The Fehers: Malaysia

We were supposed to go to Thailand one of the greatest vacation spots from what we've heard from all of our friends. However, with all the rioting we ended up changing everything the day before we left! Nate and I just had feelings that we shouldn't go. But we were lucky enough to make quick arrangements to Malaysia instead which honestly still turned out to be one of our favorite vacations.
Malaysian people are amazingly friendly. The whole trip started out flying in a very colorful airplane. The people spoke something similar to Indonesian so I was able to say hello and goodbye and thank you (and milk because that is all I've heard my mom say).

It turns out that a lot of flights that we've taken have had us walk out on the runway. It was pretty neat.
A driver from the hotel picked us up from the airport and somehow found out that that day was Nate and I's anniversary. So they surprised us with a cake after we checked in. Something we've never had anyone do that late of notice.

It turned out to be our dinner since our flight was delayed quite a bit. But it sure was good.

The hotel consisted of hundreds of bungalows right in the rain forest. Our warning when we got there was to make sure we locked our doors so that the monkeys don't come in!

This was the small path that led to our room. A bungalow consisting of like 8 rooms. (4 up 4 down). It really felt like camping only in swimsuits and sandals!

Because the rooms were so far away from the lobby, we had to ride in a little shuttle buses that would drop us off at our room (or pick us up). We were lucky though that our room was the closest (just up the hill) and we could still walk to and from the lobby. But after walking so much it was nice not to have to walk up the hill so much :)

A view of the rain forest right at the beach.

Yeah...if you had thousands of dollars to spend you could stay right on the beach...but honestly I think it was funner to be in the forest.

First time at the beach (this trip) we spent a lot of time there relaxing and taking naps. It was wonderful!!

Caden picked it up pretty quick :)

Just down the road from the lobby of where we were staying was some type of village with shops etc. We were able to do quite a bit there. Like feed bunnies. (Morgan started out on the ground and then when all the bunnies came she got a little nervous...but with daddy holding her she had the courage to still feed them. Of course daddy would protect her from anything!)

The highlight (and almost whole reason for choosing where to go for vacation) was being able to ride an elephant and then feed it as well. We were taken through the jungle for just over a half hour. I don't remember the elephants name but I do know that it was a male which isn't very common to ride. They are more aggressive. Animal activists on the island were trying to get them to take the male elephant back to the mainland to be with the herd. A male alone wasn't a good combination I guess. But he took care of us. Caden of course slept through the whole thing. It was really neat walking through the jungle on an elephant we'd see monkeys swinging from the trees and everything. Definitely one of the highlights.

Another really neat thing was being able to ride a cable car all the way to the top of the mountain. It was pretty high up and got cold and foggy. At some points we couldn't see where we were going or where we just came from.

Once at the top and after a small hike you could cross an expansion bridge. You could really hear your echo great! But not much of a thing to do I guess in asia. We were the crazy Americans yelling on the bridge. (come to think of it we were the only Americans there...not a common vacation spot for us. A lot of middle eastern people and a few Europeans. We met a really nice Arabian couple that we just happened to see almost everywhere we went. So we'd talk to the quite a bit.

We went on a Mangrove tour (type of tree).

They grow on top of the water. This is how high the water was when we first started the tour.

The boat station when we started. Ours was the blue boat.

Ok so if you look closely you can see some fish. "Walking fish" I think is what they are called. They are able to slide around on the surface of the mud. It was pretty cool to see. They really looked as if they were walking!

At one point the tour guide threw out some chicken (of all things) and some eagles came swooping down to eat it. TONS of eagles!

Caden actually woke up for the eagle part and loved watching them. Just laughed!

Going through the little waterways through the mangroves.

On the side we'd pass tons of monkeys. Just watching us. For some reason Caden was more interested in his crackers though (which we were told to put away so we wouldn't have any unwanted guests on the boat :)

The driver pulled the boat up to a tree where a python (?) was. Some really poisonous snake which surprised us all that he'd get so close to it. We actually had to lean out and look up to see it. So I guess we were still pretty far away from it...but if it had fallen out...it wouldn't have been so pretty!

An iguana or something?

We went through a tunnel.

A lot of fishing boats were on the river.

We got out at one point to do a little hike. Again we were cautioned to leave EVERYTHING on the boats because of the monkeys. They were very friendly. Just came right up to you.

Funny story about this monkey. We were watching it and it ran right in front of us on this fence to a man standing right next to us. Grabbed a package of pink kleenex that was in his back pocket ran back to where he was in front of us and tore open the package to eat what was inside. Obviously he didn't like it and threw it on the ground. Caden loved every minute of it and seemed to think it was the funniest thing ever! They were pretty quick. But it was cool to have witnessed the whole thing. Not even 2 feet in front of us!

Not my favorite part of the tour. We went in a cave (completely dark). you could hear the bats above us. I just remember thinking I don't want one of these things to poop on me! Nate took a picture with the flash but said he wouldn't show me the picture until after we got out. Thank goodness! Yikes that's a lot!

At the other side of the cave with light again!

This is the alligator rock.

This was the end of a separate little cave. This one did not have bats but took a lot of convincing to get Morgan to go in. I really don't blame her.

We then got back on the boats and then stopped at some fishing boat place thing on the side of the river.

Nate got a chance to feed some sting rays. and some other fish.

Sting ray upside down.

One of the many "cool" high chairs that Caden was able to sit in.

So there is Thailand. We still got to see it!!!!!

The same trees from the beginning of our tour. The water raised quite a bit!

Morgan and I got pedicures. (and manicure for her)

For some reason she got more attention than I did. She even attracted the boys!

Then we got to relax in a separate room and eat apple slices.

We went on a night hike and were able to see flying lemers. This is one of the few places where they still live. I believe they are an endangered animal and only have a small amount of places where they are found.

Some special kind of tree I don't remember anymore what it was.

So being right there in the jungle/rain forest we saw monkeys :) Nate and Morgan saw one like our second day by the pool. I never saw one (on our hotel grounds) until our last day.

Right out on the beach!

It rained our last day (granted in rained everyday beings it was a rain forest. But mostly at night while we were there so we lucked out.) But we weren't going to let that stop us from having fun our last day at the beach!!!