Major Update

Lets see, I’ve been to a few countries, couple islands and many towns since I’ve updated last. Sooo Cambodia was unreal. I felt like I was in some sort of Disneyland/Indiana Jones movie because everything seemed fake just because it was unfathomable to think of how these structures were made. Our tour guide was amazing also and he told us his life story of how he watched his father dig his own grave and then get killed along with his grandfather and uncle… which makes me wonder why anyone could complain about the little things that bother us in our daily lives. On a brighter note we traveled to KL and met our Malaysian counterparts and had a mini tour of the area. KFC is huge there and we have no clue why. Shopping is much the same, I felt like I was back home until I had to pay in Ringgit. Then on to Penang and Langkawi… honestly I have no clue where I’m going most of the time… I just follow… we thought we were going to head east and we definitely went west. Anywho, our hotel was at the Chuong Fatt Tze Mansion which I guess is in the top ten places to stay on some list… not five star status… its on there because of its uniqueness. Even the semi-manager was crazy. He apologized for not having his coffee and speed… then proceeded to offer us speed if need be… quite a weird fellow. So the mansion was built in 1880 but the design is a traditional Chinese home used thousands of years ago. We slept in a room called Sinkeh which he explained is a term used for fobs because it means new guest. Which then turned into meaning new space… and some how also means hooker… didn’t quite get that transition. It was really nice and fun to stay somewhere not in the pristine hotel condition. We went on a city tour on Rickshaws and went to the beach where I got wrapped up in an awesome riptide-ish wave which carried me to shore and took my sunglasses… Then off to langkawi where we stayed in traditional houses… I’ll post a picture of my house… quite nice. Oh I forgot to mention the horrible trip to Langkawi in a hover boat thing with screaming kids and air conditioning blasted to 10 degrees Celsius. We eventually had to leave and flew to KL to meet up with the Malaysian students and then we all took a flight to Kuching. We are staying at this cute hostel place with a nice bar up top where we attempted to have our first lecture. We set up the projector and all but when the lecturer started so did the rain. It didn’t help that the roof is corrugated metal so we all decided to postpone the lecture until tonight and just drank the rest of the night. Ended up staying up till 6am… that’s another long story. Left at 7am to our site which was a 5 hour bus ride away and another hour boat ride because it is only accessible by boat. We stayed in an Iban village and was greeted at the door with rice wine and the head man of the house. It was an amazing experience including lots of drinking with them and dancing their local dances for them. We all wanted to sleep in the longhouse which made the chief very happy and he gave us a long speech about how he wants the children of his tribe to look to us as an example. We didn’t think that was too good of an idea but what he meant was that we were attempting to help them and traveled so far to do so. After we all danced we sat down with this 120 year old man and drank with him. Another long story includes how our beds were infested with fire ants and the families that were taking care of us pulled up all the beds and made sure there were no ants before we went to bed. We were still afraid so three of us slept together under one mosquito net. The next day we found out the site that they want us to build on and were able to ask them programming questions to understand what they really want. I won’t bore you with the architectural details but basically we are designing a cultural center for them to have guests experience the Iban culture while still maintaining the village’s traditions and privacy. Then after a brief demonstration of some weapons we were off on our canoes down the river back to our bus. Then a 5 hour drive took us back here and we decided to sleep that night. Today we went to a Sarawak cultural center to see traditional houses and dances which ended up being like a Malaysian PACN… including a crazy guy climbing a pole and twirling around on top *cough*Justin*cough*… :) Then on to the orangutan center where we walked in the jungle and they were feeding them all around us… until the angry mom started to slowly walk towards us… then we had to leave. She wouldn’t leave us alone either… and I guess she has attacked tourists before so we weren’t taking any chances. Then back on our bus to our hostel where I am now… Phew! That was a huge update… mainly for Chicago Mom who says I don’t write enough and put up too many pictures :) Anywho I’ll go thru my videos and post some of those later so keep checking for more updates.