*A pedestrianized street in Kuala Lumpur, where old colonial buildings are dwarfed by modern skyscrapers.*

Monkey See, Monkey Batu

Jenne Raub May 29, 2015

Well, I finally figured out how to get photos up on here, which I'm sure comes as a huge relief for those of you who like pictures and hate words. Oh, who like words but prefer them intermingled with images to look at. I've been running into all kinds of issues with blogging solely via Squarespace's app, which has been one of the reasons for the delay in having more imagery on here (the other reason: laziness). Anyhoo!

I took the bus from Malacca to Kuala Lumpur on Monday on the oldest, creakiest bus I've ever been on (and I've been on some old, creaky buses in Romania and Hungary, so that's saying something). Thankfully, the bus held together for the four-hour journey. We pulled into the southern bus station, which is quite a distance from the city center of Kuala Lumpur and looks like it was lifted from the sketches for a sci-fi film's space station. It was a mammoth, brand-new structure of glass and metal, rising up out of the ground with steep on-ramps going every which way; all that was missing was spaceships zooming in and out. Just as we got near the bus station, rain started that was the most torrential downpour I've ever witnessed. I thought the entire bus station might be swept away in a flash flood. Instead, I tried to figure out how I would get into Kuala Lumpur without wiping out wearing my flip flops on slippery tiles. I wandered around for a while and finally figured out that I needed a commuter train so I headed off via an overpass at a snail's pace. Going down the four flights of stairs to the station entrance, I was going step by step like an elderly woman, gripping on the handrail, for fear of my flip flops giving way. Two teenage girls clad in jeans, long-sleeved shirts and their headdresses came behind me on the stairs and watched me in horror as one of my shoes gave way and I ended up in the splits at the top of the stairs, trying to not lose my balance and topple all the way down (side note: if you think walking down slippery stairs wearing your giant backpack is an exercise in balance, try squatting to pee!).

How I Did Singapore

Jenne Raub May 26, 2015

Ah, Singapore. Everyone told me how boring and expensive you were, and I found you to be neither. (Well, OK, you are a bit expensive. I'm just clearly brainwashed from living in The Most Expensive City Ever, aka San Francisco.)

I arrived on a flight to The Most Beautiful Airport in the World, aka Changi International on a flight on The World's Best Airline (Singapore Air) from Hanoi. Can I just take a minute here to talk about one thing that upsets me (yes, only one right now) and that is how basically every airport in the WORLD is nicer than JFK. Here we have people arriving from all over the planet, many of them for the very first time to visit the United States, land of the free and the brave, one of the richest and most powerful nations in the world, and our introduction to the U.S. is: "It sucks here." Yes, there are some terminals at JFK that are nicer than others, but when I flew to NYC last January, I arrived at Terminal 7, wandered through rundown dirty hallways trying to find a bathroom before waiting on the absurdly cold, absurdly unsheltered LIRR platform to head into the city. Everything looks like it hasn't been cleaned since the '70s, although the big bathroom was closed for cleaning. I finally found another tiny bathroom past baggage claim that had two toilets blocked off for cleaning, surly airport worker ladies shouting at everyone and each other, all manner of toilet paper and other trash all over the floor, and of course a queue of women waiting to use the one available toilet. One German woman came out of the lone toilet with a look of fear in her eyes and I wanted to say, "Yes, I feel you. I have been to the airports at Hamburg and Munich and Frankfurt. I get it. It will be OK. The rest of the country isn't like this. Just the subway. And the streets of New York City before trash day. But I promise, it gets better. Kind of."

A Month in Vietnam: What I Liked, What I Didn't

Jenne Raub May 26, 2015

Without planning it, I ended up spending almost a month in Vietnam during this little trip o' mine. It could just be spending $60 on the visa made me determined (initially) to get the most out of it. And I'm (mostly) glad I did, although towards the end I could have sped things up a bit and headed on to Singapore sooner. I also could have shaved off nights in Ho Chi Minh City and Hoi An to make the whole trip a bit more compact.

*Women in a trishaw in Malacca, Malaysia*

Magical Malacca

Jenne Raub May 24, 2015

A better name for this blog might be "The Lazy Backpacker" because it would certainly describe my amazing ability to sightsee at a snail's pace and somehow idle away a day wandering around not "accomplishing" very much. I guess that is the joy of extended travel, you can go at a really different pace than when you're trying to cram everything in in less than two weeks. At the beginning of this trip, once the jetlag subsided, I was definitely trying to do and see lots (or feeling guilty if I didn't); now I seem to be very content with eating a late breakfast, wandering around for a while, retreating out of the sun for an hour or two to relax, then venturing back out for dinner, making my way back to my hotel once it's gotten dark out. (Unless I'm actually out with other people. Which has happened at least once or twice on this trip. I promise I am not a total antisocial loner all of the time. Just most of it.)

Monkey See, Monkey Batu

How I Did Singapore

A Month in Vietnam: What I Liked, What I Didn't

Magical Malacca

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