This morning it was time to move on from Kuching and explore further into Borneo. Unfortunately the adventure was not as we expected. We were originally going to take the bus through the Malaysian province of Sarawalk to get to Brunei, but it was going to take 15 hours and we didn't really have the time to do that, so for $108 (for both of us) and the saving of a day of travelling, we flew on Air Asia to a town further down the coast of Borneo, called Miri. We were wanting to go from Miri to a place called Mulu National Park, which had some pretty cool caves and razor sharp rock formations that looked cool too. Unfortunately, we did not do enough planning in advance to realize that we couldn't do the park ... read more

This morning we had planned to go to Bako National Park, but Elysia's eye was causing her more trouble so we decided to go to the hospital instead (fun fun). It was still extremely painful, sensitive to light and blurry. We just wanted to make sure that we knew what was going on and that there was no permanent damage being done to the eye. This time Elysia told the doctor what kind of medications that she wanted (she wanted dexamethasone to help clear up the inflammation), because it wasn't going away. At this point we were thinking that all the doctors were probably wrong and that it was likely a viral and not bacterial infection in her eye. But we were desperate to get her eye better so that she could see more of the ... read more

This was our second day out on our own while Jemi worked (sorry need to finish blog from the first day still!). We started our morning off with a breakfast at Costa coffee, one of the coffee shops we frequented in London. This is one indication of influence that Britain has on Singapore, although it seems much less than their influence of Kuala Lumpur. After breakfast we were hemming and hawing about whether we should go shopping for a wide angle camera lens. It's not something that we had planned to buy, but we really wished we had one when we were in Nepal. So we thought we'd look at the price in Singapore because with the exchange rate and getting tax back for the purchase, we thought it would be cheaper to buy it here ... read more

With Elysia's eye still red and painful, we had a bit of a leisurely last morning in KL. We didn't feel so pressed to see things here, because they're not all that different from home. Don't get me wrong, we really do like KL. It's worth seeing even just to realize that there are some super modern cities in Asia that are not a whole lot different than those in North America. We think that KL would be a great place to live as an ex-pat, and we would definitely add it to the list of places we may want to live one day. Just in terms of major sightseeing venues, there isn't a whole lot. Unless you want to shop- KL is a shopping mecca. I highly suggest that if you do like to shop, ... read more

Although we were starting to feel like Nepal was home, it was time to leave and begin the next stage of our Southeast Asia journey. We packed our bags up in the morning and had time to have a nice breakfast with our friends before we left for the airport. On our way out of the hotel, the manager gave us some scarves that were apparently blessed by some deity (don't know who or what they're called). He gave this gift to us because he's so thankful for all the business that Elysia has brought him (because she recommended the hotel to all the other volunteers, and they stayed for weeks= lots of business in the off season). Our flight left Nepal at 11:10 and we arrived in Kuala Lumpur around 6pm (about a 4 hour ... read more