Malaysia

Troy works with a company in Senai, Malaysia and so on Sunday evening we took a hotel shuttle to our new hotel: The Sofitel Palm Resort Golf & Country Club. The hotel is full of character and surrounded by amazing life...plant, animal and insect.

I've never knew palm trees could be so diverse. I feel like a horticultural noob as I keep looking up trying to find the coconuts. The trees to the left are directly outside of our hotel room. On the way to the hotel we passed fields of palm tree farms. The area here is known for their palm oils.

The hallways all have wall sconces that not only light the way but also heat up and provide a warm and bug filled nest for geckos to hunt in at night. Almost every wall sconce has a gecko or two hiding inside.

Troy goes off to work during the day so I'm at the hotel free to lounge by the pool, go to the spa, play pool, bowl, commit archery, snooker, racquetball, ping pong or golf. They have bicycles to rent, boardgames, squash courts, fitness rooms and an entire room dedicated to Majong. Of course it's 70,000 bajillion degrees with 493% humidity outside and I've yet to wrangle up enough people to put together a decent squash team. I also think everyone in the hotel is here on business so the fall-over-themselves-with-politeness-staff who won't make eye contact with me, let alone pick up a ping pong paddle and hit something at me, are the only people around during the day.

I've gone on lots of walks around the grounds and tried to enjoy the beauty of such a diverse ecology. My favorite view is seeing the roofs of the hotel rising out of the jungle.

Every path I've taken has been paved differently. I wonder what the story is with that. Did they run out of stones? Is it art? It's definitely interesting and adds to the tactile beauty of my daily jaunts.

The paths through the grass have railroad ties embedded in them so the earth doesn't slide away in the rain. There are deep canals crisscrossing the property. The freeway overpasses have signs indicating which side of the road has rain shelters for motorcyclists. So much evidence of a dramatic rainy season.

The inky green pools have thousands of coy living in them. They're difficult to see through the murky water but they'll suddenly begin jumping and the water comes alive. I have to admit, that's a little creepy.

Here are some more of the pictures that I took on my trip around the resort:

Paths:

Plants:

Random things that struck my fancy: