Adventures in Malaysia Part 2

After a few days in Kuala Lumpur, we took a "VIP" bus to the Cameron Highlands. This is 2000 metres high in the mountains, so it cooler and very pretty there.
We got to go on a sight-seeing tour. We saw a rose farm (the roses were beautiful).

Then we saw a strawberry farm. They had a bakery there so we had strawberry tarts!  Then we went to a tea plantation and factory. We got to see the tea bushes. (They turn into trees if you don't cut off the leaves!)  This was our Grandma's first time to see a Tea Plantation, so we took a tour of the Boh Tea factory. Then we had a cup of tea in the cafe.  We had a great view!
Last but not least we saw a butterfly farm.

They had some really strange insects. Evan and Audrey got to hold some! The butterfly farm was the best.
Before we flew back to India we stayed for one more night in KL. 
That last day we went to a bird park. They say it is the worlds largest. We saw many birds we had never seen before.

 A red ibis, and a "victorian-crowned pidgeon." That one looks like a giant pidgeon with a very fancy hat!

Then we went a saw a bird show.  The first bird unicycled across a tightrope, the a lady came out and said, "Welcome to our Bird Show!"

Some birds were in bicycle races and also slid down a slide! But the best part was when Audrey got to feed a hawk. She held a stick up in the air with some meat on it. Then the bird swooped down and grabbed the meat right off of the stick!

We went back to our hotel for one last night. That was a good last day and a fun trip!

Adventures in Malaysia! Part 1

First we had to fly two hours to a city called, Columbo in Sri Lanka. Then it was a three hour aeroplane ride to Singapore. Then we took a taxi to our hotel which was beautiful!

It rained while we were there. Every day. We walked and walked to go to a Botanical Garden and an Orchid Garden where we saw lots of plants and trees.

There was a lake in the gardens with big swans in it, and turtles too!
Then we walked along some pretty canals to the Merlion. It is a famous statue the spouts water into the sea. "Singapore" means "City of Lions."

The merlion is half fish and half lion - kind of like a mermaid. Our last day in Singapore, Mom took us to McDonalds to get a hamburger! You can't get beef burgers in India when you go to McDonalds...
We took a "VIP" bus to the city of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. We got there late at night, but dropped us off right at our hotel. The hotel was fancy. It was called the "Sunway Pyramid."

Sunway has a water park so we spent all the first day at the water park! Grandma and Dad went with us while Mom worked. The water park was cool!

The next day we went to see the Petronas Towers.  The Petronas Towers are the 4th tallest towers in the WORLD!! 

We also went up in the Menara Tower which has an observation deck.  You can see the whole city of KL from there! The we went to a market called, "China Town."  It had many different shops like toy shops, tourist shops and local shops. Some of the days we were there we went swimming in the Sunway Lagoon swimming pool which was very very fun too!

Finally... The Taj

One day we went to Agra with our Cousin Brandi and our Grandma. We left at 10 am. It was almost six hours long. When we got there we had to ride to the monument.

Everyone wanted to give us a ride. Drivers with camel carts, horse carts (tonga), and even bicycle rickshaws. We chose the tonga. There was a man standing in front of the horse shouting. The tonga driver almost got in a fist fight with him! We think they were yelling about money.

This was the first time we saw the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal is the most famous monument in India.

The Taj was beautiful! It is made of white marble. A king (Maharaja) built it to remember his wife after she died.  There was going to be black Taj for the king, but it was never made. The King's son kidnapped him.  The son thought his father was spending too much money. We stayed  at the Taj for two full, long hours.

Then we went to our hotel to see our room. After we put all of our stuff in our room we went out to a rooftop restaurant to have dinner. (Audrey had a chicken burger). Then we went back to our hotel and went to bed..

The next morning we went back to the same rooftop restaurant for breakfast.

We could see the Taj Mahal again right there in front of us!

On the way home we stopped at a palace called Fatehpur Sikri. It was built by a man named, Akbar over 400 years ago. It is very big and very fancy.

Emporer Akbar even had a giant Parchesi Board! But there was no water at Fatehpur Sikri so he left it after 15 years. Now people call it the "Ghost City."  It was almost as beautiful as the Taj.

Holi Hill Stations!

Instead of being in Noida for the Holi Festival this year, we went to Nainital and to the Jim Corbett National Park. In Nainital (a hill station) we rode on a cable car (called a "rope-car") up to an amusement park.

We could see the pretty lake below and the mountains all around us. There were lots of rides at the park.

Our favorites were the bumper cars and the Go Carts.

This was Evan's first time driving a Go cart. There was also a zip line, but we didn't do that. Evan drove the go cart with his grandma and rode in a bumper car with Mom. He wiped out a few times! They were going very fast.

We drove to Jim Corbett Park on Monday. That was the day of Holi Festival. Holi is the Hindu spring festival of colours. It was about two hours drive to our hotel near the park.

Our driver was worried about his car because it was white and there were lots of people throwing colors and "playing holi" in each of the villages on the way.

When we got to our hotel (Tiger Camp) we had snacks of samosas and namkeen. Then we walked to the river. We saw there were two elephants taking a bath. (We saw these same elephants bathing back in November).

We got changed to go swimming, but the pool was not very clean so we ate popcorn instead. We ended the day with an elephant safari.

We walked to our elephants and had to climb up tall stairs to get on. The elephant walked across the river and into the forest! We didn't see tigers, but we saw deer and monkeys and langurs. We had a great safari! It was a good way to spend our Holi Weekend!