Monsoon!

I'm pretty sure I'd float away if I tried walking back to my guesthouse right now, so I suppose I'll add a blog entry as well... it was quite a nice day out until about 2 pm, then the thunderstorms rolled in.  Ah well.  Monsoons, you know.

Monsoon!

Yesterday I successfully figured out kuala lumpur's light rail system and got myself out to the airport, where I caught a flight east to kota kinabalu (KK), on the island of borneo (borneo is split up between three different countries - indonesia, malaysia, and brunei).  I was forced to eat at mcdonald's at the KL airport, as it was the only restaurant open in the domestic terminal... something about being ten thousand miles from home and eating at mcdonald's, I don't know.  I was hungry so it didn't matter.  The funny thing was that prices were only slightly cheaper than in the us (a little over $3 for a combo meal), which is really kind of expensive...

The bad news for today is that my mountain climbing expedition to Mount Kinabalu isn't going to happen.  Apparently it's a far more popular climb than I was led to believe, and all the accomodation is booked months in advance (they won't let you camp).  That's what I get for listening to my guidebook, I suppose.

Guidebooks are funny things.  It's really kind of scary to see every foreigner walking around with their nose buried in their 'lonely planet'.  Kind of ironic that travelling is all about exploring and exposing yourself to new things, and yet everybody simply follows the advice in the book instead of checking things out on their own (I certainly don't claim to be immune to it either, I certainly check things in my guide... there are times when I get quite irritated with myself for it).  Talk about submitting to authority... the book says "Do this.  Eat here.  Sleep here." and we all nod our heads and follow along.  It's rather frightening to think just how easy is it is to give other people control of our decisions....