Malaysia & Indonesia

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Malaysia & Indonesia

Indonesia cultural reflection:

Indonesia has suffered much devastation over the past couple of years. Two years ago, Bukit Lawang was hit hard by a flash flood, in part because of illegal logging in the surrounding mountainside. It killed over 500 people instantly. The wave up the river was 15 feet high and destroyed all the houses and buildings along the river. Because it happened at night, no one could see the wave coming. Instead, everybody was sleeping and many were killed.

The most recent disaster was the tsunami in December 2004. Banda Aceh on the northern part of Sumatra, Indonesia, was hit the hardest out of every place in the Indian OceanâMalaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lankaâbecause the biggest earthquakeâs epicenter was very close to Banda Aceh. Three out of the four districts in SumatraâAceh Besar, Aceh Barat, and Aceh Jayaâwere affected by the tsunami. No one knew the tsunami was coming because they didnât have tsunami early warning systems in that area. If they did, they would have had two hours to get away and everyone would have been saved. But, because they didnât have this warning system, people were interested in what the water was doing and they went into the water and suddenly a 30-foot wave came back to shore and destroyed everything for 2 kilometers inland. There were two more after-shock waves that were the same height and did the same damage. In Indonesia, 128,645 people died and 37,087 people missing. In Banda Aceh, there were 513,278 internally displaced people and 19,620 internally displaced people in the rest of north Sumatra.

Indonesia has had so many natural disasters. In Bukit Lawang, the new village isnât even finished yet and they donât even have enough homes for the people whose homes were destroyed by the flash flood and so the people after two years still live in temporary housing, like our guide Sonny and his family. And, now the government is focusing on the destruction from the tsunami in the northern part of Sumatra and the people of Bukit Lawang believe that their needs have been forgotten Also, after all these disasters, tourism has declined and further damaged the economy of Indonesia and strained the ability of the people to earn a living.

November 20, 2005

I did school work but Grandma was looking for some Indonesian fabric so we went in search of Batik artwork. We walked up the hill, and on the way back, we stopped at a store. Grandma got 3 pieces and negotiated it to 130,000 Rupia. So our mission was done and it was time for me to go swimming again. I hesitated because it was windy and the water was colder but I jumped in about 10 times when Dad, Mom and Peter came back from their bike ride and they had just planted rice and were muddy and wanted to go swimming too. So I jumped in 10 more times with them. That night we had the second ATW Pool Tournament and this time Mom joined us. Grandma went on a hot streak that night and won it!

November 19, 2005

Dad and I went on a walk to the waterfall but we decided not to go all the way to the waterfall. We went back to the hotel before the rain came. I dove in 10 times and then got out. By this time, Grandma and Peter were done with their walk and we talked and played cards. After dinner, we had our 1^st Annual Around the World (ATW) Pool Tournament, Peter won it because I scratched on the 8-ball!

November 18, 2005

Today we woke up and did some school work. After school work, Peter, Dad and I went swimming off the diving board at Samosir. The diving board was pretty high and you could jump a pretty long distance directly into the lake. After we went swimming, we decided to look around Tuk-Tuk and we found a place that had guacamole sandwiches so we ate there. We decided to walk in a circle around Tuk-Tuk and found some cool places like bakeries, restaurants and batik art. When we got to Bamboo, we ordered pizzas and there was a futbol game going on. It was Australia and Uruguay, a World Cup qualifier and it went down to shoot out and the Australian goalie did really good and blocked 2 of the 5 attempts and Australia made it to the World Cup, the first time in 30 years. The last time that a South America team didnât make it, the coach got shot walking out of the airplane. We decided to watch a movie and chose âHitch." The subtitles were hilarious. Like âI knew that" would be: âI soybean cake that." When were done with the movie, I decided to teach grandma some of the card tricks that Sonny taught us and now Grandma knows some card tricks that she can teach Auntie Kat-Kat and her friends at home.

November 17, 2005

We got up at 5:30 a.m. and when we got to the bus, I slept almost the whole way to Medan. When we got to Medan, we had to catch another bus to Lake Toba. We were sort of in trouble because we didnât have enough money so we had to wait until we got to Parapat where we caught the ferry to Tuk-Tuk on Lake Toba. When we got to Parapat, Dad and Grandma found a bank and they had to run back because the ferry was about to leave them behind. Luckily the ferry driver was nice and waited for them. When we got onto the ferry, there were lots of people from different hotels. One guy was from Samosir and another guy from Bamboo. We decided to get off at Samosir because it looked nice. We got two rooms that have a view of the lake. The guy from Bamboo said they had really good pizza and he was right, they had great pizza. We were all tired because we woke up so early so we decided to go to bed a little earlier.

November 10, 2005

Today we got up early to go on the ferry to Medan, Indonesia. The ferry was supposed to take 4 hours but it ended up taking 6 hours so when we got to Medan, there wasnât anymore local buses to Bukit Lawang and we had to take a tour bus which was really expensive and there was a lot of traffic in Medan and the tour bus took a long time to get there. When we finally got there, we were all squished in with our big bags. When we finally got to Bukit Lawang, we had to cross the suspension bridge over the river. The first hotel we got to was closed because it was 11 p.m. so then mom and grandma walked to a different hotel and they were open and so we got two rooms there and ate dinner and then went to bed because we were so tired.

When we got up we went to breakfast and started talking to the guides. We decided to book a 3-day tour for the next day. Then they brought us to the Friday market and we got some apples and pears for the trek the following day. When we got back, we had lunch and after lunch, we went to the orangutan platform. We had to walk 30 minutes to get there. Right when we were about to cross the river, we saw a family of Thomas leaf monkeys in the trees across the river. We crossed the river by a boat that was attached to a pulley system because of the strong current in the river. We started climbing up the mountain and I spotted an orangutan sitting up in the tree ahead. But then I heard a crash behind me and this orangutan started walking along the trail behind us and walked right by us! I started filming and I have really good footage to show you when I get back. One of the orangutans had a dead baby which was really sad because when the baby died, she carried the skin around and wouldnât let it go and it was really smelly. That day we saw 6 orangutans which was really lucky. The last two orangutans, one was a male and his name was Abdul and he had a girlfriend. He also had a big cut on his nose from getting into a fight with another male. When we started walking back down the hill, we saw a family of long-tailed macaques and we got to feed them bananas. They would jump out and get the bananas and go back into the bushes. Then we crossed the river again on the pulley system boat and we decided to stop and check out the Jungle Inn because it looked like a really cool place. When we got there, we ordered lemon juice and then I saw a long-tailed macaque sitting on a rock all alone so we were wondering where its family was. About 20 minutes later, 20 long-tailed macaques came running down the beach to meet up with their friend. Then we walked back to our hotel and started getting ready for the trek the next day.

First day of the trek! We walked up the mountain into the national park. When we got there, we saw a family of Thomas leaf monkeys in the rubber trees while we were applying insect repellant. When we started walking again, we saw a black eagle fly over us. We walked a little farther and saw an orangutan with her baby. We stayed with her a little bit and took pictures and I took footage. That was a semi-wild orangutan. We kept walking and we walked into this huge tree that would probably take 10 people to fit around it. Thatâs when Grandma decided to go back to the Eco-Lodge. After we said goodbye, we started walking again and we met up with Sarah and Arune, our friends that we had met on the bus to Medan. We started walking with them; we walked down, crossed this little stream and then had to rock climb up the mountain and when we got to the top, we saw one habitat hornbill and two rhino hornbills and a family of baboons. We didnât see the hornbills but we saw there huge bodies fly over us (their wing span is 110 cm.) and heard their squawking and flapping of wings. Arune picked me up because I was too short to see them and I saw the baboons crawling on a log and saw one shimmy down a tree and then we couldnât see him anymore. Peter, Sarah, Arune and I went with Sonny because we walked a little faster than Mom, Dad and Martin, another guy on the trek. But when we met up with them, they had spotted a family of white-handed gibbons so I and Peter were the only ones who hadnât seen white-handed gibbons. When we walked down the mountain we had to walk along a steep cliff around the mountain and then we started heading down and we got to this little river and we walked along the river to where we ate lunch. Then about 15 minutes later, Dad, Mom and Martin arrived. When we finished lunch, there were clouds overhead so Sonny, Dany and Ianâs little brother took us up the mountain and it was like rock climbing (like 88 degrees incline). When we started heading down, it started pouring but luckily we were only five minutes away from our campsite and people had already set it up. We went under the tarp. We decided to go swimming because we were really dirty. We climbed to the waterfall but all of sudden, the water level started rising because it was still raining and this is what mom said, âHoly shit, itâs a flash flood!ï¿½ESo we all had to run down but dad started getting cramps in his legs and had some trouble. Peter, Sarah, Arune and I went ahead and got under the shelter. We had a great dinner of chicken, vegetables and curry, and rice. After dinner, Sonny taught us some magic tricks that Iâll teach you when I get back.

2^nd day of trek: When we got up, today was going to be the easiest day of hiking. We waited at the camping site I was changing behind a rock and mom yelled, âOrangutans!" And there were 4 wild orangutans at our campsite. I started filming them but since I didnât have a lot of battery left I had to use it wisely. One was a 7-year-old which was really cool because he was a different color than the other orangutans (a light orange color) and he didnât have to be close to his mother and could climb and swing by himself and he was the coolest orangutan Iâve seen. When we started heading off, we had to go straight up hill and this time we only had one guide. In the beginning, we saw this poisonous hairy caterpillar. Itâs poisonous because it can stick its hairs into your skin. When we finally got to the top of the hill, we ate some oranges to lighten Sonnyâs pack. Then we kept walking and we saw a mahogany tree and a couple of other types of trees. We climbed up another little mountain and Sonny spotted a gibbon but it was too fast for him to see again so we didnât see it. Then he spotted a family of Thomas leaf monkeys. We walked down the hill to another stream where Sonny made a noodle soup with lots of vegetables and I spotted a turtle in the water. We climbed up another mountain which was really steep and at the top of that, we saw a flying squirrel which was black with an orange belly. Then we got to a place that the guides call Panorama, a view of the rain forest. I spotted right away a tree moving and we figured out it was a family of white-handed and black gibbons. One jumped 6 meters from one tree to another spread eagleâit was one of the coolest things Iâve ever seen! Then we started going down this really steep hill and half way, it started raining again. Arune was first, Sarah was second and then Peter and me. Sonny was waiting for Mom, Dad and Martin. It was really slippery and one time Peter slipped and shot 2 meters and slipped in front of Sarah! Now the order was Arune, Peter, Sarah and me! As we were walking, Arune and Peter were talking and Sarah and I walked together. I spotted a monkey track and I showed Sarah and she thought it was pretty cool. We finally got to the tent and got under and had some good hot tea. It only rained for half-hour and then it turned really nice afterwards. Dad and I went to explore the area and I spotted a tree moving and it was 20 long-tailed macaques! We were watching them and then I looked up and there were two hornbills flying overhead. It was so cool and we watched where they went and near there, we saw three hornbills come out of a tree. We watched them fly away but we couldnât figure out what type they were. So we ran back to camp and got Ian. When we went with Ian, we spotted 3 more hornbills and that made 8. We thought we saw a shadow of one and I saw it fly out of the tree (but no one else did), and two other hornbills flew out of another tree. That made 11 hornbills in 2 Â½ hours which was really cool! All around there were swallows flying.

3^rd day of the trek: Today is our last day of the trek. Mom and dad saw two hornbills while I was asleep. I finally got up and we had noodles for breakfast. When we were eating, Dad spotted a long-tailed macaque sitting way up on the top of a dead tree. We saw a black eagle fly across the canyon. After that, we saw two hornbills fly close to us. Today was going to be an easy day but on the first part it was straight up hill for about a Â½ hour but when we got to the top we spotted a monitor lizard and heard a gibbon close by. Ian and Ianâs little brother brought me to where the gibbon was but we never saw it but when we were over in that area, Ianâs little brother spotted a great Argus. A great Argus is a very rare birdâa peacock like bird. I ran back up to tell Dad and Mom and Peter about what we saw but it had already gone by the time I could film so I didnât get to film it. A long-tailed macaque followed us up and we got to feed it bananas. When we walked a little further, we met some people and they had just gone through the orangutan habitat and they had met Mina. Mina is very aggressive because when her baby died, one of the rangers took the baby away to find out why the baby had died. But, when the ranger tried to take the baby, the ranger and her got into a fight and the ranger picked up a stone and hit her on the forehead and it started to bleed. Mina climbed up into the hills to protect herself but she remembered what the ranger had done to her. Then another time, the ranger tried to cut off her finger because she bit him three times. So, now she remembers all the things that human beings have done to her and thatâs why sheâs really aggressive toward human beings. So we walked down into the orangutan habitat and Dany spotted Mina, behind the orangutan with the dead baby. So we had to run up the hill to hide from Mina because sheâll follow you. We finally got farther away so we could relax and not run away from her anymore. So then we just walked down the hill to the Eco Lodge. Dany invited us to a party for his sisterâs wedding. We decided to go. When we got there, everyone was in there traditional clothes doing their traditional dance. Then we met Danyâs mom but Dany couldnât tell us her name because itâs impolite to tell his mother and fatherâs name. Then they gave us traditional food. One was really spicy but really good. It was young banana shoot with other vegetables and another one was potato curry and then for dessert they gave us sticky rice with brown sugar. When we got back, we started packing for the next day because we had to wake up at 5 a.m. to go to Lake Toba, Sumatra.

Our guides taught us a jingle about Bukit Lawang (sung to the tune of "Jingle Bells"):

Jungle Trek, Jungle Trek

In Bukit Lawang

See the monkeys

See the birds

See the orangutans

(repeat)

Walking in the jungle

See the animals

Walking together in Bukit Lawang

Singing together

Sleeping together

We do everything together in Bukit Lawang!

November 8, 2005

We got up early to catch the ferry to Sumatra but when we got there, everything was packed and all the boats were booked to Sumatra for the next two days! So we had to stay in Panang for two more days. Grandma started to talk to somebody on the bus and she was telling Grandma that Georgetown had changed so much since 20 years ago and then Grandma said, "My son was here 15 years ago and he loved it!" But, 15 years ago, Dad had his worst experience of the trip here. He was sitting in a bar that was near the beach and a guy came up to him, "Do you want to taste some real Malay food?" and he said, "Yea, sure!" And so he got into the car with this man and he brought him to his house where he started teaching him how to stack the deck in cards/gambling! But, then this big Chinese guy came in and started playing cards with him and that's when dad figured out that this wasn't a good situation. On the last hand, since he knew what the guy was doing. He had 21 and he knew the Chinese guy had 20 so the Chinese guy puts out money and then he stands up and says, "I haven't seen any money from you, you need to start putting down money." Dad pulled aside the dealer and said, "I have $2,000 at my hotel but I don't have any on me. Take me to the Komtar and I'll know where my hotel is from there." So they put all the cards and money in a sealed bag and then he got into the car and they drove him to the Komtar and as soon as they opened the door, he ran all the way back to hotel! So, after Grandma said he loved it, I said, "No, he didn't like it Grandma!" and I thought that was pretty funny!

At our new hotel, we saw our friend, Fiona, from Taman Negara and so we went to dinner together at an Indian restaurant which had really good nan and I had green beans with curry sauce, which was a little spicy!

November 7, 2005

Today we left Cameron Highlands to go to Georgetown on the island of Panang, Malaysia. When we got to Georgetown, Dad remembered his old hotel, from when he was here 15 years ago. It was the Swiss Hotel. So, Dad went to check it out and we decided to stay there for one night because we were leaving the next day for Sumatra. When we got the hotel, we went to an Internet cafe to work on our school work and finish it up before we went to Sumatra. I finally finished by work at 7:30 p.m. but Peter and Mom stayed until it closed--12:30 in the morning!

November 6, 2005

Today was devoted to homework. Peter taught a class about Indonesian and so we learned a lot of Indonesian words like:

selamat pagi (good morning)
selamat sore (good afternoon)
selamat malam (good night)
selamat tinggal (good bye)
apa kabar (how are you)
kabar baik (I'm fine)
terima kasih (thank you)
terima kasih banyak (thank you very much)
ya (yes)
tidak (no)
maaf (sorry)
tolong (please)
satu (one)
dua (two)
tiga (three)
impat (four)
lima (five)

November 5, 2005

Today we woke up at 11:30 a.m. (we slept-in in our dormitory with all the other young travelers!), ate our roti canai for breakfast and went to a tea plantation high in the mountains. When we got there, we were astounded by how green the tea plantation was. I got some good footage of the plantation with my new videocamera, so all of you back home can see it when we get back.

November 4, 2005

Today, we left Ipoh to go to Cameron Highlands. Our bus got into a ton of traffic so we were about 2 hours late and then we went to Father's Guest House and got beds in a dorm because it was so crowded. Then we walked around the town for the rest of the day

November 3, 2005

Today we got up and tried to catch a bus to Cameron Highlands but since it was the biggest holiday in the year in Malaysia (Hari Raya, end of Ramaden), all the buses were booked so we had to go to a town near Cameron Highlands, Ipoh. That bus was late an hour and we waited in the sun until it came and we were finally off to Ipp-to-the-Poh (Ipoh)!! We went to a yummy Chinese restaurant across the street from our hotel and Peter and Dad got into an argument over tea leaves and whether or not you should stir them with your chopsticks!

November 2, 2005

I GET A VIDEO CAMERA!!!!!! Today Peter, Mom and I went to look for my video camera in the Golden Triangle shopping area in Kuala Lumpur, the capitol of Malaysia. We found it at one store--it's a JVC and it's nice! Peter was a good helper to me getting the camera. He asked all the questions that I didn't have any clue he was talking about and he helped me research at all the stores we visited. Without him, it would have been a much harder decision. After we bought my camera, we went to the Petronas Towers, the two highest buildings in the world! After we got back, we went to a restaurant that had rotti canai and mutobaks, Malay food, and I got some great footage of the chef making this food.

November 1, 2005

We left Taman Negara in a boat this time instead of a bus. The boat was much cooler! We didn't see much wildlife but we saw some birds, including a changeable hawk-eagle. When we got to Jeruntut, we split up with our friend Pierre and Gordon, another friend, and us took a bus to KL, Kuala Lumpur, the capitol of Malaysia. We were forced into getting a really expensive hotel because there were very few rooms in all of the city.

Malaysia cultural reflection:
In Malyasia there are lots of national parks. A couple of the big ones are Taman Negara and Endau. In the parks, there are lots of animals, birds and plants. There are 14,000 species of flowering plants and trees, including 2,000 species of trees, 800 species of orchids, 200 species of palms, and 8,000 species of flowers. There are 200 species of mammals, including organutan, Asian elephant, tiger, rhinoceros, sun bear, clouded leopard, flying lemur, deer (one type is the sambar that we saw in Taman Negara), gibbons, monkeys, anteaters, porcupines, tapirs (which we also saw in Taman Negara), and other animals. There are 600 species of birds, including hornbills, kingfishers, sunbirds, pittas, woodpeckers, trogons, bee eaters, dollar birds, parrots, and barbets. Many of them are endangered species because there is a lot of logging and poaching in the country. Sixty percent of the rain forest has been logged. Malaysia makes $4.5 billion in logging every year.
When we went to the Orang Asli village in Taman Negara, the villager we talked to was trying to protect the animals from poachers from Thailand and Indonesia. He recently caught a Thai poacher who had shot two elephants and he has caught people who have shot rhinoceros. In Taman Negara, the oldest rain forest in the world, there are only 23 rhinoceros left. Soon they won't have any. Still, Taman Negara has a lot of animals--elephants, tigers, rhinoceroses, sun bear, clouded leopard, sambar deer, gibbons, monkeys, tapirs, guar, Indian bison, hornbills, and other birds and animals.
I have really enjoyed Malaysia because it has so much to do. They have great beaches, like at the Perhentian Islands, great national parks, like Taman Negara, tea plantations at Cameron Highlands, and the two highest buildings in the world in Kuala Lumpur. My favorite place in Malaysia was TAMAN NEGARA!

October 31, 2005

Today we were going to take a very long hike, maybe 8 hours, but after walking a kilometer, we got to a river that we were going to cross, but because it had rained the night before, it was very tall and we didn't want to cross it. So, we decided to take the boat back to Kuala Tahan. Our boat driver really wanted to get us wet and so on the last rapids, there was this big rapid and he dove right into it and I got a mouth-ful of water and I was soaking wet. Peter just cracked up because he didn't get wet at all! Alex, our friend from Australia, kept saying remarks to us like, "Hey, can you guys swim?" "Do you guys have anything expensive in those bags because I think we're going to tip!" One time we were turning and we almost smashed into another boat! When we finally got back to the Family Restaurant in Kuala Tahan and went back to the hostel and told grandma about all of our sightings while on the trek. We were heading to the Internet Cafe and were just about to cross the river and the rain poured out on us and we went to Family Restaurant where they gave us an umbrella and we walked up to the Rivernet Cafe. That's when we found out that the Chicago White Sox won the World Series {yeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh}! When we got back to our dorm, we went to a hide and we saw some crested fire-back pheasants, variable squirrel, and a malokoa, like a ku-ku bird!

October 30, 2005

Today we went to a hide. When we got there, we met a zoologist named Gordon and he took us down to the salt lick to look for foot prints. We saw tapir, guar (Indian bison), and sambar deer prints. When we got back to the hide, we were on the look-out for animals. About five minutes later, we saw a bul-bul bird and a greater racket-tailed drongo (blue body, black front and had a tuft). Ten minutes after that, we saw a black-naped oriole fly by (a yellow and black bird). We also noticed in the sky that there were lots of birds flying around. They were spine-tailed swifts. In the bushes, I spotted a tiger shrike. About an hour after we ate lunch, a family of bandid languar monkeys came by, and they entertained us for at a half-hour to an hour and we saw their faces really good with the binoculars. After that, Pierre spotted a herd of wild boar. It started getting later in the day and five minutes after it was dark but not totally dark, a Malay tapir came out of the bushes. It was very cool and Gordon had a big spotlight and he shone it on him and we got to see it really well. We heard a trumpet ciccadea, a large insect. It made a loud noise, sort of like a trumpet. And then Alex, Pierre and Fiona went to eat dinner in their bunks and Gordon decided to go to bed for a while. The tapir left and then came back and drank and drank a lot of salt water. He came and returned three times. At about 8:30 p.m., a guar came and scared him away. A guar is the biggest wild cattle in the world! But when the guar left when we shone the light on him, the tapir came back--at 8:32 p.m! He was scared off by guar again at about 9:10 p.m. and he came back at 9:35 p.m. and he's there until 2:30 a.m. when a herd of sambar deer came. This time he doesn't run away. My mom finally got tired and went to bed!

October 29, 2005

Today, Grandma, Peter, Mom and I went to see the Orang-Aslis, a local tribe. Our guide told us all about blow darts, which Peter and I were really interested in. The dart is made from palm fronds and the tip of the dart is made from a soft wood named pule. The poison is made from the sap of an apel tree (not apple). The pipe is made from bamboo and it takes them about 3 months to make one pipe. When you shoot a monkey, you should shoot it in a leg or arm so you can cut it off to stop the poison from infecting the rest of the body. The guide taught Peter and I how to shoot the blow darts and we shot at a target for over an hour. At the end of our practice, I hit the fish we were aiming for in the eye. After our visit to the village, Grandma and I went back to the dock and sketched and Peter and Mom went to a cave (I'll let them tell you the story of their rigorous climb!). When they got back from the cave, but our boat had gone down the river and Grandma and I had to wave them down and they could take us back to the village. When Peter and Mom got back, we went to get murtaboks at the market and that's when we heard about Peter and Mom's adventures in the cave. While we were eating murtaboks, Dad and I saw two hornbills flying in thedistance.

Grandma, Peter and I decided to go on a night jungle safari where you go through a palm oil plantation in the back of a truck and look for animals late at night, 9-11 p.m. We started out and right at the beginning we saw a slow loris, a small monkey like animal about 30 centimeters in length, and we saw one of the smallest birds in the area, the dark necked tailorbird. About five minutes later, it started to rain and it rained hard and we all got soaking wet. While it was raining though we still saw a dark throated kingfisher and that's all we saw. When the lightening started, the guide on the top of the truck who was shining the spotlight for us, began yelling, "Yippe, Yeehaw! Yeehaw!" and shined the spotlight in our eyes and asked how we were doing. When we got back, she dropped everybody off at their hotels but we still had to get across the river. So, she drops us off and points to a restaurant and says, "There's a boat there." So we run in the rain to the restaurant and there's no boat. At this point, it's 11 p.m. and were stuck on the other side of the river. So, Grandma goes over to LBK, who we booked the tour with, and catches some people who have a boat and work at LBK. Grandma told them what happened--that the other people just left us and he said he would help us get across but we had to wait until the rain subsided. so we waited at Wan's restaurant and had lemon tea. When we finally got back to our dorm, mom was very worried and helped us get dry.

October 28, 2005

Today we went on a boat ride to the cascades and on the boat ride, we saw a sambar deer. When we got to the cascades, we went swimming. It felt so refreshing on the hot day. On the way back, we decided to go by the trail back and grandma took the boat back because she couldn't walk the trail. Right as we started the trail, a huge tree had fallen down. We tried to figure out where the trail went and Dad found a trail that went through the tree so we went on that. We started walking down and there was another shoot and we could go right or left. We tried left and the trail ended. Then we tried the right shoot and it ended too. Luckily we had a map and compass and the map showed that we had to go through a little stream. We had been walking by that stream. We walked through the stream and saw a trail continue on the other side. We were on the right trail because we saw a trail marker. When we started walking, there were leeches everywhere but luckily we had some of the anti-leech spray which was good because it makes the leeches shrivel up! When we were nearing the end of the trail, we heard this really loud squawk and since Dad had heard a hornbill before, he knew it was a hornbill! We started looking around and there was one tree in the way (and I felt like cutting down) but then we saw this humongous bird, like 100 centimeters large, and we saw it fly by and it landed right on a branch where we could see it and Dad got some good pictures. But then another one flew by and we figured out there were three of them traveling together. We followed them until we got to a trail where the trail departed so we went to the lodge, still 3 kilometers away. We passed by a swimming hole and heard some more hornbills but we couldn't see them that time because they were across the river. When we finally got the lodge, we were all exhausted from our long, 8 kilometer hike. We had lots of laundry after that muddy hike! We were all very hungry and decided to go to Family Restaurant across the river.

October 27, 2005

Today we went over to the national park to find out what to do for our trek in the park and what to do that day. We all decided that we wanted to go on the canopy walk. It was a kilometer walk there and Mom got totally freaked out and grandma decided she didn't want to go either and to go back with Mom to the resort. But Dad, Peter and I decided to go. It was a great view of the oldest rainforest in the world. We didn't see any animals but we saw the jungle very nicely. This is the longest canopy walk in the world. It was 100 meters off the ground and it was really cool. One area Peter named the Stairway to Heaven because there was this ladder that went up 70 degrees and we had to walk up it. Most of the bridge was 1 plank with ropes on each side and sometimes we'd sway back and forth. We had to walk 5-10 meters apart on the bridge. When we finished it, Dad had to go to the bathroom and when he got out, there was a family of monkeys, long-tailed macaques. They were too high up to get pictures so we just looked at them in the tree playing. When we walked back to the resort, there was this tree that had 25 monkeys and one had a baby. Dad started snapping pictures but Peter and I went to look at some of the birds and we saw a chestnut-breasted malkoha. We ran back to the restaurant because we knew Mom and Grandma would want to see the monkeys too. So we brought them back and they really enjoyed the monkeys. Peter just decided to have a snack but way up in the tree two monkeys saw Peter eating his nips (chocolate covered peanuts) and they decided they wanted them! So, they came scampering down the tree and started cornering Peter so Peter chucked the bag and the monkeys ran after the peanuts and they ate all of them! It was pretty funny!

October 26, 2005

Today we're heading to Taman Negara on the jungle train. We woke up early and caught the train. I was tired so I went to sleep but dad said he saw 8 monkeys cross a telephone line but I missed them! Then we went up to the lounge area where you could eat and Dad saw another monkey but six seconds after he saw it, he said, "Languar," which was a type of monkey that we had seen 3 weeks ago in Thailand. How were we supposed to remember what a languar was??!! Then five seconds later, he said, "Monkey" and we said why didn't you say that when you actually saw it!!! because by then it was long gone and we were mad! We got out games and played them until we arrived in Jerantut. We got ripped off by this company called LBK; they said there weren't anymore local buses which only cost 6 Ringott a person and so we went with them and it was 20/person and found out later that there was a bus! When we arrived in Kuala Tahan, we found a nice place called Tahan Guest House and met Dee who runs it and he told us the places to find roti canai and murtabok.

October 25, 2005

Today we went on a snorkeling tour. We went to five places in the Perhentian Islands:

1. We hopped out of the boat and are surrounded by fish. Dad and I went to explore the coral and we saw big yellow fish, big purple fish, rainbow fish and lots of other fish.

2. The guide said that this was the place where we would see turtles and he spotted one and we were all excited. We jumped out of the boat and started swimming with the turtle. The turtle was five to seven feet wide. When the turtle came to get air, Dad thought I was riding it because I was so close to it! Then we found another turtle and it came up for breath and I touched its shell!

3. This place we were supposed to see sharks but we didn't see any, though we saw lots of other cool fish. When we jumped out of the boat, it was pretty shallow. I couldn't touch but it was shallow and there was lots of coral like lace everywhere. As I rounded one rock, I spotted 3 Nemo fish swimming up in their home. Their home was a purple, spaghetti-like creature, an anenome, that swirls in the tide. I dove down right near them and they would go up to my mask. One time I stuck my hand out and a Nemo fish swam into my hand and I touched it! I spotted more Nemo fish in this area too.

4. Peter, Mom and I swam out to the point to see fish and we saw lots of fish again. Then we met Dad and so I paired with Dad and Mom paired with Peter. We spotted more Nemo fish but then the guide told us we had to come back to the boat. We had to swim against the tide and it was very tiring. Then Dad tapped me on the shoulder and told me to wait. So I looked down and there's this big silvery thing (the mask magnifies the size of things underwater). Dad dives down and grabs it and shows it to me and it's a ring and I think, "Aah, someone must have lost their ring." But then we got back to the boat, I was very surprised to find out that it was his ring that we almost lost at the bottom of the ocean!

5. We went to a beautiful beach but I decided to snorkel. All of a sudden, I saw this humongous black shadow and I swam quickly to shore and told Peter and Mom about it. They went out to check it out and they found it too. Peter asked Mom if he could dive down and take a closer look and she said, "I'm sure it's harmless!" But it wasn't; it had big teeth and tried to eat Peter!

When we left the Perhentian Islands, there was some huge waves and Mom was going a little crazy. She kept going "Yahoo!" when the waves hit her and when we got to the dock, everybody was soaking wet, especially Mom because she was in the middle of the boat and on the side where the waves kept crashing.

October 24, 2005

Today we got up and watched the second game of the World Series at our beachside guest house. Go White Sox! After we watched the game, we went to Coral Bay which was on the other side of our island. At the beginning of the trail, we saw a huge monitor lizard and we met a guy who said it was good snorkeling over at Coral Bay. So, Mom and Dad went back to get snorkeling gear and we went ahead and I found shells. We went snorkeling and saw rainbow fish and other fish and big coral heads and I got some coral. When we were done, we went back and played cards (I learned how to play Hearts). When we were done with cards, we went boogie boarding and it was really fun. Dad pushed us right as the wave came and I flipped and did a nose dive three times! When we were done with that, Dad and Mom went over to Coral Bay to watch the sunset and they saw a turtle over there just off the shore.

October 23, 2005

We got up and watched the first game of the World Series. Go White Sox! We stayed at our beach and went swimming. In the afternoon, we worked on school work when it was raining. At the end of the day, we went to Lily's barbecue and had king fish which was really good.

October 22, 2005

We woke up early to go on a train through an area where there are Muslim extremists but we were safe. When we got to Malaysia, we got our stamp in our passports and got a taxi to the place where we catch the boat to the Perhentian Islands. When we arrived, we went swimming and I go shell collecting with Grandma.