Singapore to Malaysia and back again...

One of the many places we were able to go with the Suresh family was on a super cool trip to Malaysia to Melaka and Kota Tinggi. We left early Sunday morning and drove up to historic Melaka, the original home of the Southeast Asian Peranakan, or in other words, half Malaysian, half Chinese people. The town is riddled with historic sites from conquerors and colonizers, including the Dutch, the French, and the English. After a brief but informative visit, we got back into the car and traveled to the Eastern coast of Malaysia to a small town named Kota Tinggi. Auntie Evelyn was fantastic enough to reserve a cabin in the rainforest reserve just outside of the city. We had a great time playing cards, table tennis, and “throw pears at the tree” games. Also, the entire area was infested with birds that made really super-neato sounds. Some of them would mimic you, and this caused us and the kids to spend countless hours trying to convince the birds to say something interesting. That night, we chartered a boat to go up the Kota Tinggi River to see the fireflies along the banks in the mangrove trees. The fireflies were beautiful; they hovered in the branches of trees in large numbers trying to imitate Christmas lights. The person steering the boat, wanting to give the passengers a memorable experience, drove the boat into the mangroves, where Derek was able to capture several fireflies for the enjoyment of the kids onboard. The next morning we got up and went to the Kota Tinggi waterfalls, where they have built several super cool water slides. (See pictures). It was a neat place because there were no tourists, only the native Malaysians, including fully garbed Muslim women, playing in the water. We returned that evening to await the arrival of Rachel’s mom, who would be flying in around midnight.