KUALA LUMPUR CUT A GIRL SOME SLACK

hiya

we're in the capital of malaysia, kuala lumpur, right now. the city is amazing, so diverse and not in a buzzword way but in an actual, no-one-looks-the-same way.
you walk down the street past a woman in a full black burka then a chinese girl in white face powder and a miniskirt then past indian women with bindis and white guys in tennis shoes.

we saw a dancedrama performance and 1) it was AMAZING, 20x cooler than 90% of the stuff we've seen in the states 2) the people working on it were unreally nice and talked to us forever afterwards giving us the scoop on KL's happening arts scene 3) a bunch of people took our picture afterwards and we're pretty sure we're in the newspaper's art section now.

so, we're basically spending our days dreaming up ways to get the fulbright to give jaki a bunch of money so we can come back here and study theatre.

also KL is IMPOSSIBLE to navigate. all the roads are crooked, its an 'anti-grid' infrastructure. you can't walk 2 blocks without getting lost. honestly.
and it isn't just farangs who have this problem. we tried to get a taxi driver to take us to the tourism centre, a huge building, to see a show, and he drove us to a ditch next to an abandoned volvo dealership. REALLY?

to illustrate, here are google maps directions of how to get from chinatown, where we're staying, to Aswara, an arts academy:

1.Head northwest on Jalan Petaling toward Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock
2.Slight right at Jalan Tun H S Lee
3.Turn left at Leboh Pasar Besar
4.Turn right at Jalan Mahkamah Persekutuan
5.Turn left to stay on Jalan Mahkamah Persekutuan
6.Turn right at Jalan Raja
7.Turn right to stay on Jalan Raja
8.At the roundabout, take the 1st exit onto Jalan Parlimen
9.Turn right toward Jalan Sultan Salahhudin
10.Continue straight onto Jalan Sultan Salahhudin
11.Slight right to stay on Jalan Sultan Salahhudin
12.Turn left toward Jalan Tunku
13.Turn right toward Jalan Tunku
14.Slight left at Jalan Tunku
15.Turn left at Pesiaran Carruthers
16.Turn right at Jalan Tunku Putra
17.Turn right at Jalan Nusa
18.Turn left to stay on Jalan Nusa
19.Turn right at Lorong Nusa Satu
20.Turn left at Lorong Nusa
21.Slight right at Persiaran Duta
22.Persiaran Duta turns left and becomes Jalan Khidmat Usaha
23.Turn right to stay on Jalan Khidmat Usaha
24.Turn left at Jalan Ibadah
25.Turn right
26.Turn left
27.Turn left
Destination will be on the right

27 STEPS?! ok great thanks google we'll do that.

in a couple days, we're flying to jakarta (decided to skip singapore because its mad expensive and it takes a 40+ hour ferry to get to indonesia from there) then we'll be making our way through java and onto BALI! the plan is to stay in bali for about 2 1/2 weeks at a friend-of-a-friends apartment and take balinese dance classes and go to the beach and feel stupidgood.

also, in case you didn't get the email, there are some big logistical changes.
jaki's flight is all fucked/shes having fun so she's probably not coming home the 10,12,15,20, whenever-you-thought-she-might-be, but instead hopefully the 24th, or maybe the 27th.
emily's also delayed. until january. because she's going back to india and not returning to ch for the fall. instead shes going to live at alternative arts-based boarding school in kerala and help a friend on a rural ecotourism project in tamilnadu. CRAZYWORLD.

loveyouall

mania

We traveled overland from Phnom Penh to Kota Bharu. If you look at a map you can see how ridiculous this is. This rounded off Jaki's 270th hour of travel thus far. Emily hasn't counted, but hers is gonna be big too.

This is what happened (shout out to Clare and Will, thanks for the word game--its stringing phrases together and you read it out loud and it makes sense)

Evergreenback to the futuramamamia, greece is the word to your motherlandminer league baseball's in your qquart of ice cream of the crop circle of death metal of honorary members only jacket up in dis club foot the bill clinton of brick by ben folds five alive and wellwater under the bridge to nowhere's waldoe eyesenhower you doing today show us your tits just a matter of time is of the essential elementary schoolhouse rock and roly polead the way to your hearts over atlantis the seasonal allergeez loweezer's blue album leggo my eggoing to the countrybaked hamburger and freye of the stormy days ahead of the gameboy meets world peace of mind your own business cardnial gibbons highway robbereese's pieces of april showers bring may god be with ulysees s grant my wish you were here of cornflake placid, ego, superego dog gogo dancer in the dark dark house of leave me alone shark week on discovering america the beautifull of shit happenstants on a log into myspacadetta jamestown, virginia madison square garden of eden of foxy brownnosing a song of sixpence none the richard the third eye blind as a batboy the musical number the star trekky recordless phoney baloney high sock it to me myself and isosceles triangullah gullah island hopping-pongo and perdettough as nail salontrow row your boatmeals on whels on the busstop in the name of loveseat your vegetable and cane sugar rush hour traffic jambalayajah wood you be my valentine's dazed and confusebox of chocolates get out of hereing aids epidemicahbod crane wifi networkingclass ring around the rose petalpusure things fall apart of your worldwide web of lies


this is probably the best way to articulate the fact that we are going INSANE over here in seasia.
loveyouall

Things that happened in Cambodia:

At Angkor Wat, there is a constant swarm of people trying to sell you everything in the world. A common tactic is to ask your name, and then say "Oh ok i remember you you buy from me later!"... One time Jaki introduced herself to "Chicken" who was trying to sell her water. On the way back from the temple, two hours later, Chicken approached Jaki and said "you remember me you buy from me?!" And Jaki said, "No, sorry, I still have my water, thanks" And Chicken yelled to Jaki as we walked briskly away: "SORRY DOES NOT BUY MY WATER! YOU TELL ME LIIEEES JAKI!"

Emily got propositioned by a deaf, male prostitute.

We discovered a park where there a bunch of superhip, breakdancing six-year-olds, thousands of inflatable toys, and groups of about a hundred people doing group aerobics.

We met people named: Ouch Mean and Say Something, two border guards, and Coy Sneakily, a bank teller. What?

All in all, Cambodia is beautiful and sad and hard and fun. Now Malaysia.

our country tis of thee

last week we ditched our packs and rented motorbikes and biked all around the blovean plateau

!

and we didnt crash. well not really. and no one got hurt. actually, thats a lie. more on that later

BUT
first we spent the night in a place called tadlo that was complete travel-fantasy perfect: a small town, surrounded by waterfalls with thatched-wall bungalows and hammocks and a lot of livestock.
we wandered, hiked, climbed down a broken 20foot bamboo ladder and stumbled on a huge waterfall, tucked away surrounded by jungle-forest-perfection. jumping in screaming "we are the luckiest girrrrllls i cant believe this is reallllllllll this is utopiaaaaaa," we did what any four 20-something, free-spirited girls would do: we took our clothes off, went skinnydipping.

this was a great idea...until (as emily climbed on a bunch of rocks to get to her stuff) , our bungalow-mate wandered up to our same "deserted" waterfall.
failblog. so we all laughed hysterically and he eventually got the hint, and disappeared back into the bush.
crisis averted.
then we look up.
and see a village, ages 5-80, gathered on the top of the waterfall to stare at the buttnaked whiteskinned farangs...
FAILBLOG.


((also, somewhere in this tadlo trip, emily acquired a cold, emily got a sicknasty gangrenous-looking spider bite, and jaki sprained her ankle. like in a major way. but fear not moms, the spider bite has gone down, emilys taking zicam, and i guess we'll take jaki to the doctor if the massive yellow-purple bruising and inability to walk doesnt go away?))

we also spent the 4th of july on the plateau, in a town called pakxong. we tried to celebrate 'merica but had some pretty poor substitutes. it was too high an altitude for watermelon, theyre not really into fireworks, and baked goods or barbeques aint happening.
so we drank beerlao, lit a white glow stick, ate pineapple and marble-cake-from-a-bag, and made an american flag on an old bus ticket.

now, after a 18-hour travel disaster, we're in cambodia, at angkor wat.
lets just say when you read in lonely planet that a border is corrupt, and it will be scammy and a total pain in the ass and you will be miserable---theyre not lying. take their word for it.

also angkor wats the most beautiful thing either of us has ever seen.
love you all; think/talk/want to talk/dream of you all the time.

We were on a bus with:

a monkey
a monk
a Laos girl who vomited on Jaki (like a few times?)
another Laos girl who also vomited a lot.
the song "apple bottom jeans"
intense energy drinks called m150 that we downed and then talked about the WHOLE WORLD.

now we are in vientiene. there are lots of sweet vats here. and french things.

tonight we are getting on a hopefully less dramatic but longer bus. going to southern laos. riding around on motorbikes. we are the happiest girls. we love you all.