Beginning of 'Life University'

Asia
January 29th 2010

Published: January 29th 2010

Hey everyone,

Sorry this took so long. I had it ALL typed out and I hit the "Publish" button and lost it ALL!! So I am just going to sum up everything we have been doing! Most of the things that I talk about I can only descirbe it so much, but to understand the true beauty of everything, you need to see it for yourself!

After 22 hours of flying and 26 hours of sitting in airports we finally arrived at Penang, Malaysia with a 14 hour time difference. We arrived at 10 pm (8 am Sask. time) Friday, January 9 exhausted and ready for a good night sleep. We were very excited but yet lost arriving to Penang. We thought when we got there NO ONE would understand English and we would be stranded spending our first night in the airport, but I was totally wrong. We got a taxi which was easy and it took us to our hotel!

In Penang there is not much to do. Here we spent the first day just looking around the city, taking in the heat!! It felt like it was 40 degrees out! We are SLOWLY getting use

Malaysia

to it! The second day that we were in Penang we HAD to visit the beach. It wasn't the nicest beach, but it was a beach. The beach was Batu Ferinhingi (not sure of spelling), it was about a 45 minute from our hotel by the local transit. While we were on the transit we met a friendly local. He was about 40 years old and was very interested about us and our travels. He was also very helpful, he told us where to get off, some things about Malaysia, etc! We LOVE talking to the locals! The next day we went to Penang Hill. You take a trolly (it is only suppose to fit about 10 people in one cart, but we managed to fit 30) 800m above sea level and it gives you an overlook of the city, and there is also a BEAUTIFUL temple to be seen. The temples are absolutely amazing, the detail that is put into them is incredible. It is crazy to look at our churches and what we pray in, and then come to see these temples, it is mind blowing!!

We only planned on staying in Penang for 2 night and

Penang

leaving on Sunday, but I didn't get my visa prior to leaving for Thailand so we had to wait till Tuesday to leave for Thailand so I could get my visa. The hotel that we stay at help me get it, they were all VERY nice!! So Tuesday morning at 5 am we hopped on a mini bus and headed to Thailand. After 13 hours of travelling and 2 ferry rides we made it to Ko Lanta, Thailand! This island was very chill and fairly small. When we got here we stayed in little huts! We only spent 2 nights here although we wished we could have stayed more!! We say that every time we leave a place! But here in Ko Lanta there was not the hustle and bustle of a city, and there was a limited amount of vehicles it was all motorcycles. We rented a motorcylce here for a day for only 200 baht=6.50 CAD. This made me want a motorcyle. It was a great way to see different parts of the island, cruise around with the wind in your hair! While in Ko Lanta we met a local 20 yr old boy named Cop and his

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800m above Sea Level looking at Penang, Malaysia

friends. We spent our nights with them discovery buckets, learning about eachothers cultures, watching fire shows and playing Jenga!

After Ko Lanta we ventured on to Koh Phi Phi and all I can say about this island is WOW!! This island was absolutely amazing. There are absolutely no vehicles on this island, but it is very busy with tourists! On Boxing Day 2004 a Tsunami hit the island and everything was destroyed, but you would have never known. They have rebuilt everything and have it looking gorgeous again! We only PLANNED on staying here for 2 nights, but we have now erased PLAN from our vocabulary. We ended up staying in Phi Phi for 6 nights! We arrived the first day at 5 pm and went straight to the beach, we were EXTREMELY disappointed. We took one look at the beach and went YUCK! There was little beach and you had to walk through slimy wet sand about 50m to get to the water! We did not understand why people loved this island and beach so much. The next day we found out that we were visiting during the Black Moon. To make a long story short the black

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Temple on Penang Hill

moon affects the tide. At 6am and 6pm the tide is at the lowest point and at midnight and noon the tide is at the highest point. When sitting on the beach when the tide is high it is right at your toes wherever you go, when the tide is low, you have to walk 50 m just to put your ankles in the water and like 200 meters before it reaches your knees! I dont understand the tide, but this was pretty cool to watch the water drop! I have never seen anything like this before.

In Phi Phi we went on an amazing tour!! We went cliff jumping from 12 meters high, went snorkelling and saw some AMAZING fish. I have been snorkelling in Hawaii and Mexico before, but this snorkelling was amazing. While snorkelling I saw 8 sharks that were about 2 meters long! I tried to keep up to them, but couldnt! We visiting Monkey Beach, but sadly did not see any monkeys, viking cave and Maya Bay! Have you seen the 1994 movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, The Beach? Well if som I SLEPT ON THE BEACH!! After our tour we met up with about

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First Tuk Tuk ride

35 people from all over the world for an unforgettable night! We visited with people from England, Australia, Scotland, Vancouver, etc! This night has been our best night so far. We listened to music, played drinking games and my favorite part was we would have some people play the guitar while EVERYONE sang along. It was crazy that all these people from all over the world speaking different languages can all sing along to the sang song! It was alot of fun. When it was time for bed, you grab a sleeping bag, a pillow, pick a spot on the beach and sleep until the sun and the sound of the waves wake you up. It was a little funny because there were about 40 of us all spread out on the beach and we woke up to boats coming to the bay, they were probably all wondering what these funny looking people were doing laying ALL over the beach! It was a great time and I cant even explain it!

Other things that we did when we were on Phi Phi was just lay on the beach and discover the night life. Phi Phi is normally a party

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island but 2.5 weeks before we got there, there was a little incident in one of the bars that there is now a curfew on the island for about a month. This means that all the bars on the island have to turn there music off at 1am, not 6 am! We went to a Reggae Bar, which was really cool because in the middle of the bar there is a boxing ring and all night there are locals and tourists that fight in the ring. It sounds silly, I KNOW! But watching Thai Boxing is AMAZING!! We also went to Ibiza Bar on the beach and there are about 5 thai guys here that have a fire show every night, fire jump rope and fire limbo! I tried the limbo, although I was not very good!

Ko Phi Phi was absolutely amazing, but January 20 we left and took a ferry to Phuket. We heard that Phuket was not very good so right when we arrived we only booked in 2 nights and our mini bus to get out of there. Well we learnt the hard way not to listen to other people. We wish we would havce

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First Thai Meal

stayed another night or 2. In Phuket we took a tour where we visited a few different island. Our first stop was at the Panak Island. We went canoeing to a cave, walked through the cave where it open up into a little tiny island with beautiful trees and rock formations! We also did some swimming, jumping off the boat and drinking beer here. On this tour we met a group of 5 people from Australia and had alot of fun with them! After we visited the Khao Ping Kan island and the famous James Bond island, where the 1974 movie was filmed. We bought REAL pearl necklaces here! There were TONS of toursits here so it was hard to enjoy it! Then we went to Hong Island and canoed around it, and in little coves, which opened in to high roofs, but before you got there you had to make sure you layed down or you would get knocked out because the tide was so high getting in! Last but not least we went to Lawa Island. Here we parked out in the water and you could jump off the boat and swim to shore. This was anoter beach

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Motorcycle we rented in Ko Lanta

that was full of tourists that is was hard to enjoy! All in all it was a very good day! To end the day off we went to the Patong strip of bars. It was pretty crazy we went to this one bar, that was 2 levels and on the top level it was dancing, and on the bottom there were like 15 different bars set up, all owned individually. It was weird, why not just have 2 owned by the same person? There were also alot of lady boys, old men with young thai women, and thai women with necklaces the read "you can win me"! Pretty disgusting if you ask me! Sex and prostitution is so common and easy, YUCK!!

After Phuket we came to Ko Samui (where I am now). We ended up staying here for a week. I will tell you about our week here in my next blog (I wont make you wait so long) because I have 30 minutes until I have to catch a taxi to the ferry to go to Koh Phangan and I still have to pack!!

I am having loads of fun but I am CONSTANTLY thinking about

Ko Lanta

everyone back home!! I miss everyone so much it is ridiculous. This is going to the shortest but yet longest 4 months of my life, is that makes any sense? I just want my family to know that I am being safe, and I have a guardian angel watching over me so you dont have to worry about me! I am in good hands!

Miss you,

Keyla 😊

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