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Published: April 21st 2008
The contestants of the Great Escape
This is when we arrived in KL, Malaysia If you want to go to Club Med and relax, this is not the way to do it; having said that, this is the way to see a lot of things in a short period of time. Krista commented on the blog the other day that she was tired just reading about the things that we were doing…believe me, it is tiring. Not only that, I have decided that body odour and sweat are just a part of me and I am learning to accept them, mom’s too. Then again, isn’t what this is all about? We have seen so MUCH. Planes are our rest time.
I am kind of hoping that when we find out our scores from the last leg in Malaysia that we are far enough behind that we will stop trying to hard. Running around doing so much doesn’t give us enough time to stop and smell the roses. Last night we did though. After scavenging for about 14 hours, we decided to take a trishaw back to the hotel (a bike with a cart), which took us ½ hour because the driver took a scenic route which was really nice. We decided to stop
early because our last scavenge was to have a ‘sling’ in the Long bar at the Raffles Hotel. Mom has read numerous books that have referenced the Raffles Hotel so we decided to finish scavenging early, head to the Hotel, shower (which was turning into a great necessity by then), dress up and really enjoy ourselves. The hotel itself is beautiful and the Long bar was neat. It was a really upscale setting with fancy (and expensive) drinks, and peanut shells all over the floor. It was pretty cool.
The Elephant experience was great. We drove about 1 ½ hours outside of KL to the Elephant sanctuary. They had about half a dozen elephants there that we saw. The set up was very organized. The elephants came out and had baths with the trainers. Then they brought them over and hosed them down and fed them fruit. After that, they gave everyone rides on them, followed by a swim with them. There was one elephant there that we over 70 years old. She was a pretty girl. Mom and I, of course, rode them, but because the current in the stream was a little strong, only I went swimming.
It wasn’t really swimming though, more getting dunked by them. I had convinced them to allow me to ride the elephant in the water from giving people rides, which was great, and then once in the water the elephant kind of rolled over and you jumped in. After that the elephant went to a station where other people hopped on and did that again. I liked the refreshing water, I just hope that I didn’t catch anything from the water.
Singapore was a nice treat. One of our scavenges was: From the 70th floor of this building you can see several countries on a clear day. Find it and go up. What are the countries?
The name of the building is the Swissotel building and you can see Malaysia and Indonesia from this point. The view of the city is amazing. Singapore has many, many high rises, but it is able to maintain a large amount of greenery in its landscape too. I am only sad that I was at the shopping capital of the world and I didn’t go into one store. We did go to the Little India market though and that was neat. There
we ate fish head soup at the Banana Leaf Apollo, where the plates are Banana leaves.
We are now just about to arrive in Kathmandu. From what I understand, the city is very dirty, but rich with life. I have never been to Nepal and think that it would be great to be that close to Mount Everest. We checked the weather before we left and I think there is a chance that I may melt while I am there: 37 - 39 degrees. Can you say, hydrate.
By the way, if anyone is interested, the Great Escape organizers, Bill and Pamela, have a blog of their own. Please feel free to check it out at:
Other contestants blogs are there, and if we can’t blog before leaving for our next destination, they post it,.
Hope everyone is well, thinking and missing you
Leslie and Sandy
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