January 27 - Kuala Lampur

Well to get here we had to go through the straights of Malaca. Had about 300 yards to the shore on either side. With massive super tankers driving through the straights like they just got jacked in a bad neighborhood in Compton. To quote the captain, “we’re basically playing Frogger with a supercarrier right now”. So 24 hours of staying up for the super lookout stuff we had to be doing.

Pulled in. First day was my duty day. Cool. Did nothing. Watched the coast. We pulled into a cruise ship terminal/US navy terminal an hour outside Kuala Lampur. The government built it both for cruise ships AND so carriers and escorts can tie up alongside. So they had this terminal with American fast food (pizza hut, popeyes, KFC etc. Plus a rec center with pool and beer.

Day One
So second day, I went out with Perschbacher, Rodriguez and Stevens. Stevens REALLY wanted to see the Petronas towers that knocked the Sears off the throne. Now it's just 5th tallest. We walk there and end up in the mall on the ground floor of the towers. SUPER opulent. Coach, Prada, Armani. Literally everything 100% legit and marked up even higher than American prices. But it was good because it was clean and pristine and you could get Mickey D’s and Pizza Hut (you get cravings for both American food and LARGER PORTIONS. I swear I hate ordering and just getting this little dainty meal meant for the much much smaller size of the nation’s principal inhabitants. So we kind of bummed around there the day and relaxed. I’m ok with that.

Went to the towers. Sold out through the next week (you seriously have to reserve in advance. The only people to go up were the tour groups from the ship.) Stevens kind of moaned the entire rest of the day. Then we went to Chinatown. Be advised this is not like America Chinatown. Most asian countries have a “Chinatown.” Most people there are malasian (or in Korea they were Korean). Chinatown basically means a gigantic open air market with knock off stuff made in China. So I got shoes and an expensive looking 10 dollar watch that has buttons that don’t do anything. I think it was a Breitling. The shoes were at least real Timberland. Got knock off dvds of Mad Men and every movie to come out in the last year. Came back to the boat.

First impressions. One. Very cosmopolitan. Every malasian spoke passible English. TONS of austrailians and Koreans. This is a popular tourist destination for them. Outside Kuala Lampur it's more what you would imagine the country to be. Pizza Hut is a very nice resturaunt here. It's Muslim country so women in burkas. It’s a southeast asian country. So they know their vices. Its rich and clean because of the oil. But some parts had actual human excrement draining into the streets. All and all though a little less interesting culturally than Korea. Compared to Korea, the safer areas felt safer, but the bad areas felt BAD even if your just driving by them on an expressway.

Quotes of the Day

“So what do we do if it breaks?”
“Stevens, its an escalator. If it breaks it becomes stairs.”

“I just paid 2 bucks to use the premium bathroom”
“was it better?”
“no”

“nice place, boom boom, sailor, mcdonalds. Michael Jackson. Rock and roll. You take my taxi”

Day Two
Went with Pulsipher, Peery and Handlin.
Perry is another seal drop. Handlin is our ship's master helmsman and is my age but has been in the Navy for 3 years.

Pulsipher heard the first day (the one I was on duty) that there was possibly maybe probably not a elephant sanctuary outside Kuala Lampur. This was our mission. So we ask taxi drivers about “riding elephants”. After several misses we decide to go to a hotel valet and ask a cleaner looking taxi if he knew. He pulled out a brochure for the place. SCORE. Also its two hours away. Not a problem. It was about 40 bucks each round trip. Totally worth it. Get in. See the mountains and the jungles as we zoom bye. And I do mean zoom. The yellow line designating the cars going different directions is more of a healthy suggestion here. Our driver was probably the best one out of the taxis we had this week and he still passed on the gravel around a
blind turn.

Found the elephants. Awesome. Really awesome. They save poached animals. So there was a baby missing a foot from a trap. Another older female without a tale. We end up being with a Aussie tour group. So we walk around with them. Feed them. They jumped in the river and some of us would have jumped in with them. The color of the water dissuaded our group. Totally would have done it if it wasn’t the last day though. SO after awhile the guide asks if we’re sailors not with the group. We say yes. We work out a deal to take 3 of the elephants on their daily walk around the jungle path wrapping about a mile around. HECK. YES. 15 bucks American too. Best. Time. EVER. Got back to Kuala (our taxi driver waited for us). Got dinner. Went back to Boat.

Quotes of the Day

“There’s like a 90% probability that good times will be had.”
“the other 10%?”
“our parents and command will be seeing us video tapped with some guy screaming arabic.”

Day Three
Decided on advice of an Aaussie at the sanctuary to visit the worlds largest open air aviary. Again went on a wing and a prayer to a taxi. He got us there. Nicer area of town. There was the national mosque of Malaysia there. Sadly didn’t have time to see it. So we went. There’s this HUGE ravine with simply netting over it and some fences to enclose this huge area with creeks and jungle and what have you and all the birds with the exceptions of the larger ones that EAT other birds were allowed to fly completely free. Parrots, cockateels and an bunch of other tropical birds would just flit around and land on your shoulder and hang out with you as you walked around. We didn’t even have food for them. Definitely awesome. When I had food I was pretty much covered head to toe in parrots like those guys who cover themselves in pheremones and cover themselves in a coat of bees. REALLY COOL. Got dinner. Then went back to Boat.

Much more fun than Korea. But Korea, as I said before, was more culturally stimulating. This felt more touristy at points. The aviary and the elephants definitely were not touristy though.

Bye! Hopefully I can write more later. I’m extremely busy.