We've had a delay in our schedule, and have a couple days unexpected day in Kota Kinabalu. Amy's not feeling well, so we're kicking back here for a while and getting some rest before we go moutain climbing.

Kota Kinabalu has been a surprisingly interesting city to hang around in. It's the capital in the Sabah province in Malaysian Boreno. On the whole I've been really impressed with Malaysia. Malaysia reminds me a bit of Hong Kong, except a little less prosperous, and a little less crowded. Otherwise, I feel very comfortable here - much less alien and uncomfortable as, say, Thailand or especially Cambodia. Like HK, there's a veritable cornucopia of different stores, restauraunts, and everything else you need around. Additionally, there are endless stores selling gadgets, electronics, and pirated CD's, VCD's, and video games (They're already selling VCD's of Star Wars Episode II).

The people here are very friendly and very lively. People here are predominantly Malay (unlike KL which seems to have a more balanced mix), but there are still enough Chinese and Indians around to give the population diversity. The Chinese are especially represented in the shops around. It's cool to be a Chinese-American here, because I fit right in (especially that I look a little less clean-cut after two weeks of travel*). It's definitly a different experience to be in essentially an alien environment, but to be able to drift around invisibly. This is helped by the fact that there don't seem to be that many Western tourists in Malaysian Borneo. In the hotel register, we're the only people who aren't Malaysian - at shops and restauraunts, the locals are surpised that I don't speak Malay.

One interesting thing I've noticed, is that people here absolutely love to watch WWF wrestling. They have it playing everywhere. At night, the restauraunt below our hotel spills out into the street and turns into a theater where you can hear WWF booming out into the night. I'm not quite sure I understand it, but it's very interesting.

Tomorrow we're going to try to visit the Sunday market in town and catch a (legitimate) showing of either Star Wars Episode II or Spiderman.

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* "Fish and tourists start to smell after three days" - Benjamin Franklin

I'm back in Malaysia now. Cambodia was a great experience and I'm glad I went, but it's a bit of a relief to be back in a country that's more developed - less people trying to rip you off, and less worry about getting sick from what you're eating.

We spent all of Thursday exploring the rest of the ruins. We've been getting all our information from this guidebook that I bought from one of the local people, and it's been very rich in detail both in explaining the temples and ruins we've been visiting, and also in explaining the geography, culture, people, and religion surrounding the sites. It's been a very worthwhile expereince - and just some really cool stuff - akin to visiting the roman ruins in rome, or the buddhist ruins in Thailand, but with much more mystique since it's in the middle of the jungle, and in some cases, overrun with vegetation.

Today was an all-day travel day. We woke up at 6, took a plane from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, then flew to KL, then flew to the city of Kota Kinabalu on the Malaysian half of the island of Borneo (Indonesia owns the other half). Flying in, I got to see the beautiful mountains that make up a good part of the island with a backdrop of a purple sunset (yes - the sunsets in this part of the world is purple - really cool). We're going to climb Mt. Kinabaru - the tallest peak in SE asia, either today or tomorrow.

Amy ate something bad yesterday, and is a bit under the weather. I bought some medicine for her, and will bring it back after writing this. She'll be okay though - it's part of the experience - I'm just waiting my turn...
Hey, anyone who wants to give me a shoutout (via my cell phone in Asia): http://www.voicestream.com/messagecenter/, use my cell phone number.

Sapient is being replaced on the S&P500 by a toilet company. doh! It would be funnier had i not accidently set a bunch of buy triggers at... oh, about $3.

Now Daniel is poor poor poor.

Phi Phi Island was, again, a blast. I went rock climbing - it was much easier this time around (than last November) - a blast as usual. Amy also went climbing - I'm so proud of her!! She was mighty terrified at first, but by the end of the day, she had finished a 5.8 route with no difficulty. Yay - Go Amy! Besides climbing, we also went snorkling, and hung out a lot on the beach.

After Phi Phi Island, we flew back to Kuala Lumpur (KL) for a night. The hotel we stayed in was smack in the middle of Chinatown, which was awesome, because we went out at midnight, and right down the street were all these food hakwker stalls serving all the yummy Chinese food you can imagine. We sat down and had some Lamb Satay and a big bowl of yummy Pei Dan Sau Yuk Jook (Rice Porridge with pork and egg).

The next day early in the morning we flew out to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. We spent the day exploring around Phnom Penh. We first visited the Killing Fields, one of the largest and most notorious Khmer Rouge "extermination" camps, and on the way back in the city, visited one of the more notorious "interrogation" centers - sometimes known as the Auschwitz of Cambodia. Very chilling... very scarry. I'm shocked at how little I know of the history of Cambodia, and I'm shocked how unaware I was that something this horrible happened so recently.

On the way back, we stopped at a marketplace along with two friends from Singapore we had met along the way. We sat down at a hawker stand, had some noodles, and then walked around the city until we got back to the hotel...

Yesterday, we took a 8 hour boat ride that took us from Phnom Penh, up through the heart of Cambodia, and into Siem Reap - the acccess point into Angor Wat. We spent half the day yesterday, and all day today exploring the ruins around Angkor.

Cambodia has been a rich experience. I've seen both evidence of one of the worst modern atrocities, and also the ruins of one of the grandest civilizations that existed at its time. Cambodia is a poor, backwards country that is just now beginning to enter the modern world. It hasn't been comfortable or pleasant, but it's very much worth experiencing.