It’s not very often that I have a clear idea of where I’m going or even how I’m going to get there.  It also seems that I have a tendency to not leave places when I think I will – that I’m currently spending four days in George Town instead of two is a great example of this.  So, the fact that I have a rough idea of where I’ll be for the next three weeks is a pretty big change of pace for me.

My birthday is coming up soon.  July 3rd.  This isn’t much of a surprise since it happens at the same time each year.  As I’ve been traveling along through South East Asia I’ve been keeping an eye on my progress and doing what I could to guess where I may be on my birthday.  Given my current trajectory, Kuala Lumpur or Singapore continue to come up as the most likely cities.  Similarly, I’ve been looking at maps and wondering where I’d want to be for my birthday. Neither Kuala Lumpur nor Singapore were coming up too high on the list of places I want to celebrate a birthday.  So…after saying I would do it for about a month now, I went online and bought a plane ticket to Bali.  I can now definitively say that I’ll be in Indonesia for my birthday – hopefully near a beach with a coconut filled with rum in my hand.  I leave from Kuala Lumpur on July 1st – although I’m somewhat disappointed by this because it means I won’t get to go into Singapore.  (Both cities offer cheap flights, but the $30 you’d save flying out of Singapore would be spent getting there and/or being there for a day.  You could also argue that I just sold myself short on Singapore for $30…)

This is where things start to get fun.  I know that I need to be in Kuala Lumpur by July 1st.  I’ll most likely get to the city somewhere around the 27th of June.  That gives me 10 days to account for on mainland Malaysia.  Based on some research, here are some of the things I’m going to try to do before I leave Malaysia.

Batu Caves:

Perhentian Islands:

Cameron Highlands:

Kuala Lumpur:

While I can’t account for where I’ll be each and every day for the next two weeks, the plan so far is this.  Go to the islands tomorrow.  (5AM bus and then eventually a boat to the islands.  Not sure if I’ll book somewhere to stay before I get there or not…)  Try not to feel the urge to never leave.  Go to the Cameron Highlands from the islands.  Go to Kuala Lumpur after the highlands.  The caves are just north of KL, so I should be able to reach them from the city.  Based on how things go – I may have time to squeeze another location into the mix, but I’m not going to make any plans to do so.