Back to Malaysia

On Christmas Day we went to Malaysia again, this time with a different group from church. As we were heading to our destination just north of Malaysia's capital, my husband said to me, "I never thought I would spend a Christmas Day stuck in a traffic jam heading to Kuala Lumpur!"  Isn't that true!! :-)

On the way there we stopped at a couple of rest areas (R&R, they call them) and saw signs like the one pictured below.  The bathrooms here were kept clean by Malaysian standards. We were told that if you find an R&R with a prayer room, you know it will be clean, because the Muslims need to wash up before they use the prayer room.  There were even showers there, and it was strange to be using a Muslim shower when one kid got sick all over another kid in the car and I had to clean them up! :-)

The next two pictures show Kuala Lumpur, including the Petronas Twin Towers, which were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998-2004.  The other tall building is the Kuala Lumpur Tower.  The reason I show the second picture is that it seems to us that Malaysia is a land of huge contrasts.  There are such nice places there, and such run-down places.  The second picture was taken right after the pictures of the bright, modern Twin Towers.

Our destination was the Genting Highlands--some of the mountains of Malaysia.  What a beautiful place.  We stayed in a hotel for three nights, with our room on the 23rd floor. Often the clouds were so thick around us that we couldn't see much out our window.  When it did clear, the view was amazing.  The picture doesn't quite do it justice.

On Wednesday we went a little higher up the mountain to a theme park.  The temperature there was in the low to mid 60s, which felt so good after weeks of hot, humid weather!  The place was packed with people, but there was not another white person in sight.  So we really stood out, and all day long people were coming up to our kids, wanting to touch them or take pictures of them--and even have their pictures taken WITH our kids!

(The girl holding Jason is part of our group.  We didn't give him away to strangers. :-) )

The following day we went to an elephant sanctuary.  The kids got to feed some elephants, and then we took  a walk through the jungle.  God's creation is so incredibly beautiful!

 A variety of mushroom

Some berries in such a bright blue color!

After this we went to a place called Deerland, where we could feed deer and hold snakes. Jason played with the snake's tail. :-)

On Friday we had to head for home.  First we stopped at a strawberry farm.  I include a picture so you can see how strawberries are grown here.

And finally...God keeps His covenant in Malaysia too!