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Published: July 10th 2011
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It’s been a LOT of fun being in Thailand and going to some amazing islands, but was time to move on yet again. We crossed over the border into Malaysia and what a different country it is! We stopped on a island called Penang for just a couple of nights before we made it to the Cameron Highlands. It was really neat to see all of the locals enjoying some time away from work to do some hiking and exploring, including going to a strawberry festival and a tea plantation. I had a lot of fun playing with all of the strawberry things in the gift stores! I was hoping that at the strawberry festival I could eat enough strawberries to make me turn red, but you had to pay for all of it and I thought that might be a little expensive. I also had a good time being in the tea fields since Jessie and I got to play hide and go seek in all of the tea plants. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, ready or not, here I come! Since I’m so little, I won every single time! Jessie said it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack! Do
you kids like to play hide and go seek?
As soon as we were done having some tea after our game, it started to rain BUCKETS outside, so we had to go back. The next day we decided to go for a hike in the jungle. It was a little wet and rainy, but we had to leave the next day so we kind of had to. Within the first 20 minutes, Jessie stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh my gosh! Wylie, come look at this!” I ran back to see what she was looking at only to find out she had spotted a black millipede that was about 10 inches long! I have to admit, I almost screamed like a scared little girl when I saw it. How could I not? It was 3 times as long as me! Jessie is really scared of centipedes and millipedes, too, so I didn’t feel so bad. Poor Jessie had something worse than that happen to her later. It started to rain and get really wet later on, and she looked down at her sock, immediately jumping up and down and screaming, “Nate! Get it off! Get it off of me!”
Nate looked down and brushed off a little black leach that was sucking her blood right through her wool sock. Yuk! Jessie said she is definitely getting leach proof socks before going to Borneo so that doesn’t happen to her again.
After the highlands, we spent about a week in the Perhentian Islands where Nate and Jessie went snorkeling with some friends they met from South Africa and Spain every single day. They snorkeled for 4-6 hours every day while I got in some good tanning. They said they saw even more than diving in Thailand, including turtles, tons of colorful fish, sting rays and spotted rays, and even sharks! The nights were a little scary though. Nate had his own run-ins with some of the wildlife. One night he got bit by a huge spider and it even left puncture marks in his hand! We had bats around our bungalow, rats that got in one night, big cockroaches in the bathroom a couple of times, and the scariest centipede I’ve ever seen. Nate heard Jessie scream when he was on the balcony looking at the water. He ran inside when she told him to look in his backpack.
“Holy Cow! That’s the meanest looking centipede I’ve ever seen!” It was a reddish orange color with huge pinchers on it. We found out that if it would have bitten Nate, he wouldn’t have been able to use his hand for a couple of days because it’s poisonous. Maybe the scariest thing for me was the monitor lizards. Nate came face to face with one that was as long as he is tall! The little ones usually run away, but the big one just looked at him like he was saying, “What do you think you’re going to do?” Needless to say, Nate wasn’t going to mess with him!
The biggest city in all of Malaysia is Kuala Lumpur, and that’s where we were headed to next. It was really cool that we got to take an LRT (Light Rail Transportation or Sky train) around the whole city. There sure was a lot to do here, but it was so hot outside! We tried to stay cool as much as we could by going to some places with air conditioning, but many things that we wanted to do were outside. I was really excited to see the Patronas Towers
at night, which are some of the most famous buildings in all of southeast Asia. We got to see them at night when they were all lit up, so I really enjoyed that part! There was one thing Jessie and I were looking forward to more than anything, and that was the butterfly park! There were over 100 different species of butterflies there, so Jessie was pretty much in heaven! She could take pictures of butterflies for hours and hours. She had one land in her hands, and I even had one land on my head! Can you believe it? It was my lucky day. After you walk through the butterfly area, this is a section where they have all kinds of weird looking bugs in cages. We got some really neat pictures of all of them, and we’re really hoping we’ll get to see a lot of them when we get to Borneo really soon.
Another thing that is really different in Malaysia is that it’s mainly a mix of Indian and Chinese people, even though India and China have very different ways of life. This may not sound very good to you, but we’ve been in love
with Indian food! Yummm! Most of the people here are Muslim, so the women keep their hair covered up because it’s part of their religion. Some of them even wear all black from head to toe with only their eyes showing! I still don’t know how they do that. I would be so hot if I tried to wear clothes like they do. It would be like putting me in a steaming hot tub!
Well, we’ll have more adventures coming up really soon, I promise! We’re going to be heading to Borneo to hopefully see Orangutans, big bugs, other monkeys, and lots of other animals! I can’t wait to see what we can find there! Wish me luck!
Your friend,
Wylie
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