Monkeying Around !

Hey all!
After a quick 4ish days, we are back in the capital city, Kuala Lumpur.  Monday we traveled up north to the province of Penang, where we stayed in the city of Georgetown.  Georgetown is located on an island, yet still connected to the mainland by a 13.5 km long bridge!  Tuesday we spent most of our day at a beach called batu ferringhi.  It was nice to recline in the sun/shade after quite a bit of travel.  The following day we went to go to the Penang National Park.  The park is the world's smallest national park, with 1181 hectares of forest and 1381 hectares of wetlands.  We were stopped on our way in by a tourist company trying to sell us a ticket for a speed boat.  We told him we wanted to hike, duh!  He said it would take an 1 hour, 15 mins to get to the beach we wanted to go to.  I think Nicole and I both laughed in our heads.. "buddy, I think we can handle a hike, we just did a 2 day trek of hiking and we live in a country where we hike all the time." We probably should have bought a ticket for the speed boat back, ha ha!  The hike in wasn't bad, quite fun actually.  The path had us going up and down, jumping over rocks, crossing bridges, winding down staircases.  It had rope tied to different trees to use as a railing or to pull yourself up.  It felt like an adventure course someone had set up, and it was through a jungle-type setting.  We finally got to the beach, called "monkey beach", where we read and took a nap in the sun.  At first, the name of the beach didn't say too much for itself.  Until I was just waking up from a nice cat nap, when Nicole said to me, "Sara, don't freak out but.. there are monkeys all around us."  As I slowly got up, there was a monkey, I kid you not, a foot away from my right.  My heart suddenly took itself into high gear.  Just before we set off to the park, I had read on the Internet about what to do if you encounter one of the species.  Basically, they can be quite aggressive and it's hard to read them!  A set of rules such as: do not look them in the eye because they may be threatened, do not show your teeth because they may be threatened, do not feed them, do not pet them, do not even take a photo because the flash could set them off.  Okay, let's just say when I sat up to see that monkey literally in my reach, I freaked out a little inside.  No more then 30 seconds after I had sat up, a monkey ran in from behind me and stole my half-eaten granola bar.  When I had looked back, there were about 10 monkeys staring me right in the eye.  As fast as I could, without being too alarming, I grabbed my stuff and got out of there as quick as possible.  It did indeed take awhile for my heart to settle down.  I don't know if I was paranoid that the monkeys were following us from behind, or maybe it was the terrifying jungle sounds, but the hike out wasn't as fun!  Thursday, we took a bus back to the city, which was a perfect travel day because it stormed all day!  Now that we are back in the city, we are a little unsure of what to make of our itinerary.  We don't fly out and into Bali until the evening of Wed May 2.  That gives us 4 full days and a half if you don't count today.  This morning we went to a bird park, which was super cool.  Tons of beautiful and funny looking birds, all of which I can't quite remember what their names are called - very complex, except for the simple ones: peacock, hawk, eagle, stork, pelican, flamingo, owl, parrots, and ostriches.  We did try to switch our flight to an earlier day, however it is quite costly to do so.  Thus, we will be in the city awhile still, making things up as we go.  Malaysia is an interesting country.  Upon first arrival it did excite me.  Lots of colour, history, and culture.  But the more time I spend here it does fall short of what I had imagined.  There isn't too much that really strikes my fancy, maybe because my mind is too consumed with everything to do with Bali and what we'll be enduring there.  It's out of my control, so I will do my best to make the most of our days left here.  I guess that's all for now.  Also, I have ringworm and Nicole is a bit sick, so if you could pray for healing, we would be appreciative!  And that we would continue to have hearts full of praise as we make the most of our time left in Malaysia.  What an amazing opportunity that we have been blessed with, let us make the most of it !