Kuantan, Malaysia

It was a four hour drive from the caves to Kuantan (well, including one missed exit that resulted in a scenic detour) but we made it before dinner time. We ate Malaysian and Indian food in the hotel restaurant and got some rest. The next morning we had breakfast with Bubba and Yaya and played on the beach. The waves were lots of fun!

The pool area was beautiful and the poolside bar was a shipwrecked vessel that washed up from Vietnam years ago.

Tilly got some snorkel practice in, and Bubba swam with the kids, too. And Chris always provides some entertainment.

The view from our room was fabulous!

Fun in the lobby -

"How can I help you?" Just down the beach from our hotel was a popular spot, with a boardwalk, shops, restaurants, and entertainment for the kids. Yaya had some mango stolen from her by a monkey on the boardwalk earlier that day, so we were prepared to be greeted on the boardwalk that evening. Chris tried to get Tiffany to hold some peanuts for him, but she wasn't falling for it!

Down on the beach there was a bouncy house, a weird contraption where kids got in huge plastic balls and floated around in a pool, and a car track with electric cars and motorcycles to drive around. Tilly and Levi wanted to drive the motorcycles. They had fun, though Levi was in a small fender bender and called it quits.

We walked around a little market area and people in shops were watching the Thailand/Malaysia soccer game. Chris jumped in with some locals to celebrate a goal.

It began to rain that night, and we woke up to pouring down rain. We ate breakfast and waited it out in our rooms. Finally, the rain stopped and the sun came out so Tiffany and I headed to the beach with the kids to do some shell collecting. The storm brought big waves, and washed all sorts of treasures on the beach so it was fun to pick through the shells. We walked toward some huge rocks at the end of the beach, and it started raining pretty hard again before we even got there. You can't tell how rainy it was from the pics, but my phone got so wet from taking pics that it stopped working.

Tiffany was surprised to find this little guy in a shell she picked up. The kids called him Henry Hugglemonster.

The rain continued all night and into the next day, and we realized that we were in the middle of a real monsoon. Reports of local communities flooded were all over the news and it rained harder than we had ever seen. We kept busy in the lobby and walked around the night market. In between the little shops of the market was standing water that covered your feet, and local kids were running and sloshing through the puddles, getting soaked. The next morning we watched the Seahawks win on a computer with a slow connection in the business center, and headed back to KL. Everything there was so damp, even the wooden floor of our room was moist, and our shoes and swimsuits did not dry once they got wet.

The rain doesn't keep the locals off the beach - note the guy out on his bike??!

It was a nerve-wracking drive back to the city, but Chris got us home safely. We stopped at a rest area for some corn in a cup and other snacks and arrived back in KL for Toi's feast. She made turkey, ham, stuffing, and veggies for Tiffany's last night with us. She packed up her things and headed for the airport this morning. We will miss you, Tiffany!