Shah's Village Hotel Petaling Jaya

... spot to see the clash of styles and cultures.
The Monsoon hit when we were here, woh did the rain fall - the roads were like rivers in minutes, but the drainage must be good - because only shortly after the rain subsided and the flash flood water had gone.
The monsoon gave me a little respite from the heat and humidity here, out here you are sweating in less than a minute.

... was a large expansive pit, a small stream of smoggy sunlight struggling through a narrow leafy opening high above the cave floor. a disorganised troupe of monkeys climbing up the sharp, steep walls towards it.

With buddhist temples and altars built into the caves, the peaceful sound of irrythmic drums and local wind instruments joined with the screams of monkeys and seemingly lost and confused ...

Kuala Lumpar. Capital of Malaysia. Midday heat to make you sizzle but beautiful buildings to make the jaw drop.
It has been a wonderful city full of exciting experiences. A visit to Batu Caves with an ancient Hindu temple was a real highlight. There's not many caves you have to walk UP into - let alone 272 steps in the midday heat, being watchful for monkeys jumping around, eager to nibble on any food that comes there way, and more ...

... friendly and peaceful here. They had a good sense of community, lived
simple and happily, and enjoyed interacting with travellers. We were dropped
off at Father's Guest House, run by an Indian family, set atop a hill
overlooking Tanah Rata. This hostel/guest house was great! Clean, up in the
trees, no shoes inside policy, and hostels built into old army barracks left by
the British from WWII. This was one of my favorite places to stay at, and
Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia tstiles

... back to the center, and I met my roommate, Mr. Krishna. Cool thing is that he only speaks Tamil, so it’s pretty interesting trying to communicate with him. He is a physiotherapist from India who works at the center. A lot of the children cannot move at all due to whatever reasons, and physiotherapists stimulate their joints so their condition does not worsen. I also met Emily, the intern from Hong Kong. She arrived a couple of hours after I ...

... moved 5 steps forward, always hovering over you, staring at what you are doing. It happened at every single store we went in. Back home, we may be offended by this behavior, but here I think it's common. The customers here are used to it, and I think they would be offended if salespeople ignored them and didn't follow them around the store. Felicia and I would try to lose them, by diving quickly in one direction and then cutting quickly around a corner of ...

... village, this was on the King's birthday a holiday day and so the buses were running hours late and the taxi driver we asked to take us refused due to volume of traffic - so we walked - stopping for a cold drink at the 'Old Smoke House" a typical English county pub!

Next stop was the Perhentian Islands, again due to the traffic we only just made it in time to get the boat to the small island. Stayed in a shack! - we thought we had better use ...

Today was Canteen Day at school. I spent most of the time with Joan and Shirine. Lots of hamburgers. I bought nothing. Shirine and I sat in Maths class, analyzing people. Dismissed at 12:15pm or so. I had all afternoon to myself -- lovely. It poured heavily (heavily!) for almost a full hour. I understand there was a huge traffic jam when it finally let up. Mom and Dad went out after makan -- so rare to see them go somewhere together. May and I just sat around and amused ourselves.

... entirely from a giant turnip. The second course was chicken. Exotic? Well, this chicken was cooked with medicinal herbs, wrapped in eight layers of special plastic, three layers of brown paper, and then inside a mould of clay. They had to hammer it open. All this wrapping was to keep the flavour -- mmm, delicious! The third course was asparagus in a yummy sauce and covered by a wrap of chicken. Foruth was shark-fin soup. So good. This bowl was the cheap ...

... off. Found out that Phillip was born on the same day, so we're "twins" except that he's fourteen hours older (including time changes). Anyway, I didn't get home until slightly after 6pm. At 7pm, we all went to Uncle SS5 for dinner. I had quite a good time. Went to bed maybe around 11:30pm.