All on our own...

So our last morning/afternoon in Georgetown, we didn't have much time to sightsee. Mike, Adam, and Joe went to the beach, but they said it wasn't that great. We took the bus back to Kuala Lumpur and grabbed dinner and went to Chinatown to do some cheap last minute shopping. Derek, who works for Hope Worldwide, also stopped by and gave us some sweet shirts!

Monday morning, everyone split up :( Mike and Joe went off to Ko Samui [Thailand], Adam left for the Perhentian Islands, Dr. Gossman went back to Omaha, and all of us girls stayed in Kuala Lumpur one extra day. But we just got to Bangkok a couple hours ago. We decided to try to keep blogging in case anyone was still checking in on us.

So our extra day in Kuala Lumpur was spent at the elephant sanctuary...and it was AWESOME! We got to feed and ride the elephants, but we couldn't bathe them because the water level was too high and it wasn't safe for tourists to get in the river :( It was an hour and a half outside the city, so by the time we got back it was dinner time. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for burgers and to watch the Denmark vs. Netherlands game. If you didn't watch it, the Netherlands won 2-0, and the first goal was actually headed in by one of its own players.

Today was basically a travel day. We left our hotel at 11am to take all the different routes of public transportation to the airport. Our flight got in at 4:40pm, we took a shuttle bus to our hotel, and then ate dinner at a random restaurant on the street...which turned out to be delicious. We already love it here! The people are SO nice and the food is amazing :) We leave for Ko Chang tomorrow morning and won't get there until around 3pm, where we'll meet up with Dusty, Randy, Abby, and Geoff from the other SE Asia CURA group. We're so excited! We'll try to blog from the island :)

Georgetown

We just had our final day of clinic for the CURA trip, and I think it was extremely satisfying for everyone. I can't believe its already over! We saw 125 people by working out of HOPE Worldwide's mobile clinic--a painted-up van with all our tools and medicines inside. We went to two different sites and saw completely different populations of people at each place. Here, HOPE been very thorough with how they run things and they have even had paper charts in their KL clinic and electronic charts in the mobile clinic. So, we charted every patient that went through, detailing every complaint and prescription. It's nice that they try to keep tabs on everyone that goes through and encourage repeat visitors the next time that the clinic is open. By the end of the day we had nearly exhausted our supply of medicines and we wound up donating the rest to the local clinic. We're estimating that the total number of people we have seen and treated is around 2900!

Tomorrow we are going to see the sights of Georgetown. It's been named a UNESCO World Heritage site, because of it's special place in history, so we're going to tour the old buildings near our hotel. By 1:30 we'll be back on the bus to KL where we will have a final send-off dinner from the HOPE staff.

Made it to Penang

We just arrived in Georgetown which is in the province of Penang. Had dinner at Louis Western Cafe, which after weeks of rice and noodles, was a nice reminder of American food. Tomorrow we will have our last day of clinic--a mobile clinic that will travel through several communities in the surrounding areas and should be lots of fun! More later.

Mike

Pictures from Indonesia and Malaysia

FOUR BLOG POSTS IN ONE DAY!!

Here are a few random pictures for your enjoyment...

JAKARTA AND BANDUNG


Couldn't resist taking a picture of this guy who was carrying tons of boxes, all tied onto his motorcycle precariously... he barely fit on himself!


Traditional fishing boats on the Java Sea.



View from the train between Jakarta and Bandung. It was a beautiful and relaxing three hour ride.


The waterfalls at Maribaya (north of Bandung) taken at a slow shutter speed.


KUALA LUMPUR - Batu Caves

Kuala Lumpur Pictures

Waiting at the train station outside of Kuala Lumpur with all of our luggage (including medical supplies!)
















Standing in the skywalk bridge of the Petronas Towers















Joe "painting the clinic" before actually running it on Tuesday and Thursday















View of both towers... the KL tower on the left and the Petronas on the right















Adam with a monkey at the Batu Caves, a Hindu temple outside of Kuala Lumpur















Kati with a couple pythons at the Batu Caves.... she's surprisingly very happy to be holding snakes!















View of the city from the Planetarium... look at the rain-clouds!















Missy standing in front of a hazy view of both towers at the orchid and hibiscus garden just before the rain hit

Kuala Lumpur

We have been in KL for a few days now and there is a marked difference between here and the other places we have been volunteering in Manila and Jakarta. First off the traffic, pollution, and public transportation is way better. In regards to our clinic, we are working in a nice air conditioned building used often for treating underprivileged patients. We see much fewer patients and have licensed nurses translating for us as well as a Malaysian doctor on hand.

The first day here we all spent the day painting the clinics waiting room. It was a tough job and took us a while to reach all the high places and put on two coats of paint but in the end it looked really nice.

The next day was a volunteer day and we saw about 30 patients with the doctor that often works here. The nurses were very helpful in translating and we were able to spend a lot of time with the patients. It was a nice change of pace. They have most of their own medicine and the exam rooms feel just like working in a clinic back in the States. At night most of our group went to Chinatown to check it out while a few of the girls went to have their feet munched on by fish (apparently this is some form of a pedicure but it sounds like fish torture to me). After wandering around for a bit we all returned home to our nice little condo for the night. We have 3 bedrooms as well as an entryway, living room, and three bathrooms. It is a very nice place.

The next morning we all got up at 6 am in order to make it to the Petronas Towers on time to get a ticket to go to the sky bridge. While in line an grumpy old German man got mad at us for having so many people but he was probably senile. We were able to get to the Skybridge at 9:15 am and there was a very beautiful view of downtown KL from there. We took a lot of photos. After that we all took a walk to the KL Tower but it was so expensive to go to the top of it that we passed on that. Then we took taxis to the Batu Caves which is a huge Hindu temple located up a lot of stairs and in large caves. It was very nice and there were monkeys everywhere. Some of them were mean but most sat around and tried stealing water bottles and things from you. It was a great leg workout to go up over 200 steps.

After that we stopped for lunch in some random restaurant and then went to a planetarium. It was a lot of walking and as we were leaving it started pouring rain. We took shelter under some little roof and hailed for a taxi. Half the group went home on the taxi while the mentally unstable ones (Joe, Mike, Dr. Gossman) decided to walk through the downpour.

Today we went to clinic again, saw some patients and now are on our lunch break!!! That is all. No bickering in the comments, lets keep it civil. :)

Pictures from Jakarta and Bandung

First day in Jakarta visiting a clinic located outside of the city
















Our favorite Korean restaurant with all-you-can meat and sides for ~$7 USD!
















On a boat at Pelabuhan Sunda Kelapa, the ironwood boat yard















After setting up clinic in a community situated along the Java Sea... Adam is MIA
















Playing Indonesian instruments (angklungs) at a cultural show in Bandung
















In front of one of the many waterfalls in Maribaya, just outside of Bandung
















After trekking in the pouring rain to the volcano crater and sitting in sulfur-heated lakes....

Kuala Lumpur

We made it to KL. We are staying in a great little place called Sarang Mas--got the whole house to ourselves! Just getting settled in, we'll post more tomorrow.

- Mike

The Rest of Bandung

We're sitting at the airport, 4 hours early for our flight to Malaysia, and I got chosen to update the blog. I don't know the names of a lot of the things we went to, so don't be mad...

I think today is Sunday? I'm not really sure though. So that means we got to Bandung Friday...Friday night we went out for dinner and drinks at a sushi restaurant. And that's pretty much all that happened that night.

Okay I'm switching to bullet points because thats easier for me and I'm too lazy to write out complete sentences.

Saturday [in order]:

• Buddhist temple
• Picked strawberries (Adam got violent and threw strawberries at people)
• ate rabbit saute - which was actually REALLY good :)
• went to Maraibaya (thank you for the name of that Missy), a village with manmade waterfalls
• hiked through a downpour to go swim in a volcanic crater - definitely the best part of our whole trip so far!
• rented a hotel room for the sole purpose of showering
• drove back to Jakarta while watching Zombieland (thank you Joe for the awesome 70 cent movie buy!)

And that's it :)

Bandung

We just made it to our hotel in Bandung. We've had a pretty fun day so far... Scenic train ride through the mountains, new city to explore and a great music/dance performance at a local performing arts school here. We have a guide, Brata, who was recommended to us by Maybe and has been very helpful already in taking us around to see the sights. Tomorrow we are going to drive up into the mountains further to a place called Lembang which is kind of like a state park or nature reserve. There are a few waterfalls and a volcano to see there. Then we'll spend the day back in Bandung and head back to Jakarta late. We'll try to post pictures when we get back.

- Mike

More Jakarta

Hi all! We will try to update the blog more frequently but our schedules vary and it gets difficult to post daily. But anyways...

Yesterday we setup a clinic in Jakarta much like the clinic we had during our second day in Laguna. The area we served had never had a medical mission before our arrival. We were actually situated on top of a landfill. With the heat and location, flies swarmed our clinic and made it difficult to work. However, we pushed through and treated over 150 patients in just a few hours.

The majority of our patients had complaints of arthritis, numbness, and cold/cough. With our experience in the Philippines, we have gained the knowledge to treat these complaints with confidence. It's especially nice to know which drugs to recommend and which treatment course to follow.

Last night we decided to visit a touristy district in Jakarta. The area we visited housed many restaurants and a few local shops. We chose a steakhouse for dinner and the majority of us had steak. Believe it or not but the steak dinner was less than $5 a person without drinks! Very cheap and very delicious! Unfortunately it started raining so our time after dinner was spent running from location-to-location to find a spot to hang out until it was time to go home.

Today we will be returning to the tuberculosis clinic to treat patients. We will only spend a few hours there as the patient population is much smaller than our previous clinics. Thursday we will setup a clinic again somewhere in Jakarta like the one we setup yesterday. Friday we take a train to Bandung to tour a mountainous area a few hours from here. We have plans to see a cultural show and hike to a waterfall. It should be a lot of fun and we are really excited about it!

Anyway, hope all is well with everyone at home. We miss you a lot!