so sayeth the girl with the lucky face

Last week, I flew to Bangkok.  It was a medical adventure, one in which I was told in no uncertain terms that if I needed serious, or extended medical attention, the rolling plains and majestic mountains of America would be graced with my presence much earlier than intended- essentially, I would have been medically separated and become a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer.

Luckily, thankfully, and all of the other adverbs that indicate how fortunate and grateful I am, it turns out I am basically fine.  There were a couple of touch and go hours, a very long four day wait for some test results, and then the best news possible, if not not-entirely conclusive news.

But all is well that ends well, and this all seems to have ended well.  I have some more serious reflections from the experience, but today, since it's Friday, let's focus on the fun and slightly more gratifying aspects of my recent endeavor, shall we?

The trip began with a nearly empty bus ride (see above picture.)  In the jittery evening before I left, I channeled my feelings of lack-of-control-ness into a desire to do something.  So I cut  myself some bangs.  And then I spent the bus ride trying not to worry about all the what-ifs of the upcoming hospital visit, and, as a study in narcissism, took a bunch of photos of myself.  But, mostly, I did this the whole ride:

But there were a lot of happy, hilarious and delicious things that happened while in Bangkok.  No matter how stress-inducing it all was, there are always a myriad of small little happenings that make life so grand, right?

To begin with, let's take the airline I was flown on.  Known as a boutique airline, it meant I got a full meal and, even better, free wine.  Some red wine was just what I needed on that flight!

I was also graced with a taxi driver who didn't use meter, got a bit lost, and then charged me far less than I had expected and wished me good luck at the hospital as he dropped me off.  So sweet.

And then I was greeted by this:

And there was a bathtub. A legit bathtub.  I took my first bath in nearly two years.

(Not my first bathe, people. I clean myself regularly.  Basically.)

Despite being there for other reasons, I found immense joy in my spacious room with industrial strength air conditioning, huge window and comfy bed.

One of my first days there, I was walking from my hotel to the hospital's food mezzanine across the street when I heard a man yell to me "Miss! Miss! You are very lucky, did you know that?"

When that happens, and you're a female, alone, I think it's a natural reaction to kind of lower your head and walk a bit faster.  But then I remembered I was surrounded by dozens of other people, and besides, he was saying something kind!

So I looked up (continuing to walk briskly, though, just in case), and replied "Me? No, I didn't know it! Thank you."

He then said "Yes, I can see it, in the aura around you.  Your face is very lucky, and I can see it.  You will have good luck this month."

Which is just so sweet, when you think about it.  Here I was all alone, a bit worried about medical type things, and a man just wants to tell me I've got good things coming.  He might be nuts, but, darn it, I'm choosing to believe him.  This is my month!

And it must have been luck, because not long after that, these were in my possession:

And while a good portion of the trip was a lesson in hurry-up-and-wait, I spent those waiting hours enjoying the natural light while inside somewhere with delicious air conditioning and yummy treats.

That would be a second caramel macchiato, this time with ice, and a blurry shot of my delicious pad thai.

There were long walks along bustling roads in Bangkok, a fantastic trip to a grocery store that could have easily been Safeway back home, baths galore, and kind people who recognized me after I tread the same path to my hotel, and food court, and back again for days in a row.

And on and on the sweet, small joys went until all was well, and I was inside this guy's taxi, heading to the airport to head home.



And he was the most hilarious taxi driver ever.  We were caught in some atrocious Bangkok traffic (I left ages before my flight just for this reason), and he would spend those long breaks with his seat lounging back.  When we'd get a path, he'd shoot up, and push that gas so fast we'd pulse forward with such rapidity of movement everything hanging from his rearview mirror would swing with such force I swear it was all about to take off and fly.

The best was when we came over a small hill so quickly that it knocked everything stashed in his visor over his head and trapped it all between his back and his seat.  He paused for a minute, we both laughed, and I fished the papers, CDs, and other items out as best as I could without actually inappropriately touching him.

And when I touched down in Cambodia, I had the most wonderful conversation with the man who drove me to my hotel in Phnom Penh, and I was reminded how far things come in a short time when we understood each other completely for the entire thirty minute conversation.

And my lucky face and I rest a bit easier, now.

Cheers, all! Happy May!

the ultimate city: kuala lumpur, malaysia and all of its wonderfilled wonders

It's a sure sign of how very American-treat filled our time in Kuala Lumpur was when the very first picture from this final leg of our adventure features my very first caramel macchiato in two years.

But day-am.  It was so good. I simply reveled inside that sweet, warm liquid for a solid thirty minutes.

Which sounds semi-sexual.

Which it kind of was?

And then we were doing this:

I have basically one thing to say about this trip. Toph and I have taken dozens of adventures together- giant, huge ones (like four weeks straight trekking across the largest landmass in he world), and tiny, blip-like ones (like day adventures to the town where we were married)- and we are pretty damn good at managing all that comes with adventuring.  We know when the other is about to lose their shit because the said other is hungry, or their feet hurt, or they are sick of the company.

We also know some things can never be predicted.  Like, for example, transportation.

And man, did transportation and all of its glorious possible hang ups follow us around this trip.  As in, nearly every single transportation system was met with some sort of frustration.  A cost ten times what every travel website said.  A non-existent option that we had been told was in existence not five minutes beforehand.

Or, a gigantic thunderstorm just as we approached Kuala Lumpur from the Cameron Highlands, that had us and dozens of others waiting out the taxi drivers and their waiting out the rain.

Which mainly looked like a good two hours waiting in a line, with Chris getting increasingly frustrated, until we finally hopped on the subway/skytrain, which we should have done all along, it seems?

And I won't tell you about the tiniest hotel room ever imagined that we ended up in that night.  Seriously, so small that there was room for one person to stand- the other had to be inside the bathroom (standing room only, as well) or on the bed.

But we slept well, and got a bit of late start the next day, so it must have been a nice bed, anyway.

Despite our grandest intentions, our first stop was lunch (so, you know how 'early' we woke up.)  And after his grandest intentions, Chris relented and we ended up doing this:

Outback steakhouse.  Which was, honestly...

TOTALLY WORTH IT.

And sadly, after months of rice, and small spoonfuls of food on top of giant bowls of rice, and no money to buy a lot of food, we reached this point:

We could not finish it.  It was honestly, sort of devastating and elating?  Because, I'm not so silly (much, anymore) as to stuff myself so full that I couldn't walk.

(But, I wanted to.  If I'm being honest.)

And walk we did.

Our destination? These bad boys:

The Petronas Towers.  At one point in time, the tallest buildings in the world.

Honestly, an amazing feat of steel and glass.  It was incredibly difficult to get a good photo of the entire building in one shot.  Trying to do so with a person was nearly impossible.  But we tried- we're nothing if not stubborn.

After getting nice and sweaty in the heat, we walked back through one of the air-conditioned, indoor walkways that are scattered throughout KL:

And ended up in a real, live, giant MALL.

We didn't plan on it but we had to take advantage of it.  So, we did.

In my case, that meant entertaining myself with a (Chris') camera while he went to get me a surprise:

Said surprise? A chocolate shake!

After languishing away in the mall for an hour or so, we traversed to our originally planned next stop: the National Mosque.

Initially, we arrived smack dab in the middle of a period of time wherein non-muslim tourists are not allowed to enter.  So we chilled and took in the scenery until we could don our appropriate clothing and enter.

We had never been inside of a mosque before, though we've visited many a Christian churches, dozens of Buddhist temples, and a smattering of synagogues.  It was really interesting to see the open space where they worship Allah, and hear about the emphasis placed on each member's ability to commune directly with the higher power, with no need for an intermediary.  Thus, there are no images of God/a god anywhere in the mosque, as this would directly contradict their belief in speaking directly to him/her/it, and would represent a false idol worship.

After taking in the mosque, we headed back to the mall for a very American evening: dinner (chicken nuggets) and a movie (Oblivion with Tom Cruise)!

Afterwards, we wandered through the walkways, pausing to take in the Petronas Towers at night:

and capture the amazing comfort of air conditioned paths one more time:

before ending up back where we started: our hotel and its street, famous for the late night food that becomes available:

We settled in for a good sleep, and drifted off.

The next morning, we packed our bags, got some Subway, and headed back to the KL airport for our return flight.

We had some remaining Malaysian money, and had to find something to spend it on.  So, of course, I coerced Chris into this:

I don't think either of were prepared to end one of the best trips we've had.  We loved experiencing what felt like the best of the ocean, mountains, and cities throughout Thailand and Malaysia.

But we were also excited to head back to Cambodia for the next adventure: the rituals and traditions of Khmer New Year with our host family.

So we took our seats and our requisite picture:

And landed in Phnom Penh a short couple of hours later.  Cambodia welcomed us back with a relatively cool evening, and then a magnificent rainstorm that left us and our unlucky tuk tuk driver completely and utterly soaked by them time we pulled up to our house later that evening.

We dried off, unpacked, and fell right back into our daily routines in the 'bode.  And all was well.

the mountains: where to go to be cold and happy in malaysia

After the beaches of Thailand, it was time to hop on a plane to Malaysia.  I absolutely love the old-timey (i.e. low budget) way of walking out to the plane here in Asia.  Topher and I tried to capture us and our plane (I mean, how often do you get the chance), to mixed results.  This was the best of the both us (and features the ladder, so you know how that went...), though I got this great one of Chris alone:

We took our requisite flying-in-a-plane photo:

And a few hours later, we landed in Kuala Lumpur and partook in something that we swore wouldn't appeal us... until it did.

Which, by the way, fries really aren't worth it? They weren't especially hot, which I think made a difference.  We were glad we split the fries and soda, to say the least.  But that Big Mac- with its special sauce (code for, basically, fry sauce)- was exactly what we needed.

After that little calorie-laden break, we hopped into the nicest bus we've seen in two years:

...and proceeded to relax into the hour long journey into the middle of town.

After hitting Sentral station in KL, we found a train for our next destination: Ipho, the gateway to the Cameron Highlands (or so they say.)

Again, we were enthralled with the cleanliness and comfort of the public transportation.

Once in Ipho (not a gateway, in fact, but a detour.  But, a pleasant stop nonetheless), we went in search of food.  After finding many a restaurants closed for the evening (we suspect it had something to do with it being Sunday?!), we stumbled into this giant outdoor cafeteria type place serving Chinese food staples and what seemed to be a Malaysian specialty- fish head curry.

Let's Rock, as the 'restaurant' is called, gave us some truly delicious fish head curry.  For less than ten bucks, we ate to our heart's content (I was so FULL) and enjoyed one another's company.

The next day we hopped on a bus to make it to our long awaited destination of the Cameron Highlands.  It was a trip to feel the air outside get colder and colder to our touch via the windows.

Once we arrived, we both quickly slipped into long sleeves, and sought out a warm drink.

Tanah Rata, the middle of 3 small towns nestled in the mountains of the area called the Cameron Highlands, was picturesque.  Almost like a quaint Bavarian village, in the middle of Southern Asia.

While we wandered around the small town that first evening, we stumbled across a leather worker.  We had recently learned that a third wedding anniversary's traditional 'gift' is leather.  So, we bought each other super awesome leather bracelets.  You'll be able to see Chris' choice clearly in an upcoming picture in this post, and mine in a later post detailing our final stop.  Ten bucks if you guess now which one I chose...

After dropping a relatively small amount of money on our gifts, we settled in for some more hot drinks, and a few good hours of card playing.

The next day, waking up chilly and happy, we spent our morning visiting some of the touristy yet beautiful farms in the area.  First up was a "Rose Garden" that was actually full of dozens of varieties of flowers.

Don't forget to stop and smell the roses...

And pose in a myriad of other somewhat hilarious, somewhat ludicrous ways with the roses...

These looks like dirigible plums to me...

Friends, I was seriously cold. I was mad I let Topher talk me into not bringing my jeans.

After the rose garden, and a couple dozen too many photos, we traversed to a bee farm.  It was a terraced garden full of small wooden boxes which housed the beehives.  We arrived early enough in the morning that the majority of the bees were not yet awake, so our trek through their homeland was full of ease.

After purchasing some honey for our host family and friends back in our province, we jumped off to our next stop: the Boh Tea Plantation.  A fully functioning tea plantation, started in the early 1900's, owned by a Scottish family, and worked by Malaysians.  I had mixed feelings about all that, but it was truly beautiful...

And I gained a huge appreciation for the hard work and taste of tea while in the Highlands...

That's me, just sipping some vanilla something-or-other tea.

After bypassing the next stop of a butterfly farm (we were various 'farms'-ed out by then), we ventured to a small strawberry field...

And provided some delicious nourishment, if not inappropriate nourishment for eleven in the morning.

Those strawberries were damn good, and enjoyed in the comfort of our cozy bed later that day.

Chock full of strawberry sugars, we made our final stop: a Buddhist temple.  We were most impressed with a wall covered in ceramic images of the Buddha that extended from floors to rafters.

We went to bed content that evening.

Our final day in the Cameron Highlands, Chris took advantage of our afternoon bus to spend the morning hiking a beautiful area around Tanah Rata town...

...while I stayed cozied at our guesthouse, reading and drinking endless cups of tea.  Though when I saw these photos, I was a bit sad that I missed the sight. Until I remembered Chris' mud-covered bum after his return, and this tales of various falls and slips throughout the hike...

That afternoon, we headed into the final leg of our trip- the bustling town of Kuala Lumpur.  Coming soon, to a blog feed near you!