We enjoyed seeing all the animals, but I think our favorite part of the park was the giant ball that we played king of the mountain on. We also loved the slides that had large bumps in the middle of them that would bounce you up in the air and often throw you off your tube. I think water parks might be more fun in other countries that have fewer restrictions.

They also have an eco park with lots of animals that visitors can feed and play with. We really liked the monkeys that were jumping all over the park trying to grab food.

Alan took the day off of work so we could visit a place called Bukit Merah, which is kind of like an amusement park for Malaysians. They have an island where they are conserving and breeding orangutans. The orangutans were so cute, especially the little babies in diapers.

After all our hiking, we decided to treat ourselves to a foot spa. Alan’s friends at work had told him about a place where fish will eat the dead skin off your feet and leave them looking clean and refreshed. Our feet definitely could use a bit of help after trekking though the jungles of SE Asia for a month, so we decided to try it out. They begin by having you wash your legs and feet. Then you put them in a tank with hundreds of Garra Rufa fish. The little fish start nibbling the skin right away. At first it tickled a lot, and we were laughing our heads off. After awhile, you get use to the feeling and it begins to feel more like little electrical shocks. We let the fish eat the dead skin off our feet for forty minutes, and our feet did feel smoother and cleaner when we were finished. After our foot spa, we shared an ice kachung, which is a beautiful dessert if you look at it from a distance. However, ice Kachung means ice bean, and the multi colored dessert is actually made with shaved ice and topped peas, corn, and beans. We asked to replace the kachung with fruit.

Today Sonja and I hiked Penang hill, the highest peak in Penang. We were told that we needed to hike with something to keep away the wild dogs and monkeys, so we brought an umbrella. We never had to use it, but we did have a monkey that jumped out of the bushes at us and scared us. The hike was beautiful, especially the view from the top. Sonja decided to follow tradition by throwing up about an hour into the hike. After that, she insisted that she felt better and refused to turn back.

Alan got off work early today, and they took me parasailing. I had never done it before, but I loved it, especially the take off. It is such an incredible feeling to start flying up in the air. At one point, they slowed the boat down so it seemd like I was going to land in the water. Then as my feet hit the water, they took off again. Here is a little video of my not so graceful landing.

Then we went to a Young Men and Young Women’s activity at the church. They made gift bags and practiced their skits for the pioneer day celebration on Saturday. I also learned that my name means "ask" in Malay.

Our first morning in Malaysia we went out to some markets, and I bought spices to make Indian food. Then we went out to an island called Poulau Jerek. The island is referred to as the Alcatraz of Malaysia because it use to have a prison on it. We didn’t have a lot of time, so we walked around and tried out the suspension bridge and did a zip line, which was a lot of fun.

All the advertisements and signs for Malaysia have the slogan "Malaysia Truly Asia." However, I actually feel like I have left Asia and returned to civilization. Sonja and Alan have a beautiful apartment on the beach, and I have been enjoying warm showers, a washer and dryer, good food, and air conditioning. I have actually been very cold here because I’m not use to air conditioning, and I have to go to the bathroom a lot because I’m not sweating as much.

After our hike, we went back to Alan and Sonja’s apartment, and Alan told me to walk around their reflexology path. It is an innocent looking path with lots of rocks poking out of it, and I thought it would be easy to quickly walk around it. As I started around the path, it wasn’t painful at all, but when I was about half way around, it suddenly started to hurt. I had to hold on to the rail to take some of the pressure off my feet. I loved the sign next to the path. It cautioned users not to spend more than 30 minutes on the path (I don’t know how they could.) and to avoid getting in water afterward. Well, I certainly didn’t stay on the path more than a half hour, but we went swimming right after.

The next morning we showered and put on our best clothes, so we wouldn’t scare Alan when he picked us up from the airport in Penang. We went to the airport with the same driver that took us to the ruins. I believe he had a small crush on Sonja. He was always smiling at her and touching her, and he made sure to tell her to come back soon. Although we had showered and were wearing our best clothes, no one seemed to want to sit by us on the plane to Kuala Lumpar. A couple of people sat down next to us and then got up and left. Then the same thing happened on our flight from Kuala Lumpar to Penang. When Alan picked us up from the airport, he said that we didn’t smell, but he told us that we looked like hippie backpackers. When we arrived at Sonja and Alan’s apartment, we threw our luggage in our rooms and headed out to hike Bookit Jambal. The hike was really pretty, and I enjoyed the fun exercise equipment on the top of the hill.

One of my goals for this trip was to try a fried spider, so we spent our last day in Siem Reap wandering around the market looking for fried spiders. However, we weren’t able to find any spiders. I don’t know where they went. They had huge buckets full of spiders last year. Since we weren’t able to eat a spider, we decided that we would spend some time meditating with the monks at Wat Bo. There were fliers around our guesthouse that said the monks would teach tourists how to meditate. We walked out to the temple and heard several monks chanting, but we didn’t know if it was really appropriate to just walk in and join them, so we just took a picture and spent the rest of the evening at the Blue Pumpkin and packing for Malaysia.

When we got back from the temple, we ate chips and salsa, and then we showered and rested. That evening we walked in the rain to market and then had dinner at one of the street stalls. As we were heading out of our guesthouse, several little boys were running down the road with leaves over their heads. They were so cute.

Temple Ruins

We woke up this morning at 4:30, so we could see the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the temple ruins. They are amazing. Sonja and I had a good time speculating what use to take place in each of the temples. We thought we came up with some pretty good hypotheses and are considering writing our own guidebook.

When we returned to the city that evening, we walked around trying to find the bus station. We asked several people where the bus station was and everyone told us that they didn’t know and that we should take the boat to Siem Reap because the roads are very bad. We thought it was a little suspicious that no one knew where the bus station was and that none of the guest houses advertised bus tickets to Siem Reap. We were suddenly curious about whether the road was actually as bad as everyone said or whether there was some conspiracy in the city to get everyone to take the boat. We finally found the bus station and purchased our tickets for the next morning. The first couple of hours of the ride was very smooth. Then we hit a dirt road with lots of potholes, and the bus suddenly starting shaking and bouncing all over the place. After a little while the bus had to pull over so about 20 people could throw up. I get motion sick very easy, so I was quite proud of myself for not needing to join the crowd. I just closed my eyes and tried to fall asleep. Sonja was amazing! She read a book the entire way without getting sick. I’m not sure how she did it. Overall, I thought this bus ride was more pleasant than our ride to Battambang without air conditioning or windows that open. When we arrived in Siem Reap we found a cheap guest house and arranged for a driver to take us around the ruins in the morning. Then we spent the rest of the evening at the Blue Pumpkin sharing a smoothie and using the internet.

Our last stop on the trip was at the bamboo train. The locals use the old train tracks and make their own cars out of bamboo and wheels to transport people and goods between villages. We were amazed that the little bamboo contraption could move between 30 and 35 miles per hour. As we were cruising through the countryside on the train, I felt like a windshield being plastered with insects. I was very careful not to open my mouth, but a couple of things definitely went up my nose.

Next we visited a temple that has hundreds of fruit bats that live in a tree. Our guides told us that they live in the temple trees because the monks protect them. They also told us that we could try fried bat at the market in the city. We never saw the fried bats at the market, but we weren’t too disappointed.

We also visited the ruins of an 11^th century Hindu temple. However, in order to see the temple you have to hike 358 steps. I told my driver that I would race him to the top, but he said he was too tired to climb at all. On the way to the top, little children follow the tourists and fan them in hopes that they will receive a tip.

Our first stop on our trip was at a hill with a Buddhist temple on the top. As we hiked up the hill, we stopped to visit a killing cave that was used by the Khmer Rouge. We also saw old bunkers and cannons that were randomly located on the hill. My driver gave us an interesting lecture about the history of Cambodia, and then we walked around the temple.

We started our adventure at six in the morning, and we had a great time with our drivers. My driver’s name was Kim. He had grown up in a refugee camp in Thailand, and he loved to talk and would ask for my opinion about many things. For example, he asked if I believed that he could get a girlfriend if he brought a gift to the large statue in the front of the city and prayed to it. I told him that I wasn’t sure, but I did believe in the power of prayer. He also asked what I thought about smoking and drinking alcohol and if he could make good money working as a sales clerk in the states. He was a lot of fun to talk to. I also loved riding through the countryside and learning about rice production. As we were riding around, my driver would quiz me on the various fruit trees in the region. He also asked if we wanted to plant some rice, which we did. However, we told us that we would have to spend the rest of the day muddy because there weren’t any waterfalls or rivers near to clean up in.

After church we took the local bus to Battambang. The bus was supposed to be air conditioned, but the air didn’t work. The outside temperature was in the 90s, and the bus felt like a sauna with a mixture of body odor and fish scent that permeated the air. I just sat with my eyes closed for the first hour of the ride and wondered how I was going to survive six hours. After we took a break and I got some fresh air, I felt much better. Toward the end of our ride, it started to rain and the bus cooled off a little bit. Then the driver turned on some Cambodian music videos to entertain us for the rest of the trip. That night Sonja and I agreed to let some drivers to take us around the province of Battambang on their motorcycles the next day. Then we laughed about the fact that we had just arranged for some random men to take us out into the middle of nowhere on their motorbikes.

As we walked to church on Sunday, we had a hard time getting down the streets because they were blocked off by hundreds of cars and motorbikes that were campaigning for the elections this month. It seems like the majority of the people are not satisfied with their current leaders and want change, but the elections are controlled by the current party so they keep getting reelected.

We went to the Olympic Stadium early this morning to watch the red fan dancers. One of Sonja’s goals for our trip was to learn the red fan dance, so we were excited when one of the dancers asked us if we wanted to join them. I’m not sure if it was our white skin, exercise clothes, or awkward movements that made us stick out, but whatever it was, we weren’t allowed to participate with the group for more than a couple of minutes. We were quickly moved to a smaller group, or the remedial group. We spent about twenty minutes learning several graceful hand movements, and Sonja and I kept getting in trouble when we watched the red fan dancers instead of our instructor. Although we never had the opportunity to dance with fans or swords (we didn’t quite make it to that skill level), we had a lot of fun dancing with the locals, and they definitely want us to return tomorrow to try again. The next morning we returned to the stadium to try dancing again. We did a lot of warm up exercises with the group, and then we were quickly moved the smaller group again to practice our hand movements. Although we were better than the day before, we still weren’t allowed to dance with the fans or swords. Of course, they did let Sonja purchase a couple of fans.

After visiting the killing fields, our driver dropped us off at the Russian Market. I decided to buy a few more shirts, so I will have clean clothes to wear when I get to Malaysia. When we got back to our guesthouse, we were very hot and tired. We had our traditional lunch of sautéed vegetables and an omelet. Then Sonja took a nap while I walked around the city.

I woke up early this morning and went to the track to run. It felt good to finally run again, but I am definitely out of shape. I was dripping with sweat when I finished, so I cleaned up, and then we went to the killing fields which our located just south of Phnom Penh. This is the place where the Khmer Rouge massacred the prisoners from the Toul Sleng Prison. They have already uncovered 129 mass graves, but there is still a huge section of land that hasn’t been investigated yet.

The next morning we went to the track around 6:30 and walked around for a little bit. It was so hot, so we decided to walk to the Russian Market before it got any hotter. I don’t think Sonja enjoyed the walk in the heat, but I love walking through the streets and seeing all the interesting things that are happening in the city. Sonja described Phnom Penh as the dirtiest, stickiest city we have visited. I think she’s right, but I still enjoy it. At the market, we bought a few souvenirs for our families, and each of us bought new shorts and shirts that we are so excited to wear. My other shirts are starting to get holes in them and stretched out from all the hand washing. Our clothes, in general, have a permanent scent of rose soap (which I think I might be allergic to since I keep getting a rash when I use it) and body odor. It will be wonderful to finally wear something that is really clean. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching the news and reading in our room.