Khao Lak, Thailand – November 17th – 24th, 2016

Khao Lak, a beach town on the west coast of southern Thailand, is the hub for many liveaboard SCUBA trips going to the protected Similan Islands, Richelieu Rock, and surrounding areas. We were lucky enough to secure a discounted last minute booking on a 4 day / 4 night trip and even more lucky to actually make it to Khao Lak, since we were almost stranded on Koh Bulon Lae (refer to last blog post). We had one full day before boarding the boat which we spent eating touristy Thai food (yum and so easy to read the menu!), walking the town, dealing with Andy’s missing debit card (likely eaten by the ATM as an evening snack and lost forever), and relaxing in our nice air conditioned hotel room. The town is very touristy and as such, had a ridiculous amount of handmade Thai gifts which would have made perfect Christmas presents/souvenirs. We found this very irritating since we had shipped gifts the week before and some of the gifts were… let’s just say… less than ideal. Hat Yai did not have the mecca of perfect gifts that Khao Lak did.

Prior to this trip, Andy and I had logged a total of five scuba dives, four of which were part of our open water training, and all of which were in the frigid water of the Puget Sound in Seattle. Based on our inexperience (and fear of drowning / killer marine life), we were more than a little nervous the next evening, when we boarded the Manta Queen 6 (aka Excalibur) along with nine other divers: two Frenchmen, a Dutch couple (currently living in Switzerland), a German couple, a Swiss couple, and a Russian. Along with our fellow scubateers were three dive masters. The group clicked right away and our fears were soon set at ease. We were paired up with the two Frenchmen, Tiboh and Frederic, for the 15 planned dives and PADI advanced open water diver course. Our instructor, Marina, was amazing! She was a myofascial surgeon in Russia before quitting her all-consuming job and becoming a full time scuba instructor.

After a very rocky night of sailing, during which I heavily dosed myself with Dramamine to avoid yet another fun night alongside the porcelain throne, we arrived at the location of our first dive site in the Similan Islands. Our wake-up call came to the tune of the head dive master screaming down the cramped room corridor, “Wakey wakey, eggs and bace-y! Dive briefing 30 minutes.” (quick note on the wake-up call: Every morning the second half of the “wakey wakey” changed. I found this hilarious, while non-morning passengers, like Andy, could only laugh about it in the afternoon.)  After gearing up, we jumped into the warm, 84 °F (29 °C) water and instantly fell in love. Diving is like entering an alien planet. Although you can’t breathe the atmosphere, the scenery is stunning, and the inhabitants are strange and exciting. There was colorful coral and marine life everywhere!

On-board our first liveaboard scuba trip!

The motto of Khao Lak Scuba Adventures is “Dive, Eat, Sleep, Repeat.” This motto came to be more of a way of life. Each day, we woke up at 6 am, were in the water by 6:45 am, and completed four, approximately one hour dives, by sundown. Between each dive, we ate and studied for our advanced open water certification. We completed a total of 15 dives, including a night and wreck dive, in the span of 3 ½ days. It was absolutely incredible (not to mention exhausting). The dive highlights included clown fish families that act exactly like they do in Finding Nemo, two octopus, all kinds of moray eels, cuddlefish, giant jellifish, scorpion fish, lion fish, huge grouper and napoleon fish, and swimming with the ever-curious bat fish. We also really enjoyed the night dive, where different resident alien species were active and feeding. As I reflect now, there was actually way too many trip highlights to mention. The real take away is that we loved it and the four days went by way too fast.

The scenery from the boat and photos showing us as model students (even studying during our beach time!)

On board the Manta Queen 6. The cabins were small to say the least, we'd estimate about 6 sq. ft. of standing room. 

The only part of the scuba adventure that we didn’t love was the ear infections we got after the trip.  This problem was easily remedied since it turns out that the US may be the only place in the world where an ear infection is an inconvenience at all. Back in Khao Lak, we strolled down to the nearest pharmacy, told them our ears hurt after diving, and received wide spectrum antibiotic drops for the bargain price of $5. Within two days, the ear pain was gone. 

For even more details on this portion of Dandy's Grand Adventure, our scuba company is also writing a blog about our scuba liveaboard trip. You will be able to check it out on their website: http://www.khaolakscubaadventures.com/blogs. As of today, it has not been posted yet, but we will update this blog post when it does. Thanks to Andreas, our fellow scubateer, for providing some absolutely incredible underwater photography!

Photos taken by scubateer extraordinaire Andreas and Khao Lak Scuba Adventures.

Underwater photographs by Andreas showing clown fish, moray eel, scorpion fish, and Dandy! 

More underwater photographs by Andreas.

Koh Bulon Lae, Thailand – November 11th – 17th, 2016

On the morning we were supposed to depart for Koh Bulon Lae, an island off the west coast of Thailand, we got the bright idea to call to see if we could secure accommodations. This did not go well. At first, all of the places we called either did not answer or informed us that they were closed for the season. Thanks to the language barrier, we were left wondering whether the island was open at all. We had read that the tourist season typically started in early November, but apparently the rainy season was longer than normal this year. Since we had already booked the minibus there was not a lot we could do, so we boarded the bus anyway. En route, we got a call back from one of the more expensive resorts which told us that the island was indeed inhabited and open for business, although not fully. Phew, crises averted yet again.

After an uneventful minibus and speed boat ride, we made it to the tiny island of Koh Bulon Lae. We had been on the move every couple of days for weeks and were in some serious need of a little down time. Bulon is a little known and even less traveled island that takes only 10 minutes to traverse on foot. There are several “resorts”, a stunning white sand beach, and best of all you can stay and eat for less than $50/day for two people! There are only several downsides to the island: there is no power during the day and there is really nothing to do except relax (which if you are a normal person is ideal, but for those of us that can’t sit still, it was more of a challenge than a positive attribute).

Island paradise. 

As we discovered earlier in the day, most of the “resorts” and restaurants were not open yet. We walked around with all of our stuff in the humid Thai heat for over an hour trying to bargain for a bungalow at the few places that were open. We settled on a grass bungalow on stilts close to the beach for just $22.50/night. Unfortunately, the restaurant was still closed and for meals we had to either eat at the “expensive” resort nearby or walk 10 minutes up a small hill (which seemed rather large when you are hungry). Therefore, the next day we were convinced to switch residences when the restaurant owner offered us a bungalow for $14/night. As we soon found out, the downside to this plan was that our bungalow was not nearly as nice as the first one and we had bungalow company – ANTS! So many ants!... thousands of them actually. Our time on Bulon can be accurately categorized as follows: sleep, eat, lay, snorkel, read, kill ants.

Island life. Monitor lizards were HUGE and everywhere - completely harmless, but intimidating nonetheless. The bungalow we abandoned for a cheaper version is in the top center and Andy rescuing a drowning butterfly in the bottom center.  

Regardless of our ant problem, the food, scenery, and people on Bulon were incredible. We had daily iced chai, ate authentic Thai food (including fresh fish right off the boat), and even frequented a beach Italian place with the best pasta we have had since Rome (no kidding, it was amazing). With only about 100 locals and 25 tourists on the island, we found it easy to connect with people. On the full moon, the family that owns our hotel taught me how to make a banana leaf float which we lit incense on and set out to sea as part of their Loi Krathong festival. We also got to know many of the frequenting tourists which return every season. This included Philip, the Frenchman that wore only a G-string most of the time, and the Italian restaurant owner, Luca (we only saw him fully clothed). Since we were now in true vacation mode, we treated ourselves to Thai massages on the beach (for the bargain price of $8). The women issuing the massages were very VERY strong and it was by far the most painful massage either one of us had ever endured.

Around Kho Bulon Lae. My very sweet shell collection (which we had to leave behind) is shown in the upper right and my banana leaf float for the Loi Krathong festival is in the top middle. The longtail boat we took off the island is shown on the bottom center. 

After six days on Bulon, we were thoroughly relaxed and ready for our next adventure. Little did we know, our next adventure would happen before we even left the island. In the morning of the 17^th, we packed up and went to the speed boat pickup location. We had paid for a last-minute booking on a liveaboard SCUBA trip that departed the next day from a town about 8 hours north and were anxious to be on our way. Accordingly, we arrived 20 minutes early to catch to speed boat off the island – GO US! Much to our surprise, we were soon informed that the boat had already left without anybody on it. In order to keep me from getting all worked up about this situation yet again, I’ll keep this rant short. The speed boat company told us the wrong time, left over 20 minutes before scheduled departure, and did not honor our reservation. The solution to this problem was, according to the horrendously bitchy company owner, to stay on the island for another 24 hours in order to get the boat the next day. (For full effect, read the following sentence with a lot of sarcasm) It was, after all, our fault for not being there on time. Due to the expensive, non-refundable SCUBA trip that left with or without us the next day, staying an extra day was NOT an option. Needless to say, we argued with the boat owner over the phone (her using very broken yelling at us English) for over 30 minutes before shedding a couple tears out of frustration, giving up, and dishing out an extra $40 (even though we had already paid the speed boat for return transfer) to get a private longtail boat to take us off the island. Without the help of a very kind local, we would have never made it to the mainland in time to catch our minibus. It took two minibuses (one of which we paid over double for thanks to the trickery of the minibus company) and 10 hours to get to Khao Lak, but we made it. The last minibus was extra exciting because the driver chose to pay more attention to his unbuckled infant son and cell phone that the road, all while driving like an absolute maniac (he had some serious skills). It was, in fact, terrifying and the poor people in the back of the bus were sick and more than a little angry. Angrier still were the guys that were not dropped off at their stop and ended up over 100 km past their hotel. It was an interesting day to say the least.  

Hat Yai, Thailand – November 9th – 11th, 2016

Our minibus from Penang to Hat Yai, Thailand would be the nicest overland travel experience yet, or so we thought when we first took our seats. The van picked us up at the hotel on time and there were actually empty seats (though they were filled with people’s luggage) – a first in our limited Asia bus experience! We thought to ourselves, “This is a lot better than we expected.” We drove for about 15 minutes before we stopped to pick up three more people along with their luggage. Turns out their plan for fitting everyone and their bags was to seat people in their seats and then pack the luggage all around people, just like packing peanuts. That’s how we rode for 5 hours to Hat Yai: surrounded and cushioned by our fellow travelers’ bags. We were only a little concerned about getting out of the van in the event of an emergency…

Once we arrived in Hat Yai, our first order of business was to buy bus tickets for the next morning. We were headed to Pak Bara, where we would catch a speed boat to our island paradise! Unfortunately, it wasn’t so simple. Our hotel was conveniently located next to the big bus station in town, so we made the quick walk over. It was there that we found out that there are TWO bus stations in town, we needed to go to the other one, and it would cost us $15 roundtrip by tuktuk. We didn’t believe this, so we got lunch to cool our nerves – it shouldn’t be this difficult or expensive to buy bus tickets. Our lunch, though especially spicy, was delicious and served by a helpful French expat who, along with his Thai wife, helped explain the bus situation and corroborated the story. BTW, we found out papaya is an amazing and delicious way to soothe your mouth after very spicy food (we also learned ginormous banana crushes are another way to soothe your mouth, but the absolute BEST way to soothe your mouth is get both papaya AND banana crushes 😊). With our bellies full (and mouths soothed), we bartered with a few tuktuk drivers and headed over to the other bus station. At the other station, they refused to sell us bus tickets for the next day. Through very broken English, we gleaned that we would need to return early the next morning to buy the tickets before the 7:30 am bus left. We were frustrated that the “buy your bus tickets the day before” rule that we had learned in the rest of Asia now randomly didn’t apply, but we were (and are) finally learning that we just need to accept and roll with these types of things.

Not many pictures of our time in Hat Yai and no pictures of Dani unfortunately, but we were productive and got my hairs cut!

Though it was a large, ugly, and uninviting city, we decided to stay an extra day and finish our Christmas shopping, which we had begun in Malaysia. The next morning, we walked to the post office to investigate our Christmas package shipping options. The man we spoke to was very helpful for the first five minutes, after which he randomly lost interest and – without another word – began reorganizing his desk. We continued walking to the main shopping and market area where we happened upon another post office whose postwoman was extremely helpful and answered all of our questions without making us feel like we were wasting her time. The rest of the day was spent shopping, walking, wrapping, and packing the small Christmas gifts we had bought for our families. When we returned to the post office to send the package out, the helpful postwoman was no longer clocked in, but the replacement postman recognized he would need some help with English and brought in a translator on his own accord! We felt a huge wave of accomplishment and relief when the box was all packaged, paid for, and sent off. Here’s hoping it actually takes only a month to arrive in the States!

In Hat Yai, we noticed a few major differences compared to Malaysia:

1. the language barrier is much much worse
2. for the first time on our trip we encountered someone (more than one actually) who couldn’t be bothered to help us (unclear if this was due to language barrier or disdain for tourists)
3. twice, someone tried to help us figure something out and then decided to give up right in the middle of it
4. they have SUPER tiny tuktuks that you can’t even sit up straight in (see the photo above).

Reading this list again, we sound like very snobby tourists… But it also goes to show how tourist-friendly and genuinely helpful Malaysia and its people are. Come to think of it, even in India and Nepal we never encountered someone unwilling to help us out.

Penang, Malaysia – November 5th – 9th, 2016

Once on the island of Penang, we made our way to the city of George Town. The city used to be an English colony in the 1800’s, but is now famous for its food! A cultural melting pot comprised of Chinese, Indian, and Indonesian influence, George Town was the perfect place to get our eat on! Over our four day stint, we walked the streets and sampled much of the local cuisine (without getting sick: WIN!). We tried tandoori chicken, an assortment of ramen, skewers that you cook in hot broth from a street vendor, dim sum, banana leaf rice, stir fry noodle dishes, Chinese biscuits, cake, oil drum toast, white coffee, etc. We also treated ourselves to chendol, a shaved ice dessert with green noodles and creamed coffee (which was delicious, says me, the person who doesn’t like coffee) and corn flavored popsicles (strange, but surprisingly decent). We also got to sample legit Chinese green and black tea while getting a one-on-one lesson on Chinese tea production from a passionate owner at a local shop. It was incredible! Andy tried Kopi Luwak, “the best and most expensive coffee in the world.” The beans are harvested from the shit of the Asian Palm Civet, a cat which eats coffee berries and passes the beans through its digestive tract. Andy absolutely loved it and agreed it was the best cup of coffee he had ever had. I did not try the cat poop coffee. You would think that this gorge fest would set us back financially, but no, we could afford to eat as much as we wanted (and more) since most local fair was less than $2 for a meal!

Eating our way across George Town.

Some of the sites around Penang.

Between meals (and snacks), we strolled the streets of George Town looking for murals and wire art. The city itself is clean with many historic white colonial buildings, but the search for street art made it even more fun to walk through. The building murals ranged from dinosaurs on leashes to anti-smoking campaigns and everything in-between, while the wire art gave tidbits of local history. In addition to viewing other people’s art, I also created my own abstract art at a coffee and cake shop which supplied table cloth paper and pastels.

Art work around George Town, including my masterpiece in the bottom left. 

The hostel that we stayed at (We Luv Travel Guesthouse) was absolutely amazing. Not only was it clean and comfortable, with super-fast wifi, but it was more like a home stay than a hotel. Throughout our stay, the staff insisted that we try all of the food they had ordered or cooked, made us their secret recipe french toast (which was incredible), taught us some George Town and Malaysian history, helped with travel arrangements, and more. The owner also brought us into his modern Chinese medicine clinic and had us try out all his gismos while teaching us along the way. There was the foot shocking gismo, a band which makes you electrically charged (which supposedly makes you negatively charged by filling your cell's valance electrons sites), and an infrared heating bed with a leg shaker. He even helped treat Andy’s persistent head cold by centering his chi.  

On our last day on Penang, we rented a scooter and toured the island. The 24-hour rental cost all of $8, so why not? I’ll tell you why not – being the backseat scooter driver in traffic on the opposite side of the road is terrifying! In good news, we did not crash and actually started to get used to it by the end of the day. We drove to a Chinese temple and yet another National Park about 45 minutes outside of George Town, where we hiked ~3 hours round-trip to Monkey Beach. True to its name, a team of criminal monkeys pulled off a distraction scam while the other hung upside-down from the side of a rope swing to steal my apple straight out of my hand! It was startling to say the least, but we have to give them props, it was a perfectly executed con.

Penang by scooter. One of the apple (and swing) thieves is shown in the bottom middle.

From George Town we left via minibus towards Thailand. Andy and I both agree that so far, Malaysia is one of our favorite countries and we were more than a little sad to be leaving. The people are more kind than we could have ever hoped for and it was refreshing for things to be easy for a while. The only major downside to Malaysia was the smoking. Even with a clear push to inform people of the hazards of second-hand smoke, smoking is a major part of the Malay culture. In Taman Negara National Park, many restaurants claimed to be non-smoking, while the locals chain smoked right under the no smoking sign. In George Town, the city has implemented a no smoking policy with gigantic fees associated with smoking in any public place. Unfortunately, laws are only effective if they are enforced and we never once saw a person utilizing one of the ~2 ft. diameter smoking circles scattered throughout the city. At least they are half trying… 

Taman Negara National Park, Malaysia – November 2nd – 4th, 2016

We fancied a visit to Taman Negara National Park, so we booked bus/boat transfer through a travel agent from KL to Kuala Tahan, the village just outside of the park. After a 3-hour minibus ride, we putzed around for a few hours before finally departing on a long, skinny, wooden motorboat up the Tembeling river. The boat ride was surprisingly uneventful. The motor problems were likely the most exciting part of the 3-hour trip, although we did spot a couple of monkeys, birds, and domestic water buffalo. We finally arrived and made our way through the quiet village towards the place we had planned to stay. We received a fair room rate, $10/night, and settled in, just narrowly avoiding the monsoon storm. Towards the tail end of the storm, we walked the 10 minutes back to the river for dinner since our “chalet” restaurant was not open during the non-peak tourist season. I again hated what I ordered, surprise surprise. It turned out to be noodles and vegetables in a mostly flavorless, clumpy, corn starch paste soup. Sounds appetizing doesn’t it? Andy’s food was pretty good (am I the only one noticing a trend here?).      

On the way to Taman Negara National Park. The hut in the center is our "chalet".

The next day we ventured across the river and into the park. We are officially incapable of taking it easy, so we hiked all of the trails that we were allowed to do without having a guide. Yes, you read that correctly, all of them. It took us ~9 hours in the hot, humid rainforest and we were absolutely exhausted afterwards. The first trail was a summit up a seemingly endless number of steps to an overlook on Bukit Teresek. It was sweaty work, but the view was worth it. The trail was on a platform walkway keeping you above the ground and protected from the monsoon runoff and snakes. The second trail was actually a canopy walkway along suspended rope bridges. It was really cool! The last trail followed the river through an aborigine village and finally up a narrow roped ridge to the summit of Bukit Indah. To be fair, the last trail was more like bushwhacking than hiking. Overall, the park was nice, but since we were only allowed to be on the trails that hugged the park boundary without a guide, we saw almost no wildlife. We spotted a couple of monkeys and many bugs (notably termites), but that was it. Regardless, the rainforest is some of the oldest untouched forest in the world, so we were glad that we went, although perhaps not being cheap asses and hiring a guide would have been more of an experience.

Hiking in the National Park. 

Since we can’t seem to stay in one place for more than 48 hours, we left on a public bus the next morning (which was super nice by the way – go Malaysia!). We actually didn’t just ride on one bus that day; it took us four buses and an Uber to get to our hotel in George Town. We had actually set out that morning towards a beach town north of KL, but while en route, decided, what the heck, we hate relaxing, let’s just go all the way to George Town, 13 hours away. We booked the hotel from the bus. We should really learn to take it easy. 

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – October 29th – November 2nd, 2016

Kuala Lumpur is a REAL developed city – cleaner than and just as updated as many major cities in the US! At first we could not believe that the plane didn’t accidentally drop us off at a nice city in Florida. The public transit is easy to navigate, they drive in lanes on paved roads, the electricity appears to be safely wired and works consistently, there are plumbing and waste management systems, they have washing machines and dryers, and besides the occasional strange smelling food, it smells clean (no dust and minimal smog)! The city also appears to be appropriately sized, meaning that the city planners have their shit together. If you couldn’t tell, we were very impressed with Kuala Lumpur (KL)… not to say we didn’t have our challenges in the first day or two.

We arrived at the airport and cleared customs, still feeling pretty crappy from the great Nepali food crises, round 2. Our first order of business was to get Malaysian ringgit (MYR) to pay for the bus towards our hostel. After 3 ATMs failed to give us money, Andy called the bank through the free KL airport high speed wifi (like I said… impressive) while I asked around at the multiple money exchangers/banks in the airport to exchange the Nepali money (NRP) we had left. I was unable to find a place to exchange the money (they refused to exchange NRP for some reason), but luckily Andy worked things out with the bank and we got some money from an ATM. After picking up some snacks at a real live grocery store at the airport, we went to buy our bus tickets. The price was 22 MYR so I handed the woman two one dollar bills and a coin that said 20 on it. Being that this was the first time we had been in a country that used coins for change less than 1 ringgit, I was startled to find out that I had actually attempted to pay her 2.20 ringgit. After making many mistakes like this over the last two months, we had a good laugh at my stupidity and were on our way (after giving her a 20 ringgit bill instead of 20 cents of course).

On our first day in KL, we ventured out to watch the MotoGP motorcycle race. Coincidentally, the race was taking place on the weekend we were arriving and since it is a huge international event, famous race track, and there is a massive Malaysian fan base, we got tickets while we were still in Nepal.  From our research in Nepal, we saw the main race started at 12:45 pm so we left fairly early to make sure we got there with plenty of time. Unfortunately, the bus ride turned out to be more of a parking lot visit and we found ourselves ~20 minutes late for the race. Worse than that, it was pouring rain and it took us over 30 minutes to figure out where our seats were, so by the time we sat down on the covered dirt lawn surrounded by smoking Malaysian fans, the race only had 9 laps to go. We were so frustrated and disappointed! We tried to make the most of it though, and watched the rest of the race from our surprisingly good vantage point. With the race over, we were confused to find that nobody got up to leave. After many, many confused minutes, we asked some nearby drunk Aussies what race we just watched. After looking at us like we were complete morons, they answered Moto2 (meaning the lower class of racing) and explained that the race was scheduled to start at 3pm and the only thing to start at 12:45 was the drinking! It took us several more hours before we realized that our mistake originated from the 2 hour 15 minute time difference between Kathmandu and Kuala Lumpur. Anyway, long story short, we saw the entire race and even lucked out on our dirt spot, staying dry while the surrounding people were sitting in a mudslide from the bouts of torrential downpours. The race was exciting and we watched two crashes right in front of us! Well worth the $10 each for tickets! The bus ride back was, believe it or not, longer that the bus ride to the race. It took over two and a half hours! All in all, we spent significantly more time on the bus than at the race track that day.

Sepang MotoGP

The next day we sought out to exchange the Nepalese money. We had planned to exchange the ~36,000 NPR ($330) in Nepal before we left, but the money exchangers in Kathmandu did not have MYR and we did not feel up for walking around to figure it out. We just assumed we could exchange it in Malaysia. WRONG! Apparently, Nepal has a closed currency, meaning that not only can you not exchange money outside of the country, it is actually illegal to take money across the border! Who knew that was even a thing!??! Not us! Many google searches revealed that our only option was to find someone traveling to Nepal and strike a deal with them. We asked around the hostel, left a hilariously witty note in the common room, emailed some contacts in Nepal, and went to a couple more private money exchangers with no luck. The problem was finally resolved through following a lead from the hotel owner in Kathmandu, who directed us to a money courier, who told us to go to a different private exchanger, who finally gave us a decent exchange rate. Phew, crises averted again!

The food in KL was YUM! There was everything from authentic western foods to delicious Malay food and everything in between. Our culinary highlights included a trip to McDonalds where we chowed down on cheeseburgers and McFlurries. In the US, I had not been to a McDonalds in over a decade, but it tasted SO GOOD! We also at Din Tai Fung, a Chinese Dim Sum restaurant that has several branches all over the world. Andy had eaten at one in Hong Kong several years ago while on a work trip, and has now eaten at the restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, but has not managed to make it to the branch that is less than a mile from our house in Seattle! We also ventured out of our comfort zone to eat some traditional Malay black hokkien mee noodles. Unsure of the type of meat they put in the noodles, we asked for it vegetarian, and a local in line ahead of us was nice enough to translate our order for us. We thought we were in the clear, but really they just added the chunks of animal fat in mine, rather than animal fat and mystery meat/seafood. Lucky me. Andy’s fat-free noodles were delicious though!

KL's culinary wonders.

While we weren’t fighting crowds at the MotoGP and attempting to fill our bellies again after the previous 4-day fast, we walked around the city, visited a rainforest park with some of the oldest fully-preserved rainforest in the world, watched a light show at the Petronas towers (skyscrapers), and shopped. With more malls than you can count, KL is known for fashion and shopping. Since it appeared that we severely under packed, we made full use of the brand name western stores and stocked up on a couple more shirts, a pair of convertible hiking pants and shorts for Andy, and some underwear and socks. The past several months had taught us that having only four pairs of underwear and socks meant that you had to do laundry (in the sink) at least every 3 days. This assumes that the laundry will actually dry in one day, which it won’t because the air is as moist (that one’s for you Lillian) as the clothes. While shopping at one of the markets we were also shocked to find that a 512 GB flash drive was being sold on sale for 10 MYR (~$2.50)! We hadn’t even realized that technology had advanced so far as to compact that much storage into a tiny flash drive, and at such a low price! The truth, we realized later when plugging in our exciting purchase, was that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. The flash drive was a scam and completely fake. Turns out technology has advanced that far, but you’ll pay about $300 for a real one (not $2.50). Oops. 

The sites around KL.

Kathmandu, Nepal – October 26th – 29th, 2016

Nepal ended in much the same way as it started: hugging the porcelain thrown (or porcelain platform in the case of a squat toilet). Except, extra fun, this time we were sick at the same time and it lasted 4+ days. The culprit was likely the unrefrigerated mayonnaise that tasted curiously like coconut, which unwantedly made it onto some sandwiches that we ate on the journey from Chitwan to Kathmandu. Our entire stay in Kathmandu ended up being spent making the trip between the bed and the toilet. Nausea, diarrhea, headache, neck pain, aches, chills, fever (unconfirmed since, against my suggestion, Andy left the thermometer acting as a window prop in the ashram in India), weakness, residual sinus pressure/runny noise from the previous week’s cold, you name it, we had it. At first it seemed that Andy was taking the brunt of the illness, but I quickly caught up to join him in the fun.

We also found that our tolerance towards Kathmandu had decreased significantly. It is amazing how fast you become de-desensitized. After Dehli, Kathmandu looked like child’s play, but after three weeks in the Himalayas, Kathmandu looked a lot more like a massive, crowded, dirty, dusty city. Perception is a crazy thing. 

On the evening before our flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, we felt compelled to venture out of our sick beds to see some of the sites (which is, believe it or not, why we traveled to Nepal). This was a massive mistake, since the 37 km (23 mi) journey up to the Nagarkot sunset overlook ended up taking over 4.5 hours roundtrip in stop and go traffic on bumpy windy roads. Additionally, the view was hindered significantly by clouds and we were both on the verge of losing what little food we had managed to consume. We literally ran back into the hotel bathroom from the taxi! The next day, we had a full day of travel ahead of us that we could not reschedule since our flights were non-refundable and our visas were about to expire. We broke down and took some antibiotics, hoping that they might make the next day more possible/bearable. The problem with antibiotics is that they are only effective if you do not promptly throw them back up all over yourself…

The views around Nagarkot.

 The morning of our departure was not much better than the night before and we had serious doubt as to whether we were capable of making the trip at all. Luckily, the travel went surprisingly smoothly and we were feeling slightly better in the afternoon. The plane was huge and less than 20% full leaving us plenty of room to spread out and relax. We even ate the food on the plane which was quite the accomplishment! Nepal was absolutely amazing and we met so many incredible people, but I can’t say we were sad to leave the poor road conditions and food safety problems behind.  

The sites around Kathmandu and Andy's beard removal process.