7/20 – Work Day in KK
Back to work. Lecture in the morning from Cam on Biodiversity Informatics. Also, poor Kristina – she has giardia. It’s a parasite that you get from drinking bad water. She’s been throwing up for the past three days and has dropped at least 20 pounds and has NO energy. I think she got it from the water she drank at Maliau. She was using iodine to purify her water, and according to Wikipedia, “most chemical treatment methods, including common point-of-use treatments such as iodine and chlorine dioxide, are considered unreliable in inactivating Giardi.” THANK YOU, MOM, FOR SPENDING THAT EXTRA MONEY ON AN ULTRAVIOLET WATER PURIFIER!!!!!!!
Anyway. After Cam’s lecture, I headed across the street to Borneo Books to do some research on gibbons and phasmids. It was so nice. I sat in that bookstore for 3 hours, loving their high-speed internet connection, looking through their books, getting work done, texting… it was awesome. After that I walked around the mall in search of some sort of lunch food and ended up with a delicious frozen yogurt – mango and vanilla twist. It was amazing. I came back to the hotel to finish up my phasmids project. Got a lot of work done, went and worked out in the room, took a shower, and then we all went out for some delicious Indian food! Vegetable spring rolls, vegetable korma, and naan. Mmmmmm, delicious.
Then I came back, watched a little TV, and fell asleep. Nice day!
7/21 – Last work Day!
I’m getting a little nervous about presenting to the University of Malaysia all by myself! This morning I woke up, ate some breakfast of granola in the room, then went up to the Nepenthes room to work on projects. Took a break to get some lunch with Ross. It was awesome. Went to the mall, ended up getting some cheap DVDs, frozen yogurt, and those delicious waffle sandwiches with peanut butter and chocolate. Mmmmm. Came back, worked some more. Took a break to fill out the course evaluation and watch some planet earth. Then a lecture from Marc’s cool friend Benoit on his studies of the Bornean pygmy elephant. Then we all went out to a delicious caprese, pizza, and garlic bread dinner, followed by a trip to an ice cream shop! Came back to the hotel, worked worked worked, then off to bed. Presentations tomorrow!! As Andrew would say – MEEP!!!
7/22 – AAAAAH!!! Last day!!!!!
Oh my goooossh! I can’t believe it’s over! L L L It’s so sad! I’ve come to love every single person here, I can’t believe that I’m going to be leaving half of them to go back halfway across the world L
The day started with breakfast and last-minute touchups on the class website and on our presentations. Then we left for the University of Malaysia. We had a few students and some faculty watching us present (eek!). But everyone did a GREAT job. First went pitfall team, then dragonfly team, then rotting fruit team, then drip-tip team. Then we had a nice coffee/tea/snack break, and then it was stream team, bird team, and me! I was SO nervous, but I had SO much fun going up there and talking all about my gibbons. It was great. J I got lots of applause – before and after! I think that, even though everyone was too chicken to work with me, they all give me a lot of credit, lol, they were rooting for me all along – and I even had a bunch of the students come up to me and ask me questions afterward. One lady even said she was impressed with the enthusiasm I talked with and said I was destined to be a primatologist (?). I’m really proud of how everything played out!!!! J J J
Then we all took pictures near the cliff and climbed into the bus. We went to the BEST dining place EVER for our end-of-the-course party. It was called “@mosphere,” and the whole place was orange with funky furniture, and the floor SPUN (the building was round!). We spent an hour and a half sitting in the comfy chairs sipping drinks and talking, then had dinner, then spent another hour getting certificates, talking some more, and then – surprise – dancing it out to some Michael Jackson with strobe lights! It was so much fun, it was the best ending I could have imagined.
Then we got back on the bus, came back to the hotel, and did lots of hugging and tearing up. L Some people I will see in the morning, and the Americans I’ll be travelling back with, but this was pretty much goodbye to the Southeast Asian students. It was really sad. Dita, Agri, Nuwan, Ridwan, Sreekar, Fae, Le, Bekti, MS – all these people turned out to be AMAZING, and I love and will miss them all!!!
Now it’s off to bed. Leaving on a plane to KL with the Americans tomorrow morning. Can’t wait to explore the capital of Malaysia. Home the next night!
7/23 – Fly to KL
What a fun day. We woke up, went for one last round of shopping in KK, picked up our laundry, packed, and then headed for the airport. We boarded a plane from KK to KL that left around 12:30 and got us in around 3:30. But we had to take a bus from the airport to “KL Sentral” (downtown, I’m guessing), and then we had to figure out where we were sleeping that night! We found some nice cab drivers who recommended a place called the “Star Town Inn” (our cab driver was really funny… he talked a lot and said “Aaaaah,” at the end of each sentence – like the first part of “Ah-HA!” but just the “Ah”). It was 300 ringitt for one room for two nights, which meant 75 ringitt per person, which meant around $25 a person. For two nights in a hotel right downtown in the capital of Malaysia, we thought that was pretty good!
By the time all that was taken care of, it was dinner time, and Molly was craving Indian food, so we found a good restaurant where Molly flirted with the Pakistani waiter who called Douwe “handsome boy”. It was a good time. After that we walked around the city. Wow. KL is SO DIFFERENT from KK. It’s pretty much completely Westernized. Full of malls and shops – the only thing reminding us that we were in Malaysia were the many women in burkas, and that one guy who had those poor poor captive macaques that he was letting people hold for 10 ringitt each.
Anyway. We had a nice time exploring the city and then headed to bed.
7/24 -- Explore KL & DEPART
This morning we had a nice, lazy start. We rolled out of bed around 9 and went to a delicious little café with free wireless for breakfast. Then Molly and I shopped around a bit while Douwe wrote postcards. Shopping is so much fun here because clothes are so CUTE and SO cheap, but the male venders in the market are CREEPY!! “My sweetheart, my sweetheart, I give you 10 ringitt, please don’t leave!” You gotta watch out, they’ll grab you by the wrist and legit not let go until you buy something (which is how I ended up with the ugliest 20 ringgit purse I’ve ever seen). I was really glad the two of us were sticking together. Sheesh.
When we got back, we split up. Douwe and Molly continued shopping, and Andrew and I headed to the National Mosque to be cultural. It was SOOOOOO interesting. When we first got there, it was during one of the 5 prayer times of the day, and the place was PACKED. There were shoes all OVER the place surrounding the mosque, and people washing their feet, and you could hear the prayer songs from outside. There was a big sign that said “CLOSED to non-Muslim tourists,” so we asked around and found at we could come back at 3PM. In the meantime, we went to the National Museum of Islamic Culture (or something like that), which was FASCINATING. It was SO great to learn about this religion – which was surprisingly similar to my own – and the interesting culture that comes with it.
When we could actually get into the mosque, we had to take our shoes off, and I had to wear this big purple cloak thing with a log skirt, long sleeves, and a hood to cover my hair. We went in and explored the beautiful architecture, saw some people praying, saw some homeless people taking refuge, and talked to a woman who was chatting with all the tourists as part of an Islamic Outreach thing. It was really, really interesting. I’m really glad I went.
We all met back at the hotel, took showers, then headed out to our last dinner. (McDonalds – lame, we know, but we wanted to come full circle. McDonalds was the first meal we ate in Malaysia when we first landed at the airport, so we decided to make it our last, too.) Then we walked to the Petronus towers – the third-tallest buildings in the world, after some building in Thailand and the Empire State Building.
Then we came back, finished packing up, and left for the airport! Homeward bound!
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