Sun Inns Lagoon Bandar Sunway Petaling Jaya

Getting everything packed up and sold in those two short weeks had been no easy feat. We had been working more or less straight through, but by the time to leave came, we thought we were in pretty good shape: we'd shipped seven huge boxes (about 150 kilos) of clothes and miscellaneous stuff (which would arrive in three... or six months!), we'd divested ourselves of loads of things we'd accumulated over the years, and we had pared it all down to ...

... into a dissonant symphony.

The caves themselves were not particularly exciting but the location and religious serenity provided a relaxing respite from the inevitably noisy city centre,

The early evening was spent ambling through the Chowkit markets, a delicious peanut and corn pancake providing the necessary sustenance to see me through to the next morning and the departure to Bangkok...

... happy to discard pieces of coconut they've finished with, even if they are quite high up and there could be tourists below!!!
My first view of the famous Petronas Towers will live with me for the rest of my life. We took a tube to inside the building, walked out and our guide (a friendly petite Malay woman) told us NOT to look behind us. We walked a fair way away from the tower, and the urge to look behind was very tempting. At ...

... for the next two nights. We dumped our stuff, paid for our rooms, waited
out some rain, then took off in search of delicious, tasty, strawberries.
Walking back up the main stretch of town on the main road, mainly to find
another main road to some main strawberry farms, we searched out a decent
strawberry vendor. We came to a great stand with really good jams, dried
strawberries, and delicious ice cream. The vendor was a little shy, but we
Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia tstiles

... and she seemed very nice. Mr. Baskar told us to come back at 10AM the next morning so we could go over stuff with Mr. Cheh, a trustee of the center. This week, we would mostly be hanging out in the center to get a sense of how things work and getting to know the kids. I came back to my room, unpacked, and took a shower. My shower consists of a hose with only cold running water, a bucket, and a thingy to pour water on myself, but man, it felt ...

... section, but sure enough when we turned around there they were again, hovering over us, staring. It was hilarious; we couldn't shake them, no matter what we did. We stayed out shopping and eating till almost 1am, then it was time to go back to the hotel to write this blog. Tomorrow we're waking up early to go see the Petronas Twin Towers, and some more shopping, then we're off to Singapore to catch a flight to take us to Sydney to go meet up with Jeff and Julie!

... mosi nets here! Supper on the beach was an amazing fish barbacue - delicious. The beaches were beautiful and the water crystal clear and we went on a snorkelling trip. We also took a canoe up and down the beach managing to return it just before the heavens opened. Moved by water taxi to the big island for a couple of days, no roads on these islands at all, and stayed in a beachside room with a balcony overlooking the sea.

After an early ...

The start of the Chinese New Year celebrations. Popcorn fireworks going off all night. In the evening, we went to a huge temple in KL, got a massive fistful of joss sticks, and ran from room to room praying and placing joss sticks before various different statues/idols. This one: long ...

... only M$60). Some kinds cost up to M$300! The fifth course was onion and chicken neck ... it was crunchy! Can you believe it? And the onions and peppers were HOT! Anyway, sixth course was mini-octopus (which is great fun to eat. It's really brunchy and the tentacles stick out at all odd angles) and squid (too rubbery). I was promised this was the last course, by this time I wasn't eating, I was just tasting. Anyway, a seventh course arrived: squirrel ...

Went swimming at Royal Commonwealth Society. Poured rain but fun to swim in the rain (without lightning, anyway). The play went okay. We scored 62, for second place. First place scored 66. Thought they were better (much, actually) so all was for the best.