Adventures in Asia!

Wil, Bill, Mark, and I, traveled to Johor Bahru to ride the night train. while we were waiting for the train to depart JB, we saw the local snake charmer, he was from the Borneo jungles.

The train ride was very comfortable. we each had out own bed and were able to lay our flat on the bed.

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur at about 9 in the morning. We went directly to our hostel and checked in. From there we took a city bus down to Chinatown and shopped around, Chinatown was very cheap and extremely crowded. Food was great.

Downtown

Chinatown

From Chinatown we explored the main part of the city. We then went over to the world famous Petronas Towers. The towers were the tallest towers in the world until in 2004 the Taipei 101 towers were completed.
They were amazing. The engineering of the them and their design was marvelous.

We also saw the Petrona tower nearby. That night we went to the top observation deck on the tower. The view of the twin towers was amazing.

Twin towers from the Petrona tower nearby.

The next day we went out to the Batu caves to some world famous climbing spots. The caves were amazing, in front of the caves stood the largest Hindu statue in the world. 272 steps lead up to the caves. There were monkeys everywhere.

The Hindu Statue

One of the local monkeys

We met some other climbers in the area while we were trying to find the climbing spots. They took us to an amazing spot with all types of pitches and skill levels.

We were all able to share gear which let us climb more routes. We climbed all day until the rain came soo hard that we had to leave.

Wil Climbing

Me Climbing

Climbing up the face.

Until later, I hope you have enjoyed my pictures and stories.

Check out some more photos or our trip up to KL on this link:
http://ucsd.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2175587&l=e4708&id=3328124

Our Plane

The Thailand Group

August 23- After class we went to the Changi Airport and rode our 2 hour flight from Singapore to Phuket Thailand. We arrived and a taxi driver met us and took us across almost the entire island. We stayed at Karon Living Room. It was an extremely nice hostel. It felt like a five star hotel. We all went out to the little local downtown area, which was a five-minuet walk down the street. We hung out and talked to the locals. The place reminded me of Tijuana, Mexico. We then went back to our place.

Karon Beach Town

August 24 – We woke up late and went into the town to explore. We walked to the beach. Karon Beach. It was a really nice beach with awesome jungle making a stunning backdrop behind us. We swam and just hung out on the beach all day. We then went into town for dinner and ended up at this really nice Thai restaurant and the owner talked with us and showed us little magic tricks during our dinner. Very cool guy. We wanted to get a traditional Thai message, so he referred us to the shop next door, which his mother owned. He got us a great group rate. It was a really nice full body message. The little ladies that gave us the messages where really strong, I was really surprised.

The Beach

Dinner in Karon Beach

Message

After that we went back to the place and got ready to go into Patong beach. We rode the TukTuks. They are the names that the taxis are called. They are basically converted pickup trucks with a cover over the back. It was exciting riding in the back of the TukTuk winding through a jungle rode high above the beautiful ocean below that was lit only from the moon’s reflection.

Patong Beach

TukTuk

Aug 25, we took a tour over to PhiPhi island. It was beautiful. We took the ferry boat over to the island. On the way we circled the outlying islands of PhiPhi, which were beautiful. We saw the location where the film “The Beach” was filmed with Leonardo Decaprio. We then came around to the main front part of PhiPhi and snorkeled on a really beautiful reef right offshore. I saw some amazing sea life, colorful fish, seahorses, an eel, and a huge puffer fish. We dove for an hour and then the ferry took into the main town where we had an amazing buffet lunch. We then had some free time to spend on the island. We checked out the other side of the island which was full of huge white sandy beaches surrounded by jungle.

The amazing islands of Phi Phi

Caves on Phi Phi outer island

Snorkeling Phi Phi

Where the movie, "The Beach" was filmed with Leonardo Decaprio

Beach behind Phi Phi

Aug 26, and went on another tour. We did the James Bond island tour. The whole area around James Bond Island was amazing. The rock formations throughout the whole area where very impressive. The tour first took us to the monkey temple on mainland Thailand. There where monkeys everywhere!! The temple was impressive. The cave the temple was in was huge. There were all types of rock formations hanging from the cavern ceiling. Next, we got on a long boat and went out in the rock formation islands, which is a national park of Thailand. We stopped first to do some sea canoeing through some caves on an island.

Monkey temple.

Sea canoeing in the caves

Next we boarded the long boat and they took us to the James Bond Island. It was amazing. The formations of the rocks throughout the island were stunning. It looked just like the movie, The Man With the Golden Gun. We explored the island there for a few hours and then boarded the long boat once more. We were then taken to one of the few remaining Muslim fishing villages out in the middle of the islands in the National Park. The village was very interesting, with everyone there making either a living off fishing or visiting boats with tourists. We explored the village for a while and then headed back to the dock for the conclusion of the tour.

The view form James Bond Island

The famous James Bond Rock

Our Long Boat

We packed that night and went to Patong beach for a nice dinner and some shopping. We then went to the airport and slept in the terminal since our flight didn’t leave till the morning. It wasn’t too comfortable.

The amazing wonders of Thailand.

For some more amazing pictures check out another Thailand album that I have uploaded. Copy the link into your browser.

http://ucsd.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2169719&l=cf668&id=3328124

Sunrise in Bintam

The beautiful beach.

We left on Fri night for Bintam in Indonesia. It was about a 1hr boat ride. When we arrived we rode ina taxi for an hr and a half across small little winding roads through the jungle to get to the East Coast of the island. We first stopped at Shady Shak Hostel which was full. Our taxi dirver then got lost for awhile. He then took us to a really nice hotel that had its rooms out over the water. It was just like a postcard, amazing!

All 9 of us cramed into one room. Will and I expolored around the little town most of the night. We found this little Karoke bar run by locals that didnt speak any english. They loved us since we were from America. We hung out there for a long time. We then walked along the beach and checked out the plams trees swaying in the moonlight. We then came back and slept on the beach until the beautiful sun rose over the water infront of us and woke us up.

The next day, Wil and I rented kayaks and paddled out to the nearby deserted island. It turned out to be a much longer paddle then we expected. The island was really nice with perfect white sandy beaches and warm 85 degree water. we did some diving and saw some amazing coral reefs and colorful fish. We ran into the other group of EAP student that had left before. We had been looking for them the day before. It was funny how we ran into them in the island. We stayed ont he island all day. while we where there a huge storm come over and poured and lightning was all around us. It was a blast. We all hide in a little abandoned fisherman's hut that was on the island. We then all came back on the powerboat, instead of paddeling.

All of us on the island after the storm passed.

We got dinner at a little hut on the shore. The food was amazing, and really cheap.
Us 9 then joined up with the other group at there place which was right down the shore the whole time. It had the same layout as ours, with the rooms over the water.

This was the place.

The water below our rooms.

We hung out on the beach that night at a campfire that the locals made just for us. We had an awesome view of the millions of stars of the Southern sky.

Dinner at our place. Amazing food!

The next day, Sunday, alot of us went out to the island, while others went back to Singapore. This time Wil and I dove on the other side of the island. This side turned out to be even better then the other side. The coral was huge and there were a ton of tropical fish. we saw many sea urchins with needles as long as 18inches maybe, huge. The water was so warm that we were actually getting hot swimming around in the amazing underwater jungle.
The boat then came to pick us up just before another tropical storm stranded us on the island again.

The storm from our rooms.

The next day, Monday, the people who hadn't left just chilled at the place and played with the local monkey that lived next store. He was such a cute little guy.

We then took a crazy taxi ride across Bintam to the ferry to head back to Singapore.

Aboo the monkey

Here is a funny video of us feeding the monkey.

Check out some more pics from our amazing trip to Bintam:
Copy and paste the link below:
http://ucsd.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2165489&l=3b98f&id=3328124

Drinking Watermelon Juice at our place.

School started this week. It has been a fun first week. I was able to join some clubs and register for a scuba diving trip in Sept.
I am taking Fluid Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Intro to Cyber Crime, and a basic accounting class.
The people I have met so far have been awesome.

A tiger we saw on the Night Safari

August 5 – Jeff Reuben Jing and I went to Sentosa. It was awesome; we were way above the harbor and ships. The Island was really pretty. There were a lot of tourist traps on it, but it had some great hiking trails through the jungle all the way to the other side of the island. The beaches on the other side were really nice. The water was in the mid 80s probably, but it wasn’t that clean because of the ships and all the yards nearby. We went to the very southern most tip of Asia, which was on the end of the island.

August 7 – Went to Arab quarter with guides at 10am. We went to the Sultan Mosque where we learned about Islam and their rituals. We went to a shop where they sold religious items for Islam. We then went to another shop where we saw traditional toys from years ago. We then went on to little India where we got lunch. We experienced real Indian culture. We went to a Martial Arts studio where we saw a demonstration of the Tiger vs Eagle fighting technique. We also saw the fighting technique used with the Crease and learned the history behind the sacred swords. Then we saw a demonstration of how a Sari is tied. We then went to a Hindu temple and say some of their practices.

August 8 – We went to the Singapore Zoo at 10am.

August 9 – We went to the National Day Celebrations down at the bay front. The worker at the restaurant in Chinatown thought we where really cool, we talked to him for a long time and the food was really good. We then met with Zach’s friend from Nigeria and we went and chilled in a little café in the back streets of Little India.

August 10 – We went to the Changi village memorial and the Changi village museum, which was right by the Singapore prison. The museum was very interesting and informative of the horrible things that happened during WWII. We then went to Changi beach, which was really nice. We then came back to Boon Lay MRT station and chilled in the mall and then a lot of us watched Rush Hour 3. It was fun to watch it with a Singaporean crowd. They really where into the movie and laughed a lot.

August 11 – Today we saw everything there is to do on Sentosa Island. We did the Luge twice, saw the dolphin show, saw a 3D movie, went to the underwater fish park, and saw the nighttime water show. We then rode the cable cars back over and came home.

Tomorrow, the 13th of August, school starts.

For more pictures, i'm also posting on another site:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/surferbrown/TravelsInAsia02

Check them all out.