Singapore & Malaysia

Since everything shuts down during Chinese New Year, and it's cold in Shanghai (well, not compared to Minnesota but 30 degrees here is considered the dead of winter) we decided to head for warmer weather- right around the equator.

First we hit Singapore for a brief stopover on our way to Malaysia. It's a beautiful country in the middle of the rain forest. The city is amazing- clean (no wonder - you can be caned for littering), orderly, and totally modern. The official languages are English, Mandarin, Tamil, and Malay. So, everyone speaks english which was a refreshing change. Other than the US, I have never been anywhere that was a diverse as Singapore. There are people from all descents which makes for some amazing food experiences. We were only able to spend one full day so we chose to hit the zoo (of course). It's a fantastic zoo with a lot of animals I've never seen or even heard of before: white tigers, Proboscis monkeys, malaysian tapirs, pygmy hippos, mandrills, and jaguars.

The kids loved it and a good time was had by all.

Here is a picture of a sign at the Singapore zoo near the mountain lion enclosure.  Of course, it's only written in Chinese (even though every other sign at the zoo is posted in enlglish) and basically says don't feed the animals or get too close- you WILL get hurt (see previous post on Shanghai zoo for more info).

The next day we headed to Malaysia. This was my first time in a muslim country. In terms of religion, Malaysia is definitely not full of extremists. Although the muslim women did keep their heads covered (but not their faces), they can work and go about daily life unescorted. And, like Singapore, there seemed to be a lot more diversity than I had expected. Freedom of religion is granted even though it may not be encouraged. We saw mosques, along with hindu and buddist temples, and even some churches. After a connecting flight through Kuala Lumpur, we finally reached a small island off the coast of Malaysia, called Langkawi. Situated on the Andaman Sea, we could actually see one of Thailand's islands from our resort. Throughout our weeklong stay, the weather was 85 degrees and sunny. The beach was actually a bit disappointing- although the water was warm and extremely calm it wasn't clear and the sand was pebbly and full of small shells. But it was clean and practically deserted. The resort itself had 3 amazing pools which was where we spent most of our time. We were able to do a 1/2 day boat tour through the mangrove forest where we saw monkeys and eagles. We also saw quite a few large monitor lizards (about 3 ft long) around our resort which the kids loved and Sev and I did not! All in all, we had a great time although I would love to go and spend more time on mainland Malaysia next time.

The view from the beach.  At low tide, a sandbar would appear and you could actually walk out to the rocks in the distance.

A view of our resort from the water.

Malaysian fisherman using the traditional net method to catch giant prawns on the Andaman Sea.

Some of the many monkeys that live on Langkawi.

A giant monitor lizard at our resort.  About 3 feet long...but no worries- we were assured they only eat fish.

Grace posing with another monitor lizard.  A favorite activity for the kids on vacation was checking if the lizard was "home" under the deck- about 50 times a day.