...where we were able to find lots of nice sand and swimming. There was also another beautiful beach (Pra Nang) that we spent a bit of time at, but we had to trek around a massive resort to get there...the top "villa" at the resort went for more than $5000C per night so we couldn't even get onto the property to try and cut through to the beach.

While on Ton Sai I also ran into the first person on this trip that I recognized - a girl named Jade who also studied Development at McGill and with whom I had shared some classes. We also met a couple of great Australians who we will be trying to catch up with when we're there later this spring.

But now we're in Malaysia - Georgetown to be exact. We came down here on the 30th to spend a few days before we go to Kuala Lumpur en route to Bali...so we keep moving :-) Malaysia has been an eye opener for us - it's a much wealthier country than Thailand and we have yet to meet a single person here who does not understand and speak English fairly well. Georgetown was the first British settlement in Malaysia (1786) so there is a huge English influence in all the architecture and design of the city. Anyway, pretty cool place, but it's been pretty slow at the same time as it is Chinese New Year right now and everything is shut down (25% of the Malaysian population are ethnic Chinese)...we should be off to KL pretty quick I hope.