Playing catch up

This entry is going to be a major summary of the past week or so because we are tired of trying to catch up. I am simply going to hit some of the highlights so that we can start blogging about current events rather than trying to think back to what we did 2 weeks ago. So here it goes.

We spent about 3 or 4 days in KL and we all really enjoyed the city. The first few days we did some touring around and just checked out the major attractions of the city...which wasnt much but it was cool to just walk around and explore. The highlight of our time there came on one of the last days. We decided to try and walk to the national mosque but had no idea where it was. After only a few minutes of walking we found ourselves a bit turned around. As we were standing there looking through our lonely planet book trying to get back on track a foreign dude approached us and said that we looked a bit confused and offered some assistance. He was a Canadian who had been living in KL for the past 14 years. We told him where we wanted to go and he started to explain where we should head before giving up and offering us a ride in his car. We were a bit surprised but very quick to jump on that opportunity. We all piled into his car and were off. We still are a bit confused about David Mill (the dude) and what exactly he does but he told us that he "saves confused tourists all the time" and that he worked for himself so he could afford to take an extra long lunch break. He gave us his business card and all it had on it was his name and then the saying "do or don't do...there is no try." Weird but a free ride around the city so we were happy. Not only did he bring us right to where we wanted to go but he also took us to a few other sites before dropping us off at the national mosque. He knew a frightening amount about KL which was great because we basically got a free tour of the city in an AC car. When we finally parted ways with David Mills we couldnt enter the mosque because it was during prayer time so we went and checked out some orchid garden that had no orchids in it. It was so hot and we were all wearing jeans and shoes because you need pants to enter the mosques. We found some museum that was blasting AC and we waited there until the prayer time was over so we could enter the mosque. As we were walking to go into the mosque we were stopped by a Muslim woman who invited us to come break the fast with them at another mosque that night. She said it was one of the few times that they let no muslims in to witness them praying and invite them in to eat together during the Ramadan period. This sounded like opportunity to good to pass up so we agreed to join and she told us to meet her there around 6:30 because they started the process of breaking the fast at 7. When we got there we were amazed by the size and beauty of the mosque - it was much more impressive than the national mosque. We were the only foreigners there so it was a bit awkward at first because we felt very out of place. Luckily we ran into the lady who invited us and she took us right in. Merrill had to fully cover herself but the boys were ok to enter in our jeans. It is hard to even describe the scene there...thousands of Muslims gathered together for prayer and there we were with no clue of what was going on. They gave us a quick tour of the mosque and explained the basics of the religion to us. When it was time for them to start praying we had to go upstairs to observe because we were not allowed to be in the main hall during payer time. It was a very cool experience seeing that many people all perfectly lined together praying...definitely like nothing we had seen before. After a brief prayer session they all gathered in the dining area and we joined them on the floor for the breaking of the fast meal. We felt a bit guilty eating their food considering we had been eating all day long and were almost too full to eat while they had not eaten all day long. After eating they went back for more prayer (they prayed for about 5 hours total with breaks every so often in between). We ended up being there for about 5 hours and didnt leave until almost 11:30 at night. By that time our heads were about ready to explode because we had been told so much about Islam that we couldn't hear another word. They kept talking and talking to us and we were exhausted and wanted to leave but felt guilty because they had been so kind to us all night long. Overall it was an amazing experience and one we all felt very fortunate to have had but we were happy to head home and sleep.

Our next stop was Singapore which I'm not going to talk a lot about because we didn't do a ton there. It is a very modern city which meant it was expensive to do most anything so our days consisted of a lot of walking around. We walked into a lot of really nice hotels and buildings and got kicked out of most of them because we weren't "dressed properly." We knew it was going to be an expensive city so before leaving Malaysia Will and I stalked up no PB&J material so that we wouldn't have to buy expensive meals. Huge move and in the 3 days were were in Singapore I only spent about 5 USD on food there. We were a bit sick of PB&Js by the time we left though.

Ok almost caught up to speed. Next we headed off to Indonesia which is where we are now. It was only about a 50 min ferry ride to the island that we wanted to visit first which is called Bintan. We are in Bintan now and we are having a total blast because this place is not a tourist destination so we are literally the only foreigners here. We literally get stared at where ever we go but it is nice to be in a place that has not been taken over by tourism. There is a lot to tell about our stay here so far but that if for another entry. Sorry to breeze over so may days but now we are a bit more caught up so we should be able to stay on top of this blog a bit better.

ps. Will and I have posted a poll on the family website so check it out and cast your vote.

-RBC