Sorry that I’ve been so bad about updating my blog.  When I’m running tours I go to the same place every two weeks and do the same things, so I don’t have a ton to write about.  But that’s all going to change soon. 

I gave my notice to Intrepid last month and will officially be finished with tour leading on August 4th.  (The main reasons behind this are: I can’t stand being a babysitter to a whole crew of teenagers. The lifestyle is pretty tough on me, besides not really being able to have any friends or hobbies, I have to do whatever the teenagers want to do, which is always drinking everynight.  I’m not a big drinker, so I find this part of the job really annoying.  I don’t get paid much and I don’t want to waste it all on beer in some bar in Thailand.   And really I’m just bored of the job.  I love Malaysia, but Thailand gets old fast.)

So I will be moving to Japan to do a 3 month teaching contract there starting on September 18th.  I’ll be teaching university students, but at least this time I’ll be the teacher instead of the babysitter so I’m excited about that.  Then I’ll be coming back to the US for Christmas.  Probably spending a bit of time in MN and then FL, after that who knows where in the world I’ll end up next. 

I’m going to make the most of my last 2 months in South East Asia.  I have a 8 day vacation once I finish the trip I’m currently doing, so I’ll be going to Sumatra, Indonesia.  I’m going to go see the orangutans, maybe go whitewater rafting, climb a volcano, and relax by the biggest lake in SE Asia.    After that it’s back to work for 2 weeks and then I’m going to spend about a month travelling around Myanmar (Burma) and Laos.  Then I’m thinking about indulging myslef at one of the meditation/detox places that are so popular in Thailand.  Basically you pay them a bunch of money to starve you, only drinking fruit shakes and shots of wheatgrass, you do yoga, meditation, spa treatments, and steam baths everyday.  And then after 9 days you are supposed to be totally relaxed and healthy with all of the toxins and bad things out of your system. 

I’ll try to update my blog more frequently while I’m travelling.

I feel like I’m settling into the job more, and now have a clearer picture of what life as a tour leader is really like.  Basically its totally exhausting, sometimes frustrating, and drives me crazy at times but it is also a ton of fun.   I really like not having an office, cubicle, computer, or telephone as part of the job.  But working 24 hours a day 7 days a week for 30 days in a row, is a bit insane.

I’ve already gotten to know so many cool people from around the world and have basically made friends with a lot of our local operators as well.  I get to lay on the beach, go snorkeling, horseback riding, kayaking, get tons of thai and reflexology massages, eat amazing food, and never have to clean or make a bed (in fact I’ve forgotten how.  When I stayed at Jen’s apartment a few weeks ago I tried to make the bed and sweep the floor, but couldn’t really remember how to.)

  Some days I feel like I have the best job in the world, and then others I just really want to curl up in bed and sleep, relax, read a book, or watch a movie.  I really have come to love certain places in Thailand and Malaysia.  So all in all I think that this is a pretty good job for me. 

I am a quarter of a century now. Crazy, huh?! I had a really nice birthday. The day started out with a half day tour of Kuala Lumpur with my pax. Then I got my hair cut quite short. (I had been thinking about doing it for a few weeks and decided my birthday would be a good day to get it done. I went to a place called Thomas and Guy in China Town in KL and the guy did a really good job. Now my hair is basically half way between my ears and shouders, so a lot shorter than before but great for this hot climate.) Here’s a picture:

Then I got an hour and a half massage (reflexology and oil body massage). After that it was an Indian restraunt for dinner and then Reggae Bar for drinks with my pax. (Including a flaming shot from one of my pax.) So a very fun day!

This trip is going very good so far. I have 7 (will be 8 ) pax. 2 girls from Norway, 1 girl from Switzerland, 1 guy from New Zealand, 1 Welch girl, and a British couple, so we have some nice diversity. Everyone is very cool and we all get along well.

I finished my first solo trip as a tour leader.  Yeah!  It actually went very smoothly and I had a lot of fun.  My pax (all 2 of them) were great.  They were very laid back and up for pretty much anything (except 1 of them hated Indian food, which I just can not understand).  We were able to meet up with 4 other Intrepid trips in various cities, so the guys got to socialize and have dinner/drinks with some new faces along the way. 

 Unfortunately, only 1 of my pax made it all the way from Bangkok to Singapore.  Hakon, the Norwegian guy, decided to go to Tioman Islands (in Malaysia) instead of having the last night with us in Singapore.  I think he really enjoyed the trip, but it just didn’t make any sense for him to leave Malaysia to spend 12 hours in Singapore, and then go back to Malaysia early the next morning.  Fair enough.  It’s just funny that my first trip finished with only 1 passenger!

I had 1 day off between trips, and now I have a new group starting tonight.  We are basically doing the reserve of the trip I just finished with a few different stops and cities along the way.  I can’t wait to meet my new pax!

I just got some exciting news yesterday.  It looks like starting in July I will be leading tours in Borneo as well as the tours I’m doing now.  I’m so excited!  I really wanted to go to Borneo and see the orangatans and everything else too.  Most of the trips in Borneo climb Mt Kinabalu (which is the highest mountain in Malaysia and is a very strenous hike), so I’m a bit nervous about doing that every 2 weeks.  But I’d sure get fit quickly! 

My birthday is in a few days, and I still haven’t thought of anything I really want to do.  I’ll be in Kuala Lumpar, so I might see if my pax want to go to the sky bar for a drink or something.  (It’s a posh bar on the top of one of the skyscrapers in downtown.  But I don’t really have anything nice to wear, so who knows.)  I’m sure I’ll find something fun to do!

I am in KL right now, and this training trip is going really good.  It is 1000 times more relaxed and laid back then the first training trip.  We spent a few days in the jungle in Koh Sak National Park, then had a beach break in Krabi, ate Indian food in Penang, saw strawberry farm and tea plantations in the Cameron Highlands, and now it’s the modern city of KL.  (I’ve decided that I’m definetly a city person.  Today when I was taking the subway to the Petronas Twin Towers, I realized how much I love being in big cities with so much going on a tons of things to explore and see.)

Anyways, back to my title about the “shiny” American.  When we were eating dinner in the Cameron Highlands everyone was talking about how they can tell where a person is from just by looking at them.  (I can’t.  I’m horrible at guessing people’s nationalities.  I still confuse British accents for Aussie accents sometimes.)  So I asked them how they can tell a person is American.  The answer was, “Your all shiny.”  What?  Like sweaty or something, I asked.  Nope, shiny hair and shiny teeth, and just general shiny-ness was what makes American stand out (at least that’s what my British, Irish, and Aussie travelmates all said.) 

That night we had Steamboat for dinner.  It’s sort of like a Chinese fondue.  A big bowl of spicy soup broth is put on top of a burner, and then you add raw meat, veggies, tofu, and noodles to it and wait for them to cook.  It tasted pretty good, but the thought of all that raw meat being added at different times, and then you randomly pick up a piece and hope it’s cooked sort of grossed me out.  They gave us a ton of things to put in: chicken, beef, tofu, eggs, noodles, fish cakes, crab, fish, squid, prawns, muscles, and jellyfish.  I was quite happy just eating tofu, noodles, and veg, but Scott dared me (or basically forced me) to try a jellyfish.  So of course I did.  It didn’t really taste like much, but the texture was disgusting!  It was like chewing on a piece of rubber.  It didn’t break up at all, so I basically had to swallow it whole.  That was the first and the last time I’ll be eating jellyfish!

This was a crazy/action packed week, so there are a lot of things to write about.  I took a really early morning flight from BKK to Penang, Malaysia.  (I had to get on a 4:00am shuttle out to the airport, so started the day at about 3:30am.)  My flight went smoothly.  I arrived at the Hong Ping Hotel, and met up with Rose, the tour leader I would be shadowing for the next week.  (She is a really nice girl from Austrailia. She had a lot of great advice about handling groups and how to keep them engaged and having fun through out the trip.)  We spent the afternoon talking and I went to a museum that I hadn’t had a chance to see when I was in Penang before.

I got to meet the group later that afternoon, as we were walking over to the mall to get massages.  (I had to start the new job off right, by having an amazing reflexology massage.  I will definetly be visiting them often!)  I was quite shocked by the group.  Normally Intrepid caters to younger travellers on a budget.  This group was all people in there 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s who were expecting a fancy trip, but at a rock bottom price.  (One man was constantly complaining, that the, ”People were uncivilazed!” Because they didn’t have napkins and he had to drink his beer from the bottle at a street stall.   You paid $1 for dinner, what do you expect.)  Anyways, some of them were a bit hard to please.  There was also a couple from England who were seeing impaired (so nearly blind.  She could see a bit of colors, and he could see a tiny bit).  So it was quite a challenging group!  There was one Dutch guy who was 25 years old, and had signed up for the trip through a student-youth company, so he was quite surprised when he arrived in Singapore.  It was a very excentric group, but it worked out pretty well.

Then the next day we left Malaysia and drove to Thailand.  (Yes, only about 22 hours in the country.)  We spent one night in NST (I’m not even going to try to spell it right now), and then went to Koh Samui for 3 nights.  Koh Samui was great!  It’s an island off the East coast of Thailand, and our hotel, Sandy Beach Resort was right on the beach so it was a great chill out time.  We spent most of the time swimming, going on an all day snorkeling/ boat trip, going to a Lady Boy show, and eating great Thai food.  (I also had to do a bit of work, and learn how to do accounts and stuff.  I can see that a laptop would be a great thing to have for this job.  I might need to think about getting one.)

Then it was a van, bus, ferry, bus, overnight train, and taxi.  Now I’m back in Bangkok and start my office training in 1 1/2 hours!  This is going to be a tiring, but amazing job!

I woke up really early this morning (maybe it was from the Call to Pray that was blasting from the speakers at the mosque next door to our hotel).  Anyways, I decided to explore on my own today.  Most of the stores and restraunts were closed in the morning, but I found a place serving breakfast.  And then I decided to take the local bus outside of town to Penang Hill where they have a funicular going to the top of the hill/mountian. 

The local bus was a bit of an adventure especially since I wasn’t sure which bus to take.  I ended up spending about 1 hour on the bus and transferring, because the driver thought that I would get lost if I walked the 3 blocks to the base of the mountain by myself.  Anyways, I found the funicular and went to the top of the mountian.  It was actually quite a long way to the top, and I saw a group of wild monkeys on the way up.  The view from the top was excellent!  You could see the whole city, the ocean, and the beaches. 

The bus ride back was even more interesting.  I was sitting waiting for the bus and go to talking with some of the local people there.  They were all super friendly and they spoke English really well.  (It seems like Malaysian’s are awesome at lanugages almost all of them speak Chinese, Tahi, Malaysian, and many speak English.)  I ended up waiting about 45 minutes for the bus, but the driver was nice enough to drop me off right at the door of the hotel (all for 20 cents). 

Then I went with Jane (the tour leader) and met up with everybody else at the night markets.  We had some Indian food again (it wasn’t as good as the first night) and then explored the markets for a while. 

This morning we had a good breakfast at our homestay (roti is my new favorite food) and then Azziah took us in his boat back to the mainland.  We did a little tour of Kuala Kangsa and then took a 3 hour bus ride up to northern Malaysia.  We are staying in Penang for the next 2 days.  (Penang is a island really close to shore and quite close to the Thai border.)

So after we got off the ferry, we checked into our new hotel, Hong Ping Hotel, in the Chinatown part of Georgetown.  (I think we always stay in the Chinatown parts of cities because they are quite cheap and basic. But so far all of the hotels have been pretty good, and they have all had great airconditioning which is very important!)

Rachel, Brit, Michelle, Jane, Gary, and I went to see the Blue Mansion.  It is a large house that a rich Chinese business man built in the late 1800’s all aroung the Feng Shu principles.  It was pretty cool, but the best part of the tour was the insane Malaysian woman leading it.  She said very random things, and when people asked her questions she freaked out and started screaming at them.  By the end of the tour, she had screamed or scolded nearly everybody. 

For dinner, we went to an excellent restraunt in the Little India part of town.  (Indian food is my favorite so I was in heaven.)  They didn’t have a menu, so the owner took us on a tour of the cooking areas and quickly named the 100+ dishes that they had.  They literally had every kind of Indian food imaginable, and it was all delicious! (It was also super cheap, my meal of naan bread, rice, chicken curry, a soda, and a chai was only about $2.50 USD)

Then I crashed early.  Travelling sure is tiring!

We left Kuala Lumpur in the morning and took a 4 hour bus ride to Kuala Kangsar (sp?).  From there we had to take a van and then a speedboat ride to get to our homestay, which was on a 8 acre island in the middle of a lake.  It was a really beautiful and remote location.  We were basically surronded by the jungle.  They even have wild water buffalo and monkeys on the island, and wild elephants in the jungle around it.

Our homestay was much nicer than I had imagined.  A family of 3 runs it and they were very nice, and spoke perfect English.  They own the whole island and they have 10 very small rustic cabins set up for homestays like ours.  (For these 2 nights Stef and I shared again.)

Azziah (the husband) was really informative and explained many things about the Malaysian culture and the land. Plus the wife cooked tons of delicious Malaysian food for us, so it was nice to be fully impressed in the culture.  They also have a 2 1/2 year old son who was adorable, and he loved playing soccer with Gary.

For most of the time on the island we basically just relaxed and hung out.  On the second morning Azziah took us to the village and we took a walk around while he showed us the plants they use for cooking.  Then we went on a hike to see a waterfall.  It was a bit more difficult then I had imagined.  We were climbing up a mountian in the jungle on a tiny trail.  We had to climb over big rocks, cross streams, etc while holding onto vines to keep our balance.  (We all sort of felt like Tarzan.)  By the time we got to the hot we were extremely hot and sweaty, so the freezing cold waterfall felt really good! After our trek in the jungle we had some tea and crackers at one of the villager’s houses. 

The final night, they prepared a big traditional meal for us.  We all had to dress up in sarongs, sit on the floor, and eat all of the food with our hands.  (They ushually don’t use utinsils in Malaysia.)  It was delicious food!  One funny thing, is that hosts always assume guests are “hungry but shy” so until you finish all of your food the host will keep piling more on your plate.  So it is sort of a game to see if you can eat everything quickly, and distract the host from watching you finish.  Needless to say, we were all extremly full by the end of the meal.

We spent the evenings playing a traditional Malaysian marble game and Uno, so it was a really fun time!  I think it was my favorite of the trip so far.

Today we took half day tour around the main sites of Kuala Lumpur.  We started off the day with a trip to the War Mememorial park.  It was very beautiful! 

Then we went to the Batu Caves, which are about 10 kms outside of Kuala Lumpur.  This is a cave with a Muslim shrine in it.  Every year about a million people go there and worship.  (I guess at certain times of the year people do a sort of cleansing thing where they pierce themselves with hooks and hang things off of the hooks while they walk up all the steps to the cave.) It was about 300 very steep steps up to the entrance of the cave.  It was really pretty inside, but there were lots of bats so that was a bit freaky!

After the cave, we went to a pewter factory.  It was sort of interesting, but it seemed like sort of a filler in the tour.  Then we saw the Petronas Towers. They are the tallest buildings in the world.  We just stopped quickly and took pictures (we didn’t go inside today).  Then we went to the KL Tower, which is a tall telecommunications tower where you can go to the top and see KL.  (I didn’t go up because it was a bit expensive and it was cloudy, so you wouldn’t see much.)  The final stop was the National Mosque.  We ended up getting there when there were no visiting hours, so we didn’t go inside.

After the long morning of site seeing, Brit, Rachel, Aggy, Stef, and I decided to find a pool to cool off in.  We asked the desk clerk at the hotel and he gave us directions to the public pool nearby.  We got a bit lost looking for it, but we ended up asking a highschool girl walking by and she was really happy to help us.  So we went swimming for a while.  As soon as we got back it started raining. 

Our group went out for dinner together in Chinatown, and then I browsed the markets for a bit before bedtime.

It was a fun day!