Malaysia - Days 6-9

WEDNESDAY

• Melaka (an old Spanish-settled town)
• Sunway (a big mall)

We had fun visiting a more historic town called Melaka. It was more of a sightseeing day, so here's some of the sights we saw.

Eating Indian food like the natives ... all they give you is a banana leaf for your food. Then you just use your fingers to dig in. BUT, you can't let your left hand touch the food at all, it's all the right. Apparently because you wipe with your left hand .... Anyway, it was a good experience.

THURSDAY:

• Deerworld
• Elephant Park

It was fun to go out to Kuala Gandha today and see a small, definitely 3rd world village, and the wildlife there. We heard about this elephant park where you get to feed, ride and swim with the elephants all FOR FREE!! Awesome. The catch is, only the first 120 people get yellow tickets and everyone else gets red ones (yet another proof that red is the lose), which only includes feeding the elephants. Of course we wanted the yellow ticket, so we got there at 9:00 am, the listed opening time of the park for picking up tickets, but as Malaysia has proven time and time again, they're not the most efficient, organized or punctual people. So, we were given several strange looks and told that we were very early. Haha. At least we got the tickets :) We planned on seeing a park called Deer World that probably only exists for people like us who get to the elephant park early.

When we got to Deer World at 9:45, what did we find? It doesn't open until 10:30. Hmm ... Preston was hungry so we went to find food at a little shack there, but they didn't even have their pot for cooking there for the day yet, so the options were limited to one item, Nasi Lemak. It wasn't too bad, but the strange red sauce made your tongue numb.

Entering Deerworld there was a for real sign that read "enter at own risk." Comforting in a place with bears, snakes, deer, etc. But, the park itself was worth the wait and the "risk." It was very hands-on and we even got to pet the bear while he was distracted by his food. Here's some of the wildlife.

The elephants were by far the highlight of the day! There were some little fuzzy babies on up to the big giant ones that could probably squash me with a foot. It was incredibly not strict as far as interacting with the elephants goes, which was really quite fun. Some highlights were the elephant mistaking Brayden's toes for peanuts, the elephant trying to find the piece of fruit is saw in my hands but sucking on Brayden's head instead, Brayden grabbing his head trying to figure out what was happening to him, getting wet after a hot day in the sun, Grandy spoiling Brayden with her frozen lime bar which had the effect of excited eating followed by crying from cold and back to excited eating! While we were swimming with the elephants, I brought Brayden in the water to cool off and he was interested in the elephant until we were walking up to it and it decided to toot it's horn and scare Brayden to death. It was very loud and even scared me so I can't blame him! You can see one of the pictures when Brayden is crying and the worker was laughing at him. Sweet boy.

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Brayden sad, worker happy

Ooh ... soft. Well, actually not really.

Built in snorkel

Kim taking Brayden out of the water after he got scared

Elephants=awesome

All wet & Happy

I like the grass roof in the background

... Crying from the cold ...

... back to excited eating

One home in the area

Close up on the cute kids in the home.

It was a good, memorable day in Malaysia!

FRIDAY

• Penang

We drove 3 hours each way to go here, so we didn't have much time to sightsee. We still had a good time though. We hit the beach, spice gardens, and a Buddhist temple. The beach was part of a gulf and the water was WARM! It was beautiful. The spice gardens were also fun, but there weren't any guides available so it was more looking at different spices and reading any plaques they had. There's a great video that Kim & Trip got. It goes something like this:

Preston: "Oh look, this plant's called Buddha's belly. Rub Buddha's belly for good luck!"(while he rubs the plant)

Trip: "Oh good... (While reading the sign) ... all parts of this plant are poisonous."

Preston: "My hand is stinging!"

Don't worry, there were hoses everywhere so Preston washed his hand off and was just fine. Still a great video.

SATURDAY

• Lunch at the Renner's
  
• Gold Class Movie

The Renner's are some family friends and also happen to be the Branch president's family. They are awesome and we had a lot of fun over great food. They have a pet monkey, which unfortunately is the only thing that made it into our pictures. I also have a video, but I don't have my camera cord with me. Hopefully I'll put it up eventually, but quite honestly, I'm not so sure. The video was basically the little monkey stealing Brayden's bottle and drinking it. we did it twice rigged after it happened for real once. The third time, the monkey got his teeth through the bottle nipple, so we're now down one. Small sacrifices for great memories. :D

In Malaysia they have normal movies and "Gold Class" movies. The Gold Class only sits 30 people and has sets of two huge, fully-reclining lazy boys next to each other with a table in the middle. You can order food, snacks, drinks, blankets, etc. and they just come deliver it to you. We didn't find out until after that you have to pay for the popcorn and drink :) oops. (Thanks Dad!) We saw Toy Story 3 and Brayden loved it! He watched at least half of it and would get so excited at certain parts. Haha. It was a good movie for all. It was the most comfortable seating EVER too. It costs about the same as a movie in the US too!! We should really rethink our theatres :)