Where we’ve been the last 3 weeks:

Malaysia
We spent a relaxing 3 days in Kuala Lumpur. We celebrated Eliza’s birthday, dining on red meat and red wine - a nice change of diet, especially after being curried out in Myanmar and India. Eliza was nice enough to let us crash out at her place, where we spent an entire afternoon indulging ourselves to her Dvd collection and watched several movies, including some of the Oscar nominated movies/performances - ‘Crash’ was pretty lame, I can’t believe it won ‘Best Picture’.
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For a Muslim country, Malaysia seems pretty liberal. I was surprised at the large female workforce in this country. Women everywhere working hard and earning a living. There are many Muslim women covered from head to toe, but you’ll also see a lot of Muslim women wearing only a head scarf accessorized with a pair of jeans.

Indonesia
From K. L. we boarded a bus to Singapore and spent one night near the Singapore airport. The next morning we hopped on a plane to Lombok, Indonesia. From the airport we were transported via car and boat to the extremely slow paced island of Gili Trawangan, where we enjoyed a week of Scuba diving (amazing marine life!) and hanging out with our friends Brad and Stacy - who flew in from L.A., 3 days after our Gili arrival, to R and R.

Singapore
The 4 of us (Moi, Yvonne, Brad and Stacy) flew back to Singapore and spent two days in Asia’s version of Orange County - sterile. Well that was my first impression of Singapore (prior to our Indonesia departure) - boring office buildings and business parks everywhere, and no restaurants opened after 9pm (except McDonalds) - sounds like the OC, especially if you’re in South Orange County. But after our re-arrival into Singapore and staying in the center of town, we did see many interesting modern and historical buildings. We were also able to eat to our heart’s content during the late evening hours.
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It’s true what they say about Singapore it’s an extremely clean place. No graffiti, clean public toilets, minimal trash on the sidewalk and streets - not a single cigarette butt on the ground! It’s a 1,000 Singpore dollar fine if you’re caught littering, which will set you back about $700 US.
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We departed Singapore, said our goodbyes to Brad and Stacy who also left Singapore on the same day- it was nice and comforting spending time with people from back home.
Now we are on the small island of Mauritius, which is located on the SE African coast, just east of Madagascar. There is quite an interesting mix of people on this island. 70% of the island inhabitants are of Indian origin. You’ll also find African and Chinese people living in Mauritius. The primary language spoken here is French, followed by English, Creole and Hindi! It’s quite interesting hearing Indian and Chinese people conversing in French.
What’s especially great about Mauritius, the people don’t have a staring problem and they mind their own business. So nice to walk around a country and everyone leaves you alone. Yvonne is relieved that the Mauritius men aren’t staring at her breasts i.e…China, Myanmar, India, and Indonesia. Also there are no smartasses approaching us and blurting out “Konichi-Wa!!”, I can’t tell you how many times we heard that phrase throughout our travels, even if we say “Sorry we’re not Japanese” the smartass will continue the “Konichi-Wa” in a facetious manner.

Well we’re off to Capetown, South Africa tomorrow. Ciao.