Those big rocks that you can see out in the water was the location of 'the hole' that we had just come from.

This is one of the bigger waves where the whitewash actually made it to our hole.

We took turns. Nice scene though eh?

Next stop was another ocean front scene. We hiked down and across a buch of volcanic rock and emerged sea-side. We found this nice little 'hole' in the coral and rock and made it our own little swimming hole for the next half hour. Large waves were rushing in about 10 yards away but luckily, the rocks were breaking them up before they could do any damage to us. Looking back, a big wave could have flung us about pretty easily and those rocks would not have been fun to be thrown up against.

This is a shot from the Green Island campground of the gazebo we would go relax in.

Nice scenes everywhere!

Checking out the scene - you know me, fascinated by simple things! "Wow.....look. There's like water coming up from this whole!"

Exploding volcanic-water holes!

One of the crevices through which the water would shoot up as the waves came in.

Our first stop on Monday was here. A little spot under a bridge that turned out to be way cooler than we thought. We walked out through that water behind Al to the rocks on the other side of the bridge. We found that the ocean was rushing in right underneath us and was shooting up through various crevases in the rock. Hard to explain, hard to picture but we have some movies of it to show you when we get home.

"O.k. Now let's look at each other while we take the picture"
Don't pretend you haven't done it!!

This is in our hotel room. As you can see, we had a beautiful ocean view. Just down from our hotel is where we went snorkelling. The water was warm, clear and full of amazing marine life. Sorry......no underwater pics.

After our hike, we found an ocean front gazebo that we could have all to ourselves. We read for a couple hours to the sound of waves rolling in. I think I (Mark) might have even had a little nap. I know, I know......strange!

Fearless Hiker Extraordinaire!!

This was one of the many little 'creatures' we encountered on our walk. At first glance, it looked like a snake (first thought was that it was one of those big, bad poisonous ones). Then, upon looking closer, we could see his little 'arms' which made him a lizard I guess. Nasty looking little bugger.

This is the sign posted at the front of the mountain trail. It is full of warnings like "Beware of Falling Over the Cliff". The top warning says "Beware of Poisonous Snakes and Bees". These warnings made the hike a little less enjoyable than it may have otherwise been. I find as I get older, my fear of snakes and heights becomes greater and greater. Am I turning in to a wimp? Or am I now just more aware of my wimpy tendencies? Hmmmmm....

Sunday morning was a little overcast so we decided to take the scooter on a drive up to Green Island's highest point. Turned out that the actual highest point was unreachable and we were quickly turned away by a young man with a machine gun. On our way back down, we stopped at the mountain trail for a bit of a hike.

Hikin up a storm in my flipflops!

So this is like 'the poster shot' for Green Island. The rocks are called "Pekingese Dog and Sleeping Beauty". The rock on the left looks like a dog, with big ears, lying down, facing the ocean. This dog is supposed to belong to the lady on the right, who is lying down on her back. It looked more like it in real life as you could see more detail, but you can still see it pretty well in the picture. This view is from a gazebo-like lookout tower, perched high up in a mountain.

Here we are up on the same high and windy peak. You can see the amazing colour of the water behind us.

Here's Al standing pretty close to what is a very sudden, and extreme drop off. It's hard to tell in the picture, but we are very high up above those rocks and the ocean. All the rock that you see, surrounds Green Island. The island was formed by volcanic eruptions so there is large amounts of volcanic rock all around. This helps the water to be super clear which makes it a great spot for snorkelling and diving. (which we did on Sunday)

Our next stop (right behind the hotsprings) was to this huge hill that went way out, and over the ocean. From the peak, you could look down and listen to the waves crashing in below. It was pretty windy up there so we were careful not to get too close to the cliff's edge.

Our next stop on our round-island trip was to the hotsprings. There are only two other hotsprings like this in the world! As opposed to other, more common springs, these are natural, salt water springs that are heated by volcanic activity deep beneath the rocks. The other two like this are in Italy and Japan. We stopped by later at night and found this place packed with about 7 tour buses of anxious Taiwanese soakers.  

As we rounded one of the first corners on our Day 1 scooter trip, we saw this and knew it was going to be a good weekend!  

So.....this is Green Island, from the Pacific Ocean, in all it's glory. It's only 17 km around the island so it was easy to visit it all by scooter.  

Marvelous Malaysia

The award-winning shot of KL.

My trip in a nutshell... parts taken from the email I sent out three days into my trip.
Had a fabulous week, took a week away from Taiwan to go explore Malaysia. I went with 3 others, two of which are from my school (Adrienne and Bridget) and one (Sarah) who was visiting Adrienne from the States.
We started our adventure slowly last Saturday in Kuala Lumpur after a long flight with transfer in Hong Kong. Sunday was busy, lots of exploring and site seeing, managed to see just about everything we had planned, tour a couple of the markets and plan the week.

Monday at 7am we took a chartered cab drive to the Batu Caves, an ancient temple built into a pretty breathtaking cave 274 steps up the side of a rock face. It started to rain once we got in the cave which added to the experience because there is a hole over the main temple area and the rain coming looked amazing. There were monkeys in the cave climbing all around the main alter area. Leaving it started to pour so the 274 steps back down left me with with a couple drenched runners. Luckily - our driver, Laurence, was prepared and had given us umbrellas. Had some traditional breakfast and headed up to the Cameron Highlands, the main reason we chartered the taxi, which is a National-Jungle Park up in a mountain. Spent the entire day going from site to site, hiking, eating and topped it off with the incredible lookout climb where we could see over all of the Highlands.

Left Cameron Highlands and headed to Malacca, arrived there about 1:30am Monday and spent three days before we headed back to Kuala Lumpur. Took in the sites, Melacca is the oldest port in Malaysia, and went to a bascially deserted island off Malacca, hit beach and got burned pretty good. Thursday went on a river cruise and took in some more sights and shopped 'till we dropped. Thursday evening arrived back in KL and Friday headed up the KL towers for 'tea time' in the revolving restaurant instead of paying to get into the observation deck. Evening, dinner and shopping in Little India and Friday night accidentally met up with a group of 70 Brittish students who were also getting ready to leave. Saturday morning, a little more shopping, packed up our bags and set out for the long journey home. Fabulous experience: city, junlge, historic city, beach, very 'fung-shui' :)

The good news is next weekend Mark and I are headed to Green Island so I don't even have the back-to-work-blues.

Day: 7, Feelings: Sad, Rad, Mad and Glad, Saying farewell at the airport before the long journey back to Taiwan.

Being forcefully wrapped in fabrics.

Downtown KL.

Here you can see the Lake gardens where the Butterfly, Orchid, Hibiscus and Bird parks are.

Here you can see the Batu Caves in the distance.

Time time at the revolving restaurant in KL tower. The tower is Malaysia's equivalent to our CN tower. We met some Phillipinos there that wanted to have their picture taken with us... nothing ever changes.

What's a bird park without birds?

Monkeys in the KL gardens. Cute, eh?

Day: 6, Location: Kuala Lumpur, Goals: Visit the orchid, hibiscus and bird parks as well as afternoon tea up in the KL tower, shopping in Little India, some delicious dinner and a big last night out. This is one of the coolest flowers I have come across, they were all over Malaysia.

What I thought was a parade turned out to be a funeral procession... opps.

Kampung Kling's Mosque, one of the oldest mosques in the country. Bridget and I had been here the night before and were warmly welcomed by the practicing Monks.

Buddhist Temple in Chinatown, Melacca, that we went into to get a good view.

St. Paul's Church - or the ruins of, are up on a hill that overlooks Melacca. It was used a a burial ground for the 'noble dead'.

What's left of A'Famosa.

Me and a canon at A'Famosa. "Built by the Portuguese in 1511 as a fortress it sustained severe structural damage during the Dutch invasion. The Dutch set to destroy it but timely intervention by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1808 saved what remains of A' Famosa today."

What we were told was a Komodo Dragon bathing in the sun. Probably just a regular old giant lizard of some sort.

Day 5: Explore Melacca. A view of St. Xavier's Church from our riverboat cruise.

Our private beach. We are the tiny specks under the trees. One thing Malaysia is known for is the very short distance between the ocean and the jungle.

More exploring. Nothing but sandy paths and palm trees.

We found this Peacock wandering aimlessly while we were exploring the island.

Day: 4, Time: 8:15 am, Location: Jetty off the West Coast of Malaysia, Goal: Catch a boat to Pular Besat, Explore, Find a spot on the beach, Swim, Cover ourselves with proof we spent a week in the sunshine.