More rice anyone?

We're still in Southeast Asia but had to leave Thailand and our friend Meric behind in Krabi beach 'cause a typhoon came through and made the beach no fun at all! We headed down to Malaysia, with Penang being our first stop. We slept a lot, at first. Meric just wore us out with his sightseeing energy! We did drag our lazy asses out to Penang hill on the evening of September 11th, for some quite reflection. The guy selling us tickets to get the train up there expressed his sympathy, then tried to convince us to join him and his friend at the disco that night.

The next day we were determined to do some sightseeing, and made it out to the Tropical Fruit Farm on the other side of the island. It was quite the ordeal, getting out there, then we were there, and it was just a fruit stand with a parking lot. Well, we tried two new fruits: Durian--smells and tastes like my sweaty socks! Jackfruit--better than Durian, but the wasps liked it more than I did.

We joined up with the Penang Hash that evening, and met a hasher, Fruit, who worked at the Fruit Farm and saw us there, but didn't know we were hashers 'cause we weren't wearing our hash shirts! The run was not so much a run, but more of a hike straight up a mountain. I had a blast, pretending to be Julia Andrews humming Climb Every Mountain. There are these huge black thorns on the palm trees. I only grabbed them a few times before I figured out what "thorns on the left" was referring to (just call me Spinefinger). I kept hearing this insect that sounds like a canyon wren, but no one could identify it for me.

I was covered in mud when I finished, but managed to get back to the start before nightfall. Edna said it only happened once where they lost a hasher in the dark and he ended up spending the night out there.

Next stop was Kuala Lumpur, where my two goals were to see the Batu Caves and run with the original Hash. The caves were a little disappointing, but the art gallary was quite random. Too bad I don't read Hindu. Since the Mother Hash is men only, we contacted the Hartamas hash. Alice picked us up and introduced us to the GM, Mafia. He set a phenomenal run where we had a view of KL from the hillside.

We hurried up to get to Malacca, as everyone kept crowing to us about how charming and fun a place it is. Well, I'm sure it is, when all the museums aren't closed for renovation! We czeched everywhere but everything except this internet cafe and the mall (that luckily has a movie theater) is closed for renovation. Malacca is going to have quite a facelift when everything is done. Well, one museum was open, the Islamic Museum. We decided we weren't that desperate for culture.

Well, some forced R&R is ok with me here in Malacca. India is just around the corner! We'll find the Malacca hash tomorrow night and download some photos for the web site. This internet cafe actually had a laptop!!!! Be sure to czech out www.crazyhappenings.com!

Love to you all!
Carla