Malaysia/Singapore

Of the many reasons that we have enjoyed this year (more time for hanging out together, interesting research, mangoes, no Chicago winter, the banjo) one of the most pleasant has been my research mentor's suggestion that we explore this unique and beautiful part of the world. With that in mind our tour of South-East Asia rolled on to Malaysia and Singapore during a holiday last week.

We began the trip in Kuala Lumpur, then headed south through Melaka, and finally to Singapore, so the overabundance of pictures will roughly follow in that order.


Probably not the best view of the Kuala Lumpur skyline, but this is what it looked like from our hotel room. The Petronas Towers (which just recently slipped to the second tallest building(s) in the world) are on the right.

They kind of look like corn cobs to me

One of the greatest parts of Malaysia is that not only do they have 'mother's rooms' but so-called 'family lounges' in all of the major buildings. So while Maisy ate in a private nursing cubicle (complete with lazy boy), I played a quick game of skee-ball.


They have a free ranging aviary in Kuala Lumpur full of all kinds of exotic birds that roam freely throughout the park. Dianna and Maisy loved this....

...while I was less convinced. This little guy descended out of nowhere to attack. Thereafter I could not get rid of him, which Maisy and Dianna thought was a riot. To add insult to injury it is illegal to throw rocks at the birds, so I was left defenseless against the parakeet version of Bruce Lee. Dianna says he was just trying to be friendly, but it is my understanding that healthy relationships do not involve the indiscriminate use of one's talons.

Thean Hou Buddhist Temple. Chinese New Year was still ongoing, so things were pretty festive: fireworks, parades, a group of teenagers running around in a Dragon costume. You know, the usual.

The 272 stairs behind us lead up to Batu caves, a religious shrine to the deity whose statue is also pictured here. Maisy climbed 145 of the steps by herself.

The caves from the inside.

Batu caves were inhabited by a gang of ruffian monkeys. As karma would have it one of them tried to wrestle Dianna's shoulder bag away from her, presumably because of the sour cream and onion chips she had just deposited inside. To Maisy this was the funniest thing she had witnessed since the infamous bird assault.

Downtown Kuala Lumpur. Rumor has it that this is the Supreme Court building.

After a couple of days in the big city we headed South to a historic coastal town called Melaka. During different time periods Dutch, English and Portuguese settlers all left their mark on the city. The Odells in turn left their mark on the city when Maisy climbed into the fountain on their main city square (pictured behind us).

Islam is the primary religion of Malaysia, so it was interesting for Dianna and I to witness firsthand some of the things we had learned about in the Islam class we took together as undergraduates.

The Melaka river at dusk

South of Melaka there is a small island called Palau Besar located five kilometers off shore. It boasts beautiful and deserted beaches. Getting to the beaches was a little bit of an adventure, but it was a pleasant time once we arrived.

Possibly because they are a little bit hard to get to (and possibly because it was a monday afternoon and most people are gainfully employed) the beaches were completely empty. For hours we didn't see another soul.

This proved to be our last day in Malaysia. The next morning we took a bus further south to Singapore. Singapore was like something out of a sci-fi movie to me: there was no garbage or grafitti, no apparent slums, the trains ran eerily on time, and even all of our Singapore dollars looked like they had just come straight from the mint (or wherever bills come from). It was an interesting and odd little Utopia that took some time to grow on us...



...on the other hand Carl's Jr. was just as amazing in Singapore as in Logan, or anywhere else. We also consumed an amount of saturated fat in one sitting equal to the previous year.

Orangutans at the famed Singapore zoo.

Maisy and her new friend checking out the baboons in the Ethiopian village exhibit.

This group of Chinese tourists was fascinated with Maisy. Picture taken at the 'synthetic' beach on Sentosa island (Singapore's Orlando). Rumor has it all the beautiful white sand is trucked in on a regular basis.

By whatever means the sand got there, it did provide beautiful beaches