Country #5 !

Yep. I spent about a week's budget on flights to get to Malaysia. But if I didn't fly it would have taken like a week to get here anyways so it was definately the way to go. And here I am in the capital of Malaysia. I had to fly from Hanoi, Vietnam to Bangkok, Thailand and then here to Kuala Lumpur. I could have done it in a day but I thought it'd be OK to hang out in Bankok for a day. I know, usually I hate being in Bankok but it was my last day with my friends Paul and Jasmine. Man it got crazy having to exchange money twice and not get mixed up. Vietnam's easy : 15,000 Vietnamese Dong per US dollar. Thailand is about 38 Thai Baht per US dollar, and now I get here and it's like 3.8 Malaysian Ringit per dollar. Takes a while to get used to a new currency. It feels like I'm getting everything so cheap right now!
Man this place is so different from anywhere I've been so far. It's a mix of many cultures. The religions consist of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity....so there are many races of people and I'm just this lil' white boy all alone in a huge city. I'm staying in a dorm room for the first time since the start of my trip so there'll be lots of people to meet. Major bummer on the price of booze in this country though. Wheras drinking is a huge part of local life in the other countries I've been in, the people here don't drink so much and beers are not cheap. I'm going to have to go a whole month with no partying! Tough times.
So far there doesn't seem to be much to do here in the big city. I'm ready to get out allready after only a day. I really don't know anything about Malaysia other than that there's some great Scuba Diving at the Perhentian Islands. Haha, more beach time. I'll have to do a bit of research to see where I want to go next. One thing that sucks is I haven't been taking any pictures at all lately. I'm too worried I'll lose the damn camera and I never take it anywhere. Basically I have it but don't use it, so why did I buy another one? ****Oooo I forgot to tell about losing my camera AGAIN. I gave it to my friend Gemma to keep in her bag when we were in Saigon on a tour to the Chu Chi Tunnels. The underground tunnels were used by the Vietnamese during the war and now tourists think it's cool to crawl through. The tunnels werr kinda cool, except that my camera didn't make it the whole way through. It had fallen out of Gemma's bag and I only noticed when we were on the bus just heading back to Saigon. Man, I was sick. I thought there was no way I'd ever find it. But Gemma figured it had to be in the tunnels, so I turned around a whole bus full of tourists and we went to check. Gemma felt so bad that she went back in the tunnels with a flashlight and amazingly, came back with my camera. (Thanks, Gems! I wouldn't have been mad at ya though.) So that's 3 lost cameras with one recovery. Not bad.
I don't know how long I'll be staying in Malaysia but they give you a free 3 month visa at the airport. I guess if the islands really are as nice as I hear, I could probably hang out a while. I'm missing all my friends, back home and friends I've met. You start picking up different lingo as you meet people. Like the English are always saying "Proper" and I try not to but it's catching on. It has multiple connotations. For example, "This is a proper plate of food" or "he just proper beat that guy up" or "I'm proper tired." Man, MC Hammer thought that was cool to say in like 1992. And you can tell who's Canadian because they call you "dude" or "bro". You can tell who's American because...well you can't. They don't want you to know. They try to decieve people by saying, for instance: "I'm Dave from the Bay Area" (i.e. SanFrancisco Bay). They never say the good ol' 3 letters : U. S. A. Actually I haven't met many Americans travelling at all. I generally like the Irish and Scottish people, and I think I was meant to be one myself. I'll definately have to travel Europe sometime. Talk about expensive though. Ok, ok I'm blabbing away here. Cheers! (The English love that expression too.)

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