Western OZ

We were looking through our pictures clearing our memory cards and realized we never blogged Western Australia, so we figured we would throw some pics on there cause we enjoyed it a lot. We did mail about half of the photos home, so the pictures from Aunt Pats B-day bash are not there (sorry mom).

This is Perth from Kings Park. It was a lovely spot for a picnic. We stayed in Perth for about a week, recovering from our fast paced journey so far. We needed a break, and that week in Perth with everyone was brilliant.

Andrew and Emma let us borrow one of their cars and we made our way south to the wine region of Margaret River. We stopped at several wineries and stayed in the area for 3 days, unfortunately (for you), that time was spent wine tasting... so we forgot to take pictures.



We stopped at Hamilton Bay see the sting rays that are visible from the beach. The wind was too strong and the waves were too rough to be able to see anything but the beautiful beach.



We drove down to Pemberton to see the Gloucester Tree. It was originally used by the fire fighters to see where the fires were, but now was just for tourists. It was rod iron pikes hammered into a 180ft tree. It had no safety catches, only a lookout platform at the top. We were not quite brave enough to make it up, but we did give a token picture effort.



We had thoughts about a nice Valentines day in a hotel, but due to lack of planning and supplies we made due at a camp site at Windy Harbour with butter and jelly sandwiches, an orange and chips for dinner. The town at the end of the long long road to Windy Harbour was a little odd and reminded us of a horror movie setup. The guy walking around with the axe didn't help the "cozy" atmosphere any. We made it through the night and treated ourselves to a great breakfast in a little diner in Northcliffe.





These two pictures were taken in Yallingup, just north of Margaret River. Great place for waves and some body surfing. Emma wouldn't go into the water in the top picture (because the waves were breaking right on the beach) but would swim with her newly made friends pictured behind her in the calmer waters. They wouldn't take a picture with her so that's why she looks so grim. (Tony was making fun because I was swimming at the beach with the old people).




The Fremantle Prison is the Oldest Prison in Western Australia and housed a lot of bread and carrot thieves in the old days. Before its closure about 20 years ago (or something like that) they gave a lot of the known artist in the prison paint and brushes and told them to paint freely knowing that 6 months after the closure the prison would be turned into museum and tourist spot. It was the most colorful prison we have seen.


Aunt Pat, Uncle Tim, Nam, Tony and I made a day of at the prison, the Little Creatures Brewery and walking around Fremantle. This is us at the harbour in Fremantle.


"Lucy in the sky with diamonds", This is Lucy. The product of Emma and Andrew. She was adorable and so well mannered we barely knew she was there. My favorite roomie since leaving on the trip, Jay-Kay Tony's the best. Hahahaha. We both need sleep right now, we are laughing at nothing.

So cute.

Malaysia

The first real stop in Malaysia, besides transit towns, was Melaka. This is the "square" which tourists congregated to take pictures, dodge vender's, and ride in flowered rik-shaws. We did the first two of those. We liked Melaka for its friendly, historical atmosphere. It was also from here we found out that we could hop over to Indonesia... so we did thanks to Nora and Nathan who loured us over .


A month later, we are back in Malaysia, Penang. This is one of the few picture we took of our time here... it was a bit of a culture shock coming back from Indonesia to tourist central that is Georgetown (and we were not sure we were feeling it). We stayed too long here and the only thing we really enjoyed was the food, which was amazing. It was here where we also saw our second dead tourist. We did try to do some sight seeing, but it just wasn't working out for us, so we saw a couple movies instead....we know how sad that is.
Lovers lane was home to many "lady boy" bars. We went from Penang, which is an island on the west coast, straight across to the Perhentians Islands on the east coast in time for Emma's B-day.

Our little oasis was Mira beach, which had only one resort...which wasn't really a resort as apposed to huts/bungalows. It was amazingly quiet and relaxing. The snorkeling was amazing, with reef sharks, turtles, stingrays (which were green with brilliant blue spots), tons of fish and a wide variety of coral. We had a nice trek to other beaches for food and mango shakes. At night it was card games and thoughts of beer.



This is our little bungalow, which was in the shade allowing us to sleep in as late as we wanted.


This is probably the best picture we have taken underwater so far... so it had to go on the site.


We made regular excursions from our beach in search of better food. We took a boat over to the big island and found an amazing little restaurant that had the most amazing mango shakes! This is one of the beaches from the big island called turtle bay. We saw two turtles here.


These little buggers littered the trails at night and were hell if stepped on. Three heads and six sets of pincher's were pulled out with tweezers from Emma's foot. Apparently they are used for some kind of ceremony where the people put their hands in a glove full of them. From experience we can say that that would hurt like... a mo fo.

We moved from the Perhentians towards Tamen Negara national park. We spent three days trekking in search of wild life. We trekked 7 hours into the jungle to a hide where we spent the night. Unfortunately, there was a thunder storm and 6 loud people at the hide as well.

The first day at the park we did the Canopy walk, which was cool, very high and a little sketchy.


On our long trek out to the hide we saw numerous droppings from the elephants and a couple footprints... we were very excited.


Just when we were about to give up on finding the river crossing (having heard numerous streams that we were hoping was it) we arrived. We were informed that there was a raft for the crossing, but as you can see, there was no raft.



This is the only "wildlife" we saw for our three days effort.

We headed to Kuala Lumpur where we pissed about in the city for a while. We saw the Batu Caves temple which was interesting. The steps were numerous and the day hot. Inside the cave was cooler and filled with Hindu statues and monkeys.

This Mosque reminded us of "Its a small world" because it was light up with tons of little lights and surrounded by water. It was a very pretty sight.

We went to the national mosque, but found the restrooms outside it more entertaining.

We loved the Petronas Towers. They were unlike anything we have seen, and we went almost every night to see them light up.

The free trip up to the sky bridge was well worth it. The view of the city was great and the air conditioning wonderful.

Overview:

So we made it back to Malaysia after our side track adventure in Sumatra and realized that the peninsula was going to be our first SE Asia round-about. We left from the south and returned from the north and just had to find out about the creamy filling. We discovered the magic of Chicken and Rice for breakfast in Penang, the crystal waters of the Perhentian Islands, the leach tracks of Tamen Negara National Park and the organized chaos that is Kuala Lumpur. From crazy bus drivers to the tranquil train rides, Malaysia really has everything to offer weary traveler. We met and traveled with some really amazing people. Daniel (again), Moroline, Pat, Dieter, Gavin, Hana and Tessa thanks for the smiles and the motivation to keep walking to Coral Bay for the great roti canai! Malaysia was kind to us and we enjoyed being here. Stay tuned for Thailand.