K.L., the capital of Malaysia, is an ethnically diverse, large, modern city that contains what were once the tallest buildings in the world, the Petronas Towers. For me, it's been a place of confusion and complications. Here's my story, and I'm sticking to it! :) ...I left Singapore Monday morning on a train bound for Kuala Lumpur. The first set back was minor. Crossing the Malaysian border I found that I didn't have my customs departure card given to me upon arrival in Singapore (I vaguely remember throwing it away - nice move on my part). Not a big deal...just a [View Full Entry]

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It's Tuesday night and I'm in K.L., or if you prefer, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I've been in K.L. for less than 24 hours and it's been a nightmare ever since I got here. But I'll leave that for my next update... I need to first cover my final day in Singapore (Sunday, February 5). It was a busy day... In the morning I went to Orchard Road, one of the primary shopping areas in Singapore. Walking along Orchard Road is a fairly pleasant experience since it has wide sidewalks with an ample amount of shade provided by the large trees that [View Full Entry]

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Today was my day to explore the city/country/island on foot. Singapore is an interesting place. A few words to describe it... Clean: Very little litter (heavy fines contribute to that I'm sure) and no graffiti at all. Even the public restrooms fit this description (granted you have to pay money to enter some to pay for the workers that are always cleaning up). Modern: Skyscrapers, video cameras at intersections, top of the line electronics, fashionable, efficient public transportation (above and below ground). Crime free (generally): Heavy fines and penalties is the deterr [View Full Entry]

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It's Friday night...actually Saturday morning (12:15 a.m.) and I'm in Singapore. What am I doing here? Well, I needed to leave Thailand since my 30 day free tourist visa expired. Why Singapore? Why not? I had some vague idea of going to the Singapore Night Safari and drinking a Singapore Sling at the famous Raffles Hotel, but I'm basically winging it. I should start with my final day in Chiang Mai but this internet cafe closes at 1:00 a.m. so I won't have time tonight to cover all the details since my last update. I'll tackle some things that happened today, [View Full Entry]

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Well, sort of. I think I burned the tofu a bit, but overall it came out ok. My red curry though was quite good. What am I talking about? I went to a cooking class yesterday in Chiang Mai with Thai Farm Cooking and whipped up a few dishes like red curry, pad thai, chicken with cashews, mangos with sticky rice, and papaya salad. I ate all of it, and I'm not sick yet. That's a positive in my book. Actually, I think everything I made tasted pretty good. We also didn't use MSG (MSG seems to be added to most [View Full Entry]

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It's Monday evening, January 30 and time to get you up to date... My last blog entry left off with me leaving Bangkok on a sleeper train bound for Chiang Mai (city north of Bangkok - 13 hour train ride). What's it like on an overnight train ride? First off, let me give you the logistics. To my knowledge, there are 3 classes of seats on Thailand trains. My train car was a 2nd class sleeper with A/C. The car included pairs of padded seats facing each other that convert into two fold-down berths, one over the other. The lower bed [View Full Entry]

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It's Sunday afternoon and I am sitting in the lobby of my hotel in Chiang Mai. I could share about my experience last night on the sleeper train to Chiang Mai, or stumbling upon a Chinese New Year parade in Chiang Mai this morning, or the challenge of finding an available hotel room in this city during the Chinese New Year. But instead I am going to save all that for my next blog entry. For now, I am going to wrap up my experiences from the last couple of days in Bangkok, starting with the 27th... As we did the [View Full Entry]

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It's Thursday evening, January 26th and I'm back in Bangkok. I flew in last night from Phuket and made my way to KT Guesthouse ($12), a nice place to crash for a night but a bit far from Bangkok central (not necessarily a bad thing). I met up with my friend Jonathan this morning and we moved over to the Rex hotel on Sukhumvit near the sky train (easier to get around the city from there). It's been great hanging out with Jonathan again. We've been friends for about 10 years (has it been that long?), having met through doing high [View Full Entry]

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It's Tuesday evening, January 24th. This update will emphasize pictures. I took a lot of them today (filled up my first memory card in fact). Today I went on a canoe excursion to Phang Nga Bay, the site of the James Bond movie, "The Man with the Golden Gun". Phang Nga Bay has some striking limestone island formations. Add to that the experience of going through caves and entering hidden lagoons by way of a canoe, and it was an amazing experience. I had a blast. There are quite a few canoe tour operators in the area (10 according to our [View Full Entry]

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It's Monday, January 23 and I'm in Phuket Town on the island of Phuket. I've been staying here for a couple of days. It's not on the beach but it is a great hub to getting to every beach. Yesterday I went to Patong Beach. Patong Beach is the most popular beach on Phuket, and likely one of the most popular in Thailand. I can't imagine why. It's a hole. Ummm, what I mean to say is that it's really not all that nice. I met a girl yesterday (Anna from England) in Phuket Town and we both decided to check [View Full Entry]

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