Days 115-118 Friday-Monday March 5-8 Sandakan, Malaysia

Let's start by saying that there's no much to do in the town of Sandakan.  It's incredibly hot.  It's a traditional Muslim town meaning that the bars are limited and the nightlife non-existant.  That being said, that's not why we came here.  We came for two reasons:  one, we wanted to see orangutans in the wild; and two, we wanted to prove the US State Department wrong, that the region was safe for Americans to travel to, no matter how close the city is located to terrorist hot spots in the southern Philippines.  We accomplished both.

Our hotel, the Swiss Inn Waterfront, was located right on the water and in the heart of town, which made for some relaxed and romantic dinners at the waterfront restaurants.  Our hotel's restaurant had hot pot night our first night, which is always good news for us after falling in love with this eating feast in China.  There are also several eateries down from our hotel that served incredible seafood and cold beer, all for especially cheap prices, amongst an open, airy environment perfect for people watching the locals.

Basically the only other thing to do in Sandakan proper is visit the Agnes Keith House, which sits atop the hill overlooking the city.  We did so, and were thrilled to enjoy the incredible views while sampling the restaurant's fine interpretations of local specialties.  We also spoke at length with a couple that was on our river boat excursion the day before.  They had traveled just as we were several years earlier, but were now just vacationing after settling into a home in Vancouver, a far cry from their homeland of London.

 Tania outside of the Agnes Keith House, looking pretty in the hat she bought in Siem Reap.

Speaking of the river trip, we booked the trip through a local hostel who sent a driver to pick us up (30 minutes late) at 9am.  Expecting a quick drive to the river, we were instead told that we had a 3.5 hour drive with two other tourists crammed into a small compact car ahead of us.  We questioned whether to go for a minute, but decided to see it through so we could see the orangutans and because there wasn't much else to do in the city.

Once we arrived at the water, we met up with 20 other tourists who jumped onto two long boats with us.  We sat in the back and took in the fresh breeze and views of proboscis monkies and all types of birds while our tour guide explained everything around us.  It really was an incredible ride which was only made better by two, very rare, sighting of orangutans in the wild.  Many people go on this same trip and don't get to see one.  Even though they were off in the distance, it was still enthralling to see the hair stand on top of their cute little heads, and their extremities that flop all over the place as they swing from tree to tree.  We felt so lucky to have seen them.

 Proboscis monkeys are so playful and curious!

On our last day, we visited the Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary, even though we had heard many negative comments about how touristy it was, and how unnatural the area was.  Well, yes, there were a ton of people at the viewing platform during the feeding, and yes, it's a confined space in which the monkeys have to live, but it's a HUGE confined space, and the monkeys get to roam quite freely in a very natural type of environment.  Plus, the huge crowd didn't detract from how exhilarating it was to see the fuzzy orange orangutans swing closer and closer to the feeding platform, and eventually swinging onto it so they could grab a few bananas from the park rangers.  The way their legs swing up next to their hands in a way that only Gumby could do is hilarious, and the expressions on their introverted little faces is like nothing else on the planet.  They truly are a precious wildlife that we as humans should strive to preserve if for no other reason than so we can laugh and giggle at their comic demeanor.  And so they don't go extinct, but not all humans care about stuff like that, so let's fight for the giggles.

An orangutan just hanging out people watching (literally, he's staring at a large group of people there to watch him).

We were skeptical at first of our time in Sandakan, but were happy that we made the effort to spend a few days here by the time we left.  It's not the sexiest destination in the world, but definitely a fulfilling stop to see a whole corner of the world that we never expected to see.

Days 112-114 Tuesday-Thursday March 2-4 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The busy day at work version

- Being on the "fringe" of town in Malaysia is like being on the outskirts of town in the US
- Lightning and rain storms in Malaysia might as well be mini-hurricanes, with lightning that blew us out of our seats one day
- Petronas is an oil company, not some historic native Malaysian name
- The cool kids call Kuala Lumpur "KL"
- The KL airport is in another city, so plan accordingly
- If you only want to see malls on your next vacation, KL is for you 


The slow day at work version

On this trip, we've come to heavily rely on travel sites like TripAdvisor and Agoda to book our rooms.  An important of these sites is their inclusion of the Google Maps API to show where hotels are located in relation to the important sites in each city.  This is crucial information since getting stuck in the wrong neighborhoods could lead to an unsafe environment and large taxi/train bills.  Knowing this, I'm still dumbfounded about why and how I chose Hotel Maluri.  Maybe because the description said it was on the "fringe" of the Golden Triangle, which was the neighborhood in which we wanted to stay, and I relied on that instead of looking on the map?  Maybe because it was the tail end of the trip and I got lazy?  Who knows, but let's just say that this hotel wasn't close to the Golden Triangle, let alone our understanding of the word "fringe."  It was too far to walk to any of the attractions, no matter who's comfort level of walking you refer to, so we had to either take a $10 cab each way or walk all the way to the train station and ride that into town.  Either way, we were in BFE compared to the mass of hotels located in the heart of town.

Oh well.  As with most things we've experienced on this trip, things happen for a reason, usually better in the long run.  It's just tough to see the positive result while nestled inside the metaphorical forest.  What we did learn is that being stuck in a neighborhood on the outskirts of town allows one to experience a completely different side of a city.  Meaning that if we had booked a hotel in the heart of KL, we never would have seen what life is like for the locals outside of the city center.  We got to ride the trains, walk amongst the outdoor eateries that permeate Malaysia, and see first-hand how Malaysians live amongst this metropolis.

Speaking of the metropolis that is KL, we got into the airport and took a 1.5 hour taxi ride from the remote airport into town.  After our driver finally found the hotel, it was too late to do much exploring, so we took the train into the Golden Triangle and explored one thing that KL is famous for...it's mega malls.  We walked around the Berjaya's Times Square's 10 floors of shops, watched the indoor roller coaster zoom by, ate at Subway (which was exactly like the American shops, not in a good way because American tastes to exactly translate internationally, leading to the stall being empty besides us), and watched The Lightning Thief (because the IMAX was showing some John Travolta movie instead of Alice in Wonderland).  What else could one want from a trip to the mall???

The next morning, we took a guided tour of the city, which we've learned is the best way to get a mental grasp of the city's layout, even though it's so touristy.  Sometimes being touristy allows one to get to know a city the best, so we booked the trip through our trusty hotel.  When our local driver finally arrived to the hotel, we drove us to pick up our fellow tourist, a well-worn woman who told our driver of Indian decent that the country of India was dirty.  That should tell you enough of this woman and why we didn't get her email address when the tour was over.

In front of the Petronas Towers with our surly tour group member.

 

At the batik factory, watching an artist create a new patern.

On the tour, we visited the presidential palace (actually, the exterior since no one was allowed past the two horses and guards at the gate), a pewter factory (where we learned how amazing pewter cubs can be to keep drinks cold), the national history museum (where we learned about how used and abused this country has been throughout time by every conquesting country, especially for tin and aluminum), a batik factory (a fabric design method famous in this region), and a chocolate factory (where we sampled everything possible until our stomachs were raw).  And of course the driver pointed to the other main attractions which we would visit on our own time the following days.

A woman in a burka outside of the Presidential Palace

The most important thing we wanted to explore while in KL was the Petronas Towers, made famous in the Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones movie "Entrapment", and which is now the tallest set of twin towers due to the loss of our towers in NYC.  Before going to the towers, though, we stopped at the KL Tower (think the Seattle Needle) and had tea in the revolving restaurant.  We talked to a nice Indian fellow who was in town on his honeymoon, but was eating alone because his wife was shopping, which is KL's most popular activity due to all of the malls.  We also watched as a tremendous storm approach the tower and eventually engulf the tower with rain and lightning.  We got a little nervous being so much higher than all other high rises in the city, but all worries were for naught because we left unscathed and walked over to the Petronas Towers just as they were allowing the last group of the day to enter the gates.

 Tania got the nerve up to lean back on the KL Tower glass over 1000 ft. in the air.

Actually, when we got to the Petronas Towers desk, the staff informed us that no more tickets were available for that day, and that the last group was already in.  (Tip:  get to the towers by 8am and get a ticket or else you're likely to not get in that day, no matter what travel sites say about getting abandoned tickets).  Yet for some reason, as we regrouped at the base of the escalator devising what to do next, one of the desk staff walked up to us and slyly handed us two lanyards and told us to quietly join the last group in line.  Without hesitation, we hurried over to the group, received a pair of 3D glasses from another staffer, and walked into a mini movie theater with the rest of the group, having no idea what was going on.  Well, for the next 7 minutes, we sat through the world's longest advertisement for Petronas, one of Asia's largest oil companies.  The video happily explained to us how environmentally thoughtful the company was, and how it did all of its drilling and mining in the best interest of the planet.  How thoughtful of them.

Inside the Petronas Tower observation deck.  Last group of the day!

Sitting through that was well worth it because after the video completed, we were shown to the elevators so we could ride up to the observation deck, approximately half way up the towers.  The views were less impressive than from the KL Tower, but it was still fascinating to be standing in the same spot where the climax of Entrapment occured.  And, you know, to be in such a fine architectual  achievement, if that's what floats your boat.

During our last day, we visited Chinatown to see for ourselves the famous (or infamous) shopping area of town.  The shopping here isn't full of luxury brands found in the Golden Triangle and Bukit Bintang.  Instead, it was full of the same chochkies and trinkets that we had seen all across this continent.  Therefore, it lost the luster that most tourists experience, and instead annoyed the hell out of us because of the overly persistent salepeople constantly in our faces.  So, we decided to walk back to BP for a nice dinner.  The timing couldn't have been any better because when we finally got to Jalan Ceylon, the strongest storm we've ever seen (which is saying a lot coming from this girl from Miami and guy from Monsoon town - aka Phoenix) rolled in.  We ran into the first pub we saw and proceeded to eat and drink in the upper balcony while watching the rain come down outside.  At one point, a lighting bolt struck just outside of the balcony unleashing the loudest thunder shock we have ever imagined.  We both jumed into the air and barely kept the food in our mouths and stomachs.  Crazy.  But the rain subsided and we headed back to the hotel to pack and get ready for our flight the next morning to Sandakan. 

Since our flight was at 8am and the airport was 1.5 hours away, we had the same taxi driver from our arrival pick us up at 3:30am and take us to the airport.  Easy, right?  Wrong.  When he dropped us off at the main terminal, we started looking for where to check-in for our Air Asia flight, which after searching for 10 minutes, an information attendant informed us that Air Asia operated our of another terminal, 30 minutes away.  As you can guess, we were far from happy about possibly being late for our flight, for having to pay another $30 on top of our original taxi fare, and that our original driver didn't have the sense to take us to the correct terminal even though he knew we were flying Air Asia.  The Italian in me was raging, but the Cuban in Tania tamed my anger and we luckily made our flight, so no harm no foul, but man did that morning suck.  So for those of you who fly Air Asia in the future, know that the reason they can charge so little for their fares is because they operate out of remote locations that are a huge pain in the ass to access, so that value fare isn't always worth it in the end.

Along with a delicious lunch at Eest in the Westin, a few beers at the Belgian Beer Bar, and some quality shopping time for Tania in which she got me some rad flip flops and a cool button down shirt, that was our time in KL.  It is striving to be the city of the future that Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore are setting the trend for, and is a must if you're trekking through the region.

Now off to Sandakan which has a travel advisory from the US State Department due to the Islamic radicals living and fighting in the region.  After a ton of consideration and research in the Internet, we decided to proceed with our travels to eastern Malaysia/Borneo so that we could see this remote corner of the region, and the attractions it  features including being able to see orangutans in the wild.

Days 110-111 Sunday-Monday February 28-March 1 Saigon, Vietnam

Knowing that they had to be up at 3am to make an early flight, Tony and Anna Marie crashed early at the Park Hyatt once we got into Saigon.  And since Tania and I decided to move our flight from Saigon to Kuala Lumpur to Tuesday so that we could enjoy one last day at the hotel, and to hang out with Steve, Lisa, and Luke a little more before we left.

Sunday night, Steve and Lisa's crew met at the 2 Lam Son bar down on the lobby level of the hotel which gave us the chance to say goodbye to all of these people who welcomed us so kindly into their scene over the last few weeks.  It also gave us the chance to spend as much time as possible with Steve and Lisa, who we were really going to miss when we left.  That's why after relaxing around the hotel and downtown area on Monday, we met them for a sushi dinner on Monday night to bid farewell to our time in Vietnam.  This being Steve and Lisa, though, we of course had to head back to their house and have a few more drinks before calling it a night.

 Steve and Lisa's crew growling at 2 Lam Son

And just like that, we were gone.  On the flight to Kuala Lumpur, we realized how long we had been in Vietnam, and how much we had done during our time there.  6 weeks passed in the blink of an eye, which was surreal because Vietnam was the reason we looked at SE Asia as a honeymoon destination in the first place.  It is where our great friends Dave, Steve, and Brian were from, which built our intrigue in the country over the last few years because of the traditions and food we were exposed to by them.  Vietnam was the heart of our trip, and it was over now, which could be a sad thought, but wasn't because we did more than we ever expected during our time here.  It was an incredible 6 weeks that we'll never, ever forget. 

Post sushi euphoria

Cảm ơn bạn Vietnam!

Days 109-110 Saturday-Sunday February 27-28 Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

Oops, forgot to post the entry from our time in Ha Long Bay before showing the video, so here's a little catch up...


Sadly, we had to check out of our heavenly room on the club floor of the Sofitel Metropol in Hanoi.  Yet as the entire time has been with my parents, we were okay with that because we knew there were more luxurious accommodations waiting for us in Ha Long Bay.  After a 4 hour drive, we came upon the coast filled with limestone karst formations jutting out of the ground, similar to what we saw in Yangshuo and the northern Vietnamese coast, but this time, the hills thwarted out of the water, not the ground.  This area is known as one of the most beautiful landscapes in all of Asia, and it didn't disappoint us.

We boarded our boat, the Ha Long Jasmine, and were escorted to our private suites which Anna Marie said were the only two on the boat.  Whether that's true or not, it was amazing to stay in such an incredible room on such a small boat.  Too bad we were only going to be on the boat for one night.

After the captain welcomed us and explained all of the obligatory safety procedures, Tony, Tania, and I jumped on a mini boat which took us to the Hang Sung Sot caves.  After a 10 minute hike which paled in comparison to our climb to the Phong Nha caves, we entered a huge system of wide open caves which were lit with neon lights, just like we had seen in other caves across Vietnam.  I slid my body through a "short cut" (aka a tight opening off the beaten path that no one is stupid enough to try and get through), Tony took-in life-like formations amongst the stalactites/mites (one rock looked just like a giant tortoise, on which people threw money for good luck), and Tania took several attempts at her "Happiness is what we all want" portion of our Vietnam video.  It was an exhilarating site trip to set foot on one of the thousands of formations that fill this famous bay.

Inside the Hang Sung Sot Caves

Some people also took a mini boat trip into another part of the bay, but the Palumbos opted to relax on the big boat and catch up on some sleep.  When dinner rolled around, we enjoyed a delicious buffet meal before the captain stood next to our table, asked the room to quiet down for a minute, and proceeded to sing a famous Vietnamese wedding song for Tania and me.  We couldn't help but shed a tear as he delicately voiced the chorus "It's okay to spend the rest of your life with me."  It was an incredible gesture that reminded us why we were on this trip in the first place.  The captain then gave us a delicious piece of cake which we shared with our table and those sitting around us, which included a very funny and gregarious couple from Ireland (Sandy and his wife).

 Sunset on the majestic Ha Long Bay

After dinner, Tony and Anna Marie taught Tania and me how to play bridge, which if you know how to play, you know that teaching it is harder than most anything on this planet.  Think teaching someone how to drive a stick, speak a new language, and hitting a baseball, all combined, and you have the complexity of trying to teach someone how to play bridge.  After a few practice rounds we played for real, and with some help, were able to grasp the general rules and strategies of the game.  Now that we have that down, we can play all the time when we're in Phoenix.  YAY!

 Our home for a day, the Ha Long Jasmine

The morning was uneventful before we docked and jumped back in our van to drive to the Hanoi airport.  On the way we stopped at some shopping centers which supposedly are filled with hand-made crafts from locals, but we were skeptical when we saw many of the same goods sold elsewhere in Vietnam and China.  They did have some decent stuff, though, so we took advantage of this final opportunity to buy gifts for people back home.

Then we were off back to Saigon so the old people could spend one last night at the Saigon Park Hyatt before flying back to the US at 4am, and so the youngins could spend two last days in Saigon with Steve and Lisa before taking off for Malaysia.

All in all, we couldn't deny the beauty of Ha Long Bay, but the hippie side of us couldn't help but notice the incredible amount of gas and trash blanketing the top layer of the water.  Since the bay is such a popular tourist attraction, the locals have populated the water with more boats than we could count, which obviously is going to soil the water beyond any natural condition.  All we could think of is that our friend Lauren Horner (Hey LB!) needed to open a Waterkeeper office here and clean this place up before it's completely ruined.

Any way, no more tangents.  We loved it up here, and if you can, try to spend a few days taking-in the awe inspiring views of Ha Long Bay.  Just try and do it with as little impact on the environment as possible.

Vietnam & Cambodia Video

Here's the video we made for our time in Vietnam and Cambodia. This stretch of the trip was extra special since we got to spend so much time with family (Tony and Anna Marie) and friends (Steve, Lisa, Luke, Hugh). 

Music is by The Temper Trap and Hot Chip.

Enjoy.


Honeymoon Phase 4 - Vietnam & Cambodia from Craig Palumbo on Vimeo.

Water puppet show in Hanoi

Here's a glimpse of the water puppet show we caught in Hanoi.  It's amazing what these artists are able to do from so far behind a curtain.  The artful tradition dates back to the 11th century, and is still one of the top attractions for those visiting Hanoi.  More info here.

Water puppet show in Hanoi from Craig Palumbo on Vimeo.

Craig finished books #4 & #5 by Mark Haddon

Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
- As unique a book I've ever read, this "murder mystery" gives the reader a sneak peak at the world through the eyes of a 16 year old boy with Asperger syndrome, a type of autism.  His condition leaves him void of understanding emotion, therefore causing him to always revert back to his logic, which he excels at, but leaves him stranded in a world of people consumed by too much emotion.  It's a fascinating look at the world through eyes we'll never use, and reminds us how powerful yet fragile developmentally disabled minds and bodies can be.

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon
- Yes, I enjoyed Mr. Haddon's writing so much that I picked up another of his books to read.  This one is a hilarious look at the classic "normal on the surface but internally chaotic" family dramas, focusing on a British family leading up to the wedding of their eldest daughter.  Haddon's capability to get inside the characters' heads and describe the situations from their unique perspectives is incredible, which makdes for a very enjoyable read, even for those who don't normally enjoy stories that ring too close to their daily lives.