Shopping in Malaysia, Loving Vietnam, and Crazy Cambodia

Well, it has been quite a whirlwind of activity since we left Bali last week. (I have no pictures for you at the moment because we decided to take a side trip to Cambodia and we do not have all of our camera cords with us). Anyway, as I last mentioned, we were on our way to Vietnam with a one day stop over in Malaysia...

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia pretty late in the evening and headed straight to our hotel in the China Town District, which was literaly smack-dab in the middle of crazy, chaotic China Town. We dropped off our things and headed into the street to see what kinds of fun goods we could get our hands on. This place had every kind of "designer" brand you could think of: Lacoste, Channel, Gucci, Burberry, Rolex, Tiffany's, etc. If you stopped to check out an item, or if your eyes lingered for one second too long then you would have to make a run for it or else you might be stuck all night long. All of the vendors promised they were giving you, "Very cheap price, My best price for you, I give you sale price, etc." It was pretty crazy, but super fun.

Since we only had one full day in Malaysia we spent most of our time around the China town area. We had some yummy spring rolls and roast duck with plum sauce for lunch and then headed to the famous Petronas Twin Towns, while doing a bit more site seeing along the way. We threw in a bit more shopping, ate a delicious dinner of Indian Chicken Tika Masala with Garlic Naan, had lots of tropical fruit (you can buy yummy, fresh, cold fruit sold on the street that is already prepared for you and ready to enjoy)and headed to bed since we had to leave for Vietnam at 4 a.m.

Vietnam was AMAZING! I almost cried when we left because it felt like my second home. We stayed in an amazing town by the name of Hoi An. There was alot of French architecture so it made the town seem very European, it also helped that there was a delicious bakery that had the best chocolate croissant that I have ever eaten!

The people in Vietnam are GREAT! Everyone was so friendly and wanted to talk and talk. We met some neat people too, which is part of the reason that traveling is so fun. One Vietnamese woman, whose name was Tam and owned a little restaurant by the name of Tam's pub, told us all about her life during the war. I think she was around 12 years old when she was taken in by American soldiers and worked for them in the American compounds. She said that she loved the Americans. Even to this day she has soldiers who come back and visit her, pretty cool. Anyway, she said that she used to cook for the soldiers and do whatever else they needed help with. Apparently there were times when they would be driving from place to place and fighting would break out...she said they would throw her under the jeep where she would be safe and she would watch the fighting from there. She had some pretty crazy stories and we felt like we could have talked to her for hours.

A little more on Hoi An...they are a town with about 500 tailor shops, literaly, it's crazy! So needless to say, we decided to get some things made :-) Brian got some suits, pants, and business shirts, and I had 2 jackets and 2 dresses made. It is SO fun to have things custom made for you. I don't want to buy anything from a store ever again. The tailor shop we had our things made at was called Blue and we loved the 3 ladies (Tam Tam was the owner) that worked there...I think they loved us too. We spent alot of time together with them and multiple fittings to make sure that everything was perfect. They even bought us a bag of fruit (mangos, these massive, yummy grapefruit, and some sort of small oranges) when it was time for us to go. Another thing about Hoi An is that it is just 3km from the from the ocean, so it was a quick and easy bike ride or motorbike ride to China Beach. The water in Vietnam was insanely warm...warmer than Hawaii water, which was quite suprising. Anyway, I could have spent weeks in Hoi An. It was such a fun, but relaxing town. I highly recommend it!

And now, we are in Cambodia! We decided a few days ago to make the trek here, and a trek it was!!! It took us 24 hours to get here from Vietnam, but I'm glad we did it. I'm also glad we made it here safely because we had to endure the longest 2 hour drive I have ever taken in my life. The taxi ride from the border of Cambodia to the town of Siem Reap (where we are staying) was probably the craziest, scariest thing I have ever done. Words cannot describe the insanity, but i'm pretty sure we got video of it so that you can experience it yourself.

So the reason we came to Cambodia in the first place was to visit the Temples of Angkor, which were built during the 12th century. We spent most of the day today traveling to and exploring the different temples. They were quite the site to see and we got some really awesome pictures. I can't wait to post some so that you can see what we have seen. It's getting late and we have to be up early tomorrow to begin our journey through Cambodia and into Thailand. Continue to keep us in your prayers.

Au Revoir!