that flight. I decided to stay at the airport and buy another flight home through Air Asia since Cebu Pacific sucks and only flies to the Philippines every other day. Since it was so early I had to wait until later in the morning to buy a ticket and catch a flight. I figured it was bed time and what better place then a nice freezing ass cold hard air port right? Right, so lets go to sleep for three hours. Hard to get sleep in the bright lights and constant people stirring around.

Opened a can of Good Boy!

For some reason them have to walk through the cab of the plane spraying something. The flight attendents let you know that it is okay to cover your mouth if you want. THANKS, for letting me know cause I am not going to do that when you spraying some unknown substances through out the plane.


So after staying the night on the airport and thinking that I was going to Manila when I landed at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport you can imagine my surprise. While I was still inside and it had not all hit me yet I discused transportation with a imigration officer and she looked at me like I was crazy when I mentioned that I would be takening a taxi to Makati. Then when I asked someone how much a taxi was to Makati and they told me 4000 pesos which is around 100 USD the next thing out of my mouth was where the hell am I? Then a nice bus lady explained that I could get to Pasay which is by Makati in two hours by bus for only 350 pesos. I went with option two as you know.

My bus ride back to Makati started here.

Over the past week and a half I had been having trouble with my left ear. It started as a little pain then provoked me to promptly get to a doctor when I finally made it back to Manila. After a quick 3 second examination by the doctor he gave me antibiotics and pain killers.


Tramadol Pain killers. Yes, please.

Antibiotics were needed.

It had been a great adventure through out my weeks in Asia. Sitting on the plane at the Ninoy Aquino International airport I was thinking how ready I was to get back to the United States. I was beat down, broken, ear infected, and did not have a clean piece of clothing to my name. After enough pain killers and fantasies of tumble dried clothing I attempted to get a bit of shut eye on my day long journey to get home.



Until the next adventure.

Nick

Here is the video of my travels through out the Philippines during the month of June.

Malaysia is the most Patriotic country I have ever seen there are flags every which way you turn.

Malaysia is an experience. Now what kind of experience any one individual will have depends on expectations, how they handle authority, and your personal comparative analysis of other places visited. Let me just start this blog entry by saying if you are going to go to the Perhentian Islands of Malaysia on the north east side in Pulau DO NOT go to A B C Chalet / Guest House. I hope I can save travelers the pain, anxiety, and bull shit that I had to put up with from these fools at the ABC Chalet located between Cocohut Chalet and Tuna Bay Resort on Perhentian Island Besar. You will always be the creator of your own vacation I just hope you can avoid the mistakes I have made and avoid the unrealistic folks I have come across. I have no room in my life for people of this nature. Please follow my story to see why this is.

The People of Malaysia have one very amazing thing and that is the food. I feel that the scenary is beautiful but there is better to be had in the Philippines since they actually have an idea of how valuable marine life is to this world and tourism. Malaysians may not care about their ocean but they do care about transportation. They have an incredible amount of buses which and typically get you from point to point cheaply and easily.

Here was our first view of the perhentian islands in Pulau. Beautiful white sand beaches, wonderfully clear water, and super fast boats to get you their. This is a tourist destination or trap depending on your point of view.

After a long mini van ride, boat ride, and unshowered. I know my hair looks good you don't have to tell me. Yes, It was about another week before I came across a razor.


Here is a map of the Perhentian Islands Kecil and Besar off the coast of Malaysia. The first night we stayed on Kecil at D'Lagoon. For the second night we thought that we would transfer over to Besar which is known as the big island.

Here is one of those really fast boats that takes you out to the islands I was talking about. Twin 200 horsepower outboard mercury engines. Oh Yeah its as fast as you think it is. There must be a really happy Mercury boat motor dealer around the Perhentian islands because everyone has one of their motors. Perhaps I saw one other brand. I know these are the things that I look at even on vacation. I am convienced only men do this sort of thing.


Here we are arriving at D'Lagoon. The Staff over at D'lagoon was amazing. They are there to help you with what ever you need. This is a very remote part of the island but if remote is what you are after they have lots of it. They also have pet monkeys and sea turtles for you to play with at your own convenience.


Here is the sunset at turtle beach across from D'Lagoon. In the rocks we went snorkeling with black tip reef sharks. This was really cool since there were a few about 2 meters long. But the reef here will be non-existent in I would give it about another year. Through out my travels and constant scuba diving I would have to say this is the most degraded and least cared for coral reef I have ever seen. Sad, but a reality which I can only imagine will eventually bit back.

Now this cute little guy crawled into pat's room through the window. He was so scared with the camera flashes and all the commotion that he left a couple tootsie rolls which were quickly found by Shannon's (ma'am sir) nose.



I have never seen a baby sea turtle before so this was an exciting moment for me. They had about 20 baby turtles in a little pond that they could not get out of. They are not the nicest to these turtles since children play with them and tend to torture them. Then Patrick recalled how nice he was to the local wild life when he was growing up and I suddenly had the same realization that he had. We are both glad that there are sea turtles left.


Yeah they taste good too.


No one had showered for a while and Patrick was lucky enough to be groomed by one of the semi wild pet monkeys. Just moments after this I wanted to take a picture of the little monkey on my arm but he wanted my camera. I would not give him my camera so then he proceeded to bit my hand. That little piece of s#$% monkey. We are now not on speaking terms. I am still waiting for an apology.


The Monkey getting away after I through him off of me.

The boat ride over to the island of Besar. This was right before things started to turn a bit sour. If the enjoyment of my trip was graphed out this would be the start of the down turn of the line.

The Malaysia Trip Graph

We got to the island of Besar and decided to look around for a place to stay. We went and looked at a few places and every where is expensive so we then started looking through the Lonely Plant travel book to get some good ideas. It said that the ABC Guest house had good prices and decent rooms so we decided to go there. We did not realize the mistake that this was.

Do Not Stay at the ABC Guest House

We were feeling a bit beat down do to the fact that we had been constantly traveling and the Perhentian islands are a little light on amenities. We went ahead and check in to the ABC Guest house. We literally set our bags in the room and walked out because we were all hungry and found a place which served Roti Canai. We went and had like 3 pieces of Roti each which was so good because we had not had it for about a day now. Over lunch we started chatting about the islands and how we were just not having a good time. There was nothing wrong with the Perhentians but it was just time to get off the island and get back to the mainland. About 15 minutes had passed and we went back to the ABC guest house grabbed our things out of the room and went back to the gentleman who had checked us in and we told him that we would be leaving.


10 year old with his baby bottle at the Roti restaurant.

ABC Guest House guy then says well you need to pay for the rooms. Now this is a really slow time of year we know there are lots of open rooms and no one had come to check in, and we did not use the rooms so they were not loosing out on any thing here. We all then said this is some what unrealistic to think that we are going to pay full price for a room that we did not use. ABC guest house guy went on to say how we need to pay. I said I am more than willing to pay some sort of cancelation charge but I am not willing to pay full price. Then the ABC guy turns around and walks away and would no longer talk to us. We then set our keys on the counter and walked away, I mean really what else were we suppose to do?

ABC Guest House on Besar in Pulau in Malaysia (Don't Stay Here)

We then went next door to the Cocohut Resort and they were nice enough to call the boat for us to get back to the main land. We hung out there for a while and played cards and had a couple of drinks. pictured above was my winning hand which made Patrick drink. We don't want to talk about how many times he had won.

We then had a hellacious bumpy boat ride back. A rough sea and sitting in the front of a boat moving about 50 mph is not a good combo. My ass hurt for the next couple of days. All of the people on the boat were clapping when we succesfully made it back to the dock.

This is when we knew we were set up. We got back to the dock and there were some dudes there waiting for us. Patrick and I blend in rather well with a crowd so they picked Shannon out of it. We were really not that hard to spot since there are only a few American looking people on the boat and there is only one boat which comes in at that particular time. So Mr. ABC guest house dude called his friends and told them to make us pay up because we left with out paying. This was such B.S. I was rather pissed off about this but what do you do when some one will no longer talk to you? After about ten minutes of confrontation we paid up. I know you would do the same thing. I mean we are in a foreign country with laws that I have no idea about. These people are to shady for me. This is why I am discouraging people from going to the ABC guest Chalet. Any one trying to take advantage of and hustling Americans / Foreigners should not be doing business.


It was about time to try to get to Penang on the west coast of Malaysia. It had started to down pour and we had five hours to kill. We decided to hang out in a KFC for that time and get some nasty food and play cards


The KFC cheesy Mayo Potatoes.

Patrick in his Mayo cheese heavenly bliss.

Perhaps someone could clue me in on how all of this works. 1) Squat 2)Spray it clean 3) dry??? This was the only restroom in Malaysia with toilet paper. So how do you go about drying your bottom off? Do you just drip dry? I know you are suppose to get into the culture and do as the locals do but I could not help carrying around a roll of good ol' TP.


We then went into an Antique store for a bit. They had some cool items but all over priced.

Random Antique junk in Malaysia.


We then went to the Largest Buddhist statue in all of Malaysia. But to get there you have to walk through the gauntlet of needless crap vendors.

This was just the start of the Kilometer long walk way you had to go through.

As far as the eye can see nothing but vendors.

The temple had thousands of turtles. For only 2 ringgit you could feed the little guys. They are not really all that interesting to watch eat.




A view of the city from the Temple on the hill.

To much incense, can not breath. cough cough. The biggest incense sticks I have ever seen.


The Buddha is getting a cover put over her so we could not get to close.


I guess they have breakage problems. I would you really tell them if you broke it?

The rain would not stop. Usually it goes for about 2 or 3 hours but this rain would not let up. I can not even begin to think how many centimeters of rain fell.


We found refuge at the Penang college dinning hall and yes they made Roti.


Round one was two regular Rotis with curry dahl.


Round two was Roti Jagung which has corn, sweet condensed milk, and egg.


All the different Roti Canai. I will take two of each please.

Kickapoo Joy Juice tastes like really good Mountain Dew. I highly recommend you give it a whirl..


This is a crispy dessert Roti covered in sweetened condensed milk.

Yup it was raining that much.


The Universiti Sains Malaysia has the best dining hall known to man.



Due to all the rain the streets were flooded but the bus driver did not care.

Notice anything strange about that floor?







For only a few ringgit this kind gentleman gave us a ride to slippery senoritas. We felt bad since he had to peddle us up a hill so we gave him a big tip.


This place sucked. It had a 50 Ringgit cover charge so we went back to the Blue Diamond hotel we were staying at.


Luxury living at the Blue Diamond hotel along with turning yourself into a mosquito buffet.