Vietnam day 3

Michele, Marie and I woke up super early to catch a bus to Sa Pa; a large village 6 hours north of Hanoi.

The second we hopped out of the bus we were bombarded by locals trying to offer us a place to stay. I'm used to locals being very persistent and annoying, but this was something else. They shouted prices at me pulled me from side to side and at one point forced me into a corner. Rather than panic and make a desperate decision to purchase a room, I made the most of the situation and turned the mob of locals into an auction room. I started off at $10 per person then went down dollar by dollar until only 1 person was left offering us a room for $4 per person. I think I just have a gift for haggling.

Once settled we walked around 'cat cat village'. It was a large village suspended by rice patties. There was livestock everywhere, strangely no cats though. The locals had also invented really interesting mechanical contraptions to grind up grain for them using rainwater. It was really cool. The views were epic too!

The change from Hanoi is pretty big. For starters its much colder. There are also way fewer motorbikes zooming past you honking - its kind of strange getting my hearing back.

Vietnam day 2

I woke up and immediately felt the urge for street food. Without brushing my teeth, showering, and almost forgetting to put on pants, I burst outside of the hostel on the hunt for a good meal.

The menu said the meal was called "Noodles with Beef". I hope I got the pronunciation alright.

I met up with Michele and Marie and decided to go to the Ho Chi Minh museum. It was a long walk through a lot of traffic to get there but it was worth it. Once again the museum here shed very little light on the bigger picture of the Vietnam war and instead focused on smaller things like specific quotes, clothing and background of Ho Chi Minh.

Amazingly I wasn't museumed out at this point, so we all decided to go to the woman's museum afterwards. Along the way we ran into Sean (the Irish bloke I met before). The museum was focused on showing the contributions and expected roles women played in society from generation to generation. The museum was very positive mentioning that women have been treated as equals to men in Vietnam culture. My own experience of Vietnam so far makes me doubt this though; so far I have always seen men and women play very different roles - women are often in the kitchen cooking, and men are at the counter serving or doing manual labour. Maybe they earn equal pay, but there is still a large cultural gender divide. Marie (who has Vietnamese ancestry) confirmed my doubts.

Afterwards we had an epic street food meal followed by chocolate croissants and crepes. I'm so glad it was France that colonized Vietnam and not Ethiopia. While eating, Sean tried to show me the basics behind playing the harmonica. Put it this way, I'm a slow learner.

I'm really starting to enjoy using catch phrases here. A sign you'll find written in every bathroom is "have some fun, use the bum gun".  I've also learned that 'hello' in Vietnamese is "sing chao" and 'thank you" is 'cam on'. This is really great because now I can rock up at any bar and just say "sing-tao, come on!" and still be polite.

Laos day 6

We arrived in Vientiane at about 8am. We arrived at our hostel shortly afterwards. Matt and Maitay decided to stay a night so that they could explore Laos longer. I decided to split up and go to Hanoi so that I could meet my Italian friend, Michelle, on the 28th. My sleeper bus was at 5pm so that gave me the whole day to explore Vientiane.

After having breakfast we went to the COPE museum. This was a museum dedicated to documenting the horrors of clustor bombs. There was a shockingly small amount of information about the politics behind why the Americans bombed Laos during the Vietnam war, instead the museum focused on individuals who had their limbs blown off by undetonated 'bombies' decades after the war. The place was very emotionally stimulating due to their use of video, posters and plastic limb decorations, however I was really hoping to uncover more about the bigger picture. My guess is that the Viet Cong were mobilizing their armies through Laos and that's why president Johnson decided to bomb them, but I'm not sure - I'll have to Wikipedia it later. A few random facts I managed to remember from the museum were: (1) on average Laos was bombed every 8 minutes and (2) Laos was theost heavily bombed country per capita.

When we got back I had enough time to grab food, see a few temples and shower up before my bus arrived to take me to Vietnam.

Laos day 5

We booked an activity today called "Bopaven adventure". It was nice leaving the ghost town and entering the jungle. The trecking was easy and short but there were lookout points, coffee shops and local villages along the way which padded out the trip. Overall the 'adventure' was great. I got a lot of awesome photos; several of a waterfall and a few of a few kids playing in the village. The local villagers has constructed a bong out of bamboo and were encouraging their 5 year old kids to smoke it... crazy.

We arrived back in Pacsi for dinner where we enjoyed some Italian pizza and pasta. Once again, absolutely phenomenal, well done Asia.

That same night we caught a sleeper bus to Vientiane. The bus ride was needlessly complicated. We were forced to change bus 45 minutes after getting on. The bus driver didn't say a word, he just started transferring our bags from one bus to another and let the passengers figure it out. One poor German guy was asleep during the transfer and had to jump out if the old bus while it was moving so he could get to the new bus where his bags were.

Laos day 2

I woke up at a bright and early 2pm and wandered around the tiny island. It's beautiful here. No tuk tuks, no carbon dioxide, and surpsingly no pollution despite plastic being used everywhere.

Sadly almost all the people we met at the hostel were massive stoners who just wanted to eat 'happy pancakes' and smoke all day. I wasn't interested in that scene too much so Isaac (a British bloke from the hostel) and I walked to the top of the island to see if we could rent kayaks for the day. The bloke running the shop was a fat, middle aged, jaded Russian who I think would have totally suited an eye patch. He refused to rent us kayaks after the 8am guided tour because "there are sharp rocks below most rivers and you will die. There are also strong rapids leading down other rivers and you will die. If you get lost, you will die."

Undeterred by the fear of death, Isaac and I decided to go for a hike to the neighboring island called Don Khon. The entry was 35000 kip = $5 and it was totally worth it. We got to see a beautiful waterfall and go hiking through heaps of rice patties.

When we got back the stoners were stoned and talking about stoning. I ordered the unhappy pancakes and enjoyed the view of the stars and peaceful river.

Laos day 3

Isaac and I woke up absurdly early to go kayaking. We confidently marched passed the crazy Russian guy who was warding off other tourists with his 'you will die' speech.

The experience was amazing! There were about 20 of us floating on one of the most peaceful, tranquil lakes I'd ever been on. Shortly afterwards we all started funneling through a narrow river. The turns were easy enough that an uncoordinated dim wit could navigate through them effortlessly. Needless to say, I capsized. As I plunged my way into the warm water, sharp rocks lying below me cut my right foot and bruised my ass. It was at this moment that I heard a faint Russian voice echo its way through the water - "you will die...". With all my strength I grabbed onto my kayak above me and walked to the shore which was only 5 meters away. The rest of the kayaking adventure continued problem free; we saw dolphins, ate lunch at a local lunchin, and went on a few short hikes. I was even lucky enough to get invited by a few locals to try eating cow skin with them - it tastes just like crackling but much, much worse.

When we got back we all got drunk at the hostel. At the time I was very interested in learning the Laos language, but all my alcohol stained brain can remember is:

1) hello = sabadi
2) thank you = kob shiye la liye

The way I managed to remember (1) is from the song Blue by Eiffel65; " I'm blue sabadi sabudi"

The way I managed to remember (2) is from the song the boxer by Simon and Garfunkel.

I collapsed drunk with a few French people on the balcony of the hostel staring at the stars, listening to pink Floyd and Billy Joel. It was fun :)

Laos day 4

Matt and I woke up early enough to catch a boat heading off the islands to go to Pacsi. The trip was long with unnecessary stopovers between busses buy at least we made friends with a girl called "maitay" (I think that's how it's pronounced) from elsalvador (I think that's how the country is spelled).

Pacsi really wasn't the dream location I had been told about. It was completely deserted. There were hardly any locals, restaurants, bars or activities - just a bunch of other tourists walking around aimlessly with a confused and slightly disappointed expression on their face. Honestly, it seemed like a ghost town.

For dinner the 3 of us went to a fancy restaurant which was actually a ship by the side of the river. Of course we were the only people there. It was a strange experience but the food and company was good.

Cambodia day 8

Max woke up with a pretty serious fever. Fortunately though my stomach was much better so I got to enjoy all the benefits of the $2 all you can eat buffet downstairs. I felt bad for max missing out on the buffet so I went to his room and described to him how amazing the food was so he could at least imagine eating.

Matt and I penciled in volunteering to teach English at a school in the afternoon and going to a circus in the evening. Sadly the school was all filled with volunteers (probably a good thing coz I don't English good) and the cicus was all booked out. Instead Matt and I rented bicycles (motor bikes minus the motor) and made our way to the floating village.

Bike riding is amazing! At first I was pretty pessimistic because the humidity was overbearing and I thought that there would be too much traffic and obstacles in our way, but once we made it past the river and out of town the countryside poked its head out to meet us. The luscious green open planes made the feeling of complete exhaustion totally worth it. After 1 hour and 4L of water later we arrived at the floating village. It wasn't a peaceful self sustaining paradise with water slides everywhere like we imagined. Instead it was beaten down strip of land in the middle of a giant lake littered with broken down 'houses'. I couldn't help but constantly feel painfully aware of how much more I had than these locals; even wearing aviators and a hat made me feel uncomfortable. Oh and the whole place smelled like rotten fish and sewerage. I got great photos though!

On the way back we passed a mysterious staircase in the of nowhere. We decided to hike up the staircase and carry our bikes with us. At the very top a friendly ploliceman asked us for a $5 bribe to grant us entry to the temple above. We accepted. I personally was still suffering from temple fatigue after touring Ankor Watt for 8 hours the other day, but Matt loved it.

On the way down from the temple Matt's bycycle breaks broke and he had to come to dangerous halt! That earned him the title Mad Matx for the rest of the day.

Once back at the hostel we met up with an American girl from Ohio. She was really cool so we decided to go motorbiking with her the next day. She said she was from the Midwest though. How the hell is Ohio part of the Midwest? Come on America, get your shit together.

Laos day 1

We woke up at 6am to catch a bus to the 4000 islands in Laos. Max didn't join us for this part of the trip though because he wanted to cut into Vietnam sooner than we did.

On the bus Matt and I sat next to two awesome Swiss girls and a bunch of French people. I learned how to say 'im a fat cow' in french: "je suis une grosse vache". Finally I can be open and honest with myself when I get a chocolate croissant.

Crossing the boarder into Laos was easier than expected. We were told there would be hour long delays and people trying to scam us, but we didn't experience any of that.

Once inside Laos we got another bus to the 4000 islands and a small boat to the island Don Det. It was too dark to do anything once we got there so we just parked ourselves at the EasyGo hostel, had dinner with a few strangers, and went to bed.

Cambodia day 10

By now I had a pretty good morning routine going:

1) wake up earlier than the others
2) catch the last 15 minutes of an all you can eat buffet
3) wake up the others and simultaneously brag that I had an awesome breakfast and complain that I felt my stomach was about to explode from overeating.
4) waddle my way around town to buy shit.

Today's ruitune resulted in buying parachute pants! Now I can walk around like a homeless clown like 90% of the other tourists.

When I got back Max and I decided to chill at the hostel pool. The pool was great because it had a swim up bar and permanitely build beer pong table inside. We made good use of both features. Max earned my utmost respect by tieng with me in beer pong - the apprentice was now the alcoholic.

After that we played football with a bunch of other British tourists. I very tispy at this stage so I was definitely more of a liability. It was fun regardless.

Later on Matt, Max and I joined Thuomas and Annette (the Finnish couple) for pizza along pub St.

Cambodia day 9

This day was CRAZY.

I woke up, had an all you can eat buffet for $2 and then went walking around to get a haircut.

Now this is where it gets really CRAZY!

Max, Matt, the American Chick and I all decided by midday to rent motorbikes and ride to Beng Mealea. The ride was awesome! The path there involved going off road for a bit which at first was awesome because of the lack of traffic and awesome views.

And this is where the CRAZY event happened

I was in front and saw a snake cross the dirt road in front of me. The inner 8 year old girl inside of me forced me to slam on the breaks. Max who was behind me slammed on his breaks too. Sadly, this all happened just over a crest so Matt and the American girl on Matt's bike didn't have enough time to stop. Travelling at a spectacular speed of 5 km/hr they both fell off their bike.

And the CRAZY injuries were:

Both Matt and the American girl got ripped up knees. Both of which needed stitching. We used all of the first aid equipment and water we had but it wasn't enough. To make matters worse we were stranded in the middle of nowhere well away from the closest road or medical centre and it was going to get dark soon. In our indifference we spent close to 40 minutes just tossing up between 1) letting Matt and Madeline rest in the closest local shack while max and I went in search for a road to find a car to drive us home or 2) abandoning a motorbike and fitting Matt on my bike and Madeline on Max's bike.

In the end a local came by and we took option (2) except the local lead the way. The only English word he spoke was "hospital" and that was good enough for us.

The "hospital" was nothing more than a small side shop selling Band-Aids. Fortunately though it was right next to Beng Mealea. It was dark at this point and all the tourists had left, however I managed to negotiate with a local to use his small truck to drive us 4 and our 3 motorbikes back to Siem Reap for $70 - it was a ripoff but we were desperate. Oh yeah, we payed the local guy $20 and he was extreemly happy - that money could feed his family for weeks.

But the CRAZIEST thing was

When we got back we went to the closest hospital. It was a local hospital and it was filthy. There were locals holding up their own IV drips and people sitting in the corridor. We immediately tuk a tuk tuk to the international hospital 20 minutes up the road. The total cost of stitches, compulsory consultation, and anesthetic was $440! Ouch! Fortunately they had a free hot chocolate dispenser so Max and I made it our mission to drink $440 worth of hot chocolate before we left to make the visit worth while.

Cambodia day 7

I did the impossible today. I woke up at 4:15am with Matt and Max to go see Ankor Watt before sun rise. We didnt know Ankor How to get there so we decided to tuk tuk it. It was pleasantly cold outside; a feeling my body really enjoyed and my dry clothes benefited from.

Just before we arrived we decided to stock up on some food from a 7/11. I was still feeling pretty sick so I decided to get some sugar bread and water.

We arrived there at 5am, payed our $20 entry fee and walked through the darkness shoulder to shoulder with other tourists towards the famous landmark. Sadly my phones camera wansnt up to scratch to capture the temple with low light so I asked Matt to take pictures for me instead.

Sadly I did 0 research behind Ankor Watt before I showed up. But I managed to tactically walk slowly past a few English guided tours and learn that 1) it was constructed in the 1100's and 2) looting and excavations took place all the way up to 1993 which is why some parts looked mkre degraded than others. I'll update this post later with researched stuff so I don't sound like a completely ignorant tourist. At one point we thought that they were undergoing a construction project on the roof of the temple, but we later found out that a few monkies had climbed to the top of the temple and were smashing metal plates agaisnt the ancient tiles - it reminded me a lot of the old King Kong movie actually.

By lunch tine I had managed to finish off my supply of sweet sweet bread so we all decided to go somewhere for food. I got banana pancakes which was nothing more than a regular pancake with a full banana on top. Matt and Max got the mango salad which was a plate filled with mango with 1 lettuce leaf on top.

By the end of the tour I felt pretty exhausted due to the heat, sleep deprivation and food poisoning so i decided to have a quick power nap when I got back to the hostel. Later that night I went out to the night markets to buy some singlets

Cambodia day 6

Food poisoning sucks. I spent all of last night making hourly sprints to the bathroom. I was honestly afraid I'd have to bail on catching a bus to Siem Reap this morning, but Matt Gates had a shit tonne of drugs to fix me right up.

The first leg of the journey was a direct ride to Pnom Penh. Max, the Sweedish bloke from yesterday, joined us and we had an hour stop over to show him around briefly. We taught him the basics;

1) zebra crossings are just painted bits of road. They have no meaning.
2) to cross a busy street just close your eyes, start walking and pray you don't get hit.

We finally arrived at 7pm. Amazingly even after 6 hours of sitting in a WiFi capable bus, we still hadn't been organized enough to book our hostel so we asked our tuk tuk driver to take us to the nearest place to sleep. About 20 minutes later we were dropped off at the 'one stop hostel' and ironically booked the place for 2 nights.

Sitting down for 10 hours can really zap the energy out of you, so as soon as we were showed where our beds were, we collapsed on them and fell asleep.

Cambodia day 5

Today was aweosme. The Finnish guys, matt and i woke up heaps early and decided to rent motobikes for the day for $4.

While awkwardly trying to sit on the motorbike (it was actually a scooter, I just wanted to sound cool in the previous paragraph) I was given about 5 minutes of verbal instruction. Once I figured out how to start the two wheeled death machine, I asked the receptionist whether I should drive on the right or left side of the road. She shrugged her shoulders and said in broken English 'right side mostly'.  My speedometer was broken but Matt confirmed from his bike that our top speed was 100km/hr; a pretty amazing speed considering we just had casual clothing and helmets made out of Styrofoam.

We rode our way to Bokor national park. The views were spectacular and the entry fee was only 50 cents.

We met a Sweedish guy called Max along the road and invited him to join us on our journey. Once we got to the top Thumas, Max and I jumped into the lake. The water looked clean, but all the trees boardering the lake had died, while the rest were perfectly green and luscious. Whatever, a but if nuclear waste poising was probably with the experience.

On the way back we filled up the bikes with petrol from a local outlet. They brought out repurposed coke bottles and filled up the bikes manually. The local accidentally spilled gas all over Matt's scooter but a quick wipe with a damp cloth fixed that right up.

To finish off the day we had dinner at a restaurant called 'Om' everyone ordered a western meal except for me.

Cambodia day 4

Fuck, i should probably stop starting all of my blog posts with the word 'fuck'.

In the early morning I toured the area a whole lot more and endulged in cheesy gooey pizza again. No regrets.

In the early afternoon Matt and I caught a bus to Krong Kampot with a Portuguese madmam and an awesome Finnish couple. All 5 of us decided to stay at the nearest hostel called Captain Chims. Captain Chim himself was advertising a sunset cruise that very evening so we all decided to partake. The boat was a rickety looking pirate ship (without sails and a pirate flag) filled with, you guessed it, British backpackers. We headed straight down the river and got to see a beautiful sunset, stars, comments and a tree crammed with fireflies. Just before it got dark, a few Dutch backpackers decided to jump off the boat and go swimming in the poluted brown river. Coincidentally enough, we didn't see them the next day :o

After the awesome cruise we decided to head to a Chinese dumpling place. It's actually extreemly hard to find local food around here. The food was amazing, of course, and the company was awesome. Thumas (the Finnish bloke) is a very gregarious, intelligent entrepreneur and his girlfriend is a very reserved, intelligent doctor.

Later that night we ran into another Finnish girl called Satu. She seemed really cool and we might meet her in Laos.

Cambodia day 3

Fuck im losing track of my blog, I've just had no time to write the last 3 posts! OK OK OK, where was I?

We woke up and immediately hopped on a mini bus directly to sihanoukville. The bus was filled with 6 British backpackers (a 2:6 ratio is actually pretty representative of the nationality split in Cambodian hostels) who lived up to every stereotype I believed. We played a game called "heads up" which is kinda like a more awesome version of charades.

When we arrived we found out that the hostel was almost completely booked out. Rather than rent a private room containing 4 beds for ourselves we asked two other British girls of they'd like to stay with us (to bring to cost of $4.50 / person to $2.25 / person). One of the girls was called Ellen and was an accident prone, dispraxic, alcoholic chain smoker. And the other girl was called Carla and she was just 28.

I sacrificed my ideals for one afternoon and headed to the nearest resteraunt to get pizza. I'm impressed Cambodia, you've mastered the art of creating unhealthy western food! Good on ya, mate.

Afterwards I headed to the beach to view some of the fireworks and pyromaniacs. It was pretty cool except the girls we were with were definitely the party type which didn't bode well with my reserved nature and hangover. I went to be bed at 9pm! Crazy!!

Cambodia day 2

Fuck I don't think I got the job. When it comes down to it, I just don't think they wanted someone as inexperienced as I was. Half way through the interview I just wanted to crawl through the iPad I was using, break open the barrier of formal communication, and just tell them "hey, I don't have much practical experience, but I really want to learn this stuff so just give me a chance to show you". Ah well, you win none ya lose some.

When matt woke up we went to the Russian markets. It was a very interesting experience side stepping gutted fish to find clothing and jewlery stores. After about an hour and a half the smell forced us out. Sadly my mission to find a beer opening thumb ring (which by the way takes about 5 minutes to describe to the locals) remains unaccomplished.

After the markerts we decided we were feeling too happy so we went to the genocide museum to somber up. In hindsight we should have knocked off the killing fields and the genocide museum in one day. The brutal description of torture and baby killing for 2 days in a row seemed to suck the life out of Matt. Tuk tuk drivers pestering us with an emotionless 'you go killing fields now?' Seemed to cripple Matt's mindset further because of how they seems to be selling their culture for a $4 ride.

UPDATE:
Just heard about the news in Paris. Such a tragedy. I reckon it's tempting for journalists and historians to write about Pol Pot and members of ISIS and say that they were just radicalized, fucked up individuals. And whilst I'm sure that's true, I really want to have a deeper understanding behind the mindset of these people. Maybe when I get back I might do an online course in Modern History.

Later on that evening we met up with the Dutch girls again and an Italian bloke. We decided to walk to the night markets via the grand palace together. The markets were nice. There was a limited selection of clothing but an almost unlimited amount of deep fried insects to eat. I triumphed over my fear of cockroaches and snakes by eating them.

We finally tuk a tuk tuk back to the hostel to play some drinking games. I met a lot of British and Canadian backpackers there. I got drunk and went clubbing with them later that night. Never again. I got home so plastered that my Sweedish roommates told me I was staring at the ladder up to my top bunkbed for close to 20 minutes trying to figure out how to climb up without falling over.

Cambodia day 1

Fuck I'm so tired. Waking up at 4am for a flight is no easy task. When we arrived in Phnom Penh we immediately tried haggling with the locals to drive us to our hostel for a discount price - no luck.

I think 'tuk tuk' means hello here because so many locals were shouting that phrase at us. I didn't want to be rude so I shouted 'tuk tuk' back to them and kept walking. Learning a new language is awesome.

We arrived too early to check into our hostel, but too late to get drunk with the drunk British backpackers. Instead we ran into a girl called Lottie and the 3 of us travelled to the killing fields together (not the best social activity, I know).

The killing fields were really eye opening. I wish I did more research behind Pol Pot before I showed up; that way I could get a glimpse into the 'rational' behind his genocidal purge. It's crazy to think that he only resigned from prime minister in 1979 (11 years before I was born!)

Our tuk tuk driver sneakily drove us back to our hostel via a shooting range; no doubt he would get commission in some way or another. We considered shooting ak47's into the air after seeing the killing fields a little culturally insensitive so we decided to just head home instead. We were very conscious that disappointing locals with a huge stockpile of guns and rocket launchers could turn into a huge mistake so we apologized profusely and then sped off into the distance.

When we got back we devoured a beer and some street food. Yum! I really like the beer here, but no local tells me what it's called, they just say its 'Cambodian beer'.

For dinner we met up with a bunch of British and Dutch people from the hostel. The food was great, the company was nice and the beer was Cambodian.

Sadly I decided not to partake in the party that was happening in the hostel that night. I had to wake up at 6:30 am to have a Skype interview for a job I applied for several weeks back. I better get this job!!

Malaysia day 3

Fuck today is my last day in Malaysia! As soon as I woke up I waddled on down to Matt's hostel so we could go to Batu Caves together. The caves were much better than we expected. Monkeys littered the giant staircase to the cave, and inside there were hundreds of bads flying aimlessly around in circles. The view was amazing too! If it wasn't for the sound of drilling in the nearby vacinity, the experience would have been very tranquil. We also did a paid tour which was brilliantly done. We learned about the history of the cave, the formation of the cave and the numerous species of  insects too. On the way back, I stopped by a small shop to buy water. My immediate suspicion about the missing plastic wrapper around the lid of the bottle was worsened when I tasted dust, coconuts and cigarette tar in the water.

My parents kindly invited Matt and I to an awesome Japanese farewell dinner. Thanks mum and dad for meeting with me for the first part of my journey, and for buying heaps of stuff for me :) I'll cya in Brisbane !

Well, I've got a 4am start tomorrow! Time to fly to Cambodia! Lego!

Malaysia day 2

Fuck Malaysia is humid. Even with an industry scale airconditioner, plently of water and light clothes I still felt like I was melting to the bed.

I woke up extremely early (damn jetlag!!) And helped myself to my parents collection of fruit, croissants (still not sure if I'm spelling that right), and cerial.

I walked over to Matt's hostel at 10am and immediately caught the monorail to Sentral to see the Diwali Indian Festival. It was good but extremely small. There were only 3 tents and a handful of tourists walking around. The best part was getting street food and a large tiger beer. A good morning start!

Matt and I raced to the cinema to meet my parents and a few family friends to watch the new James Bond film. The film was predictably crap, but the seats were amazing.

Afterwards we all went out to an Indian place to enjoy some curry. Delicious!

After watching the movie, catching Taxis and eating food in fine restaurants I felt like I needed to immerse myself in Malaysian culture so I decided to walk back home through the broken streets and overcrowded bars. Strangely, Malaysia is reminding me a lot of Dubai; not because of the fancy cars or first class atmosphere, but because of the large overpowering malls. Sadly, it gives this amazing city a strong artificial aura.

Malaysia day 1

So this is it. I'm writing my first blog post out of many that will summarize my Asia trip. Because I haven't written anything for a long time I've probably lost any talent for reporting things that happen in my life with any sense of proportion. Thats right, my writing skills that once could have been personified as a sleek and calm hunter clutching a rifle, now more closely resemble a hyperactive toddler running wildly wielding an oversized butterfly net. But despite my obvious illiteracy disability, I'll still try my best to write this thing. here goes.

Fuck. I've got glass in my foot. I must have stepped on a small shard of glass last night when I emptied the rubbish. I didn't notice it at the time, but now its really starting to bug me. I have asked the air hostesses if they have a first aid kit; and amazingly they said they didn't. Air Asia, oh how I missed you.  Ironically though, I reckon if I exaggerated the size of glass in my foot every hostess would have felt compelled to 'disarm' me. On a separate note, I went to the same hostess to ask her for water. She said she didn't have any and pressed me to buy a $7 bottle instead with a patronizng endnote "we also accept American dollars if you've ran out of Australian currency". At that moment the inner Sherlock Holmes in me discovered a kettle of boiling water, a small bucket of ice and a pile of disposable plastic cups. I asked her to do the hokey pokey with them and she reluctantly compiled. USA! USA! USA!

Sadly due to a series of delays I arrived too late in the evening to go looking around KL. None the less, I met up with my parents and Matt Gates and had a good ol' fashioned catch up. Tomorrow is when the adventure starts. Can't wait.