On the Road Again - From Sub Par in Penang to Loving Life in Lipe With Lots in Between, stop one, Ipoh

It has been nearly a month since an update!  I am not so good at this so apologies to anyone who has been curious as to our where abouts.  We are alive and well and...I promise to do my best to provide more regular updates in the future.  We would also love updates from anyone out there!

Our month in Penang did not turn out exactly as we had planned but we are getting used to the unexpected twists and turns that have been a part of our journey since we left Victoria in September.  Rob, Eric and I ended up spending most of the last two weeks at the apartment in Penang in bed feeling pretty miserable.   We were glad we were not all confined to one hotel room and we did not have to try to move from place to place.  We are still not sure what we came down with but whatever it was, it was very nasty and it bit us like we have not been bit before.  Fearon managed to escape the wrath of the virus and he did a marvelous job of keeping himself amused and us cared for.  Fortunately, we started feeling better in time to vacate the apartment and, much to the kids chagrin, hit the road again. 

Ipoh

We left Penang and headed towards Kuala Lumpur, taking some excellent detours along the way.  The first stop was Ipoh, an ancient city nestled between towering limestone cliffs that were as picturesque as just about anything we have seen.  We went to a park that somehow successfully combined being an eco resort, natural hot springs, zoo, caves, water park and museum.  The mixture sounds kind of odd but it was amazing and we all loved it.  The setting was spectacular and the combination of having a blast on the water slides, being able to see cool animals, learn about the history of tin mining and wander through some caves made for a great day.  This was the start to the celebration of Fearon’s 14^th Birthday.  We knew we would be “in transit” on his actual Birthday but we wanted to at least do some particularly fun things around the actual date.

Ipoh is known for its many cave temples and Rob and I visited one of the largest ones.  The coolness of the cave was a welcome relief from the heat of the day but the relief was short lived.  It did not take long for temperatures to rise once we got through the cave and started to climb the cliffs to take in the view.  It also did not take long to realize that the previous couple of weeks spent in bed had taken quite a bit out of us.  We were huffing and puffing as though we were doing a major hill workout.