2025 Malaysia- Menlo Abroad

HI EVERYBODY! This is Sadie once again—solo this time—reporting from Malaysia. Hope you didn't miss my blog posts too much!   Today was our second-to-last day in our homestays, which we will all miss very much. This morning, back at our house, Kate and I got off to a late start. As usual, I woke up on the later side, with my amazing host mom, Mama Rody, knocking on my door to let me know breakfast was ready. When I got to the kitchen table, a whole feast had been prepared: fried chicken, rice, banana bread, fruits, toast, and sticky rice with pandan. Sangat sedap (very delicious)!  After breakfast, one of our tour guides, Ja, picked us up from our house and drove us to the town's community hall. There, surrounded by the remnants of the local wedding that happened a few days ago, we completed our physical, emotional, and poop checks. Once everyone arrived, we started a walking tour of the FELCRA palm oil plantation on foot.  At the plantation, we watched the workers c...

Hey everyone, this is Asher writing to you after a fun day in Kuala Tahan. This morning, I woke up to a big surprise: I went viral on TikTok ! A video of me advertising my host mom’s Rojak Mee (spicy peanut sauce noodles) at the local night market on Wednesday—posted by my homestay sister, Lany—has over one million views. That was quite the shock to wake up to!  After that morning surprise, we began our day. Our group met on the riverbank at 9:00am and traveled 15 minutes upstream. On the way, two of our guides, Ja and Angah—both seated at the front of the boats—took turns splashing the entire group with their oars in a friendly competition. It was fun to see each other get soaked, and it was also pretty refreshing in the heat. When it was time to disembark, everyone arrived at the shore drenched. Once we got off the river, we hiked roughly 20 minutes along a creek to a waterfall. The walk was not easy—the path required lots of maneuvering around slippery rocks, gushing water up to...

  I know you were waiting for our turn—it’s Ava and Ella! Today we got to wake up late in our hotel rooms and enjoy a nice, big breakfast at the hotel buffet. We had a wonderful time soaking in the air conditioning before getting ready for a community wedding, wearing traditional clothes given to us by our homestays like we did for the mosque, but without headscarves. Before leaving in the early afternoon, we had a small lunch at the hotel buffet with some tasty mango and pink dragonfruit, saving space for more food later at the wedding.  The wedding, located at the village’s community center, was truly beautiful and had hundreds—if not thousands—of people having a great time, since the entire village (population 3,000) was invited. The inside of the community hall was transformed from its usual appearance, filled with colorful flowers and flowing white drapes, and the outside adorned with more decorations and stalls giving out food like ice cream, cake, and other traditional ...

  It’s your favs Ben and Neil coming to you live from Kuala Tahan, Malaysia! Today was our resort day, and we arrived at Tekoma Resort after having a scrumptious breakfast with our homestay family. Shortly after arriving, we got delicious, cold Milo drinks, did our daily check-in, which was focused on gratitude today, and checked into our rooms, taking a break in the air-conditioned room and enjoying hot showers before lunch together at the hotel. After lunch, we went to the mosque for midday Friday prayer, which is the most important congregational prayer for Muslims. To prepare for our visit, we were asked to dress modestly in order to respect the site that we were visiting. For boys, this involved wearing long pants, and for girls, long pants or skirts and headscarves. We walked up the hill near our hotel to the mosque, which is located on top of a hill. Once we arrived, we sat in a shaded area outside the mosque while people prayed together. It is really interesting that the se...

Selamat malam from our lovely homestay in Kuala Tahan! Today was another day successfully spent; it was full of learning and, of course, laughter and light as always. We started off our day with our usual morning routine: a wake-up time of 7:30 and a sizable cup of coffee (lots of condensed milk to mask the bitterness or, in Sienna’s case, sugar as well). Breakfast included orange slices, scrambled eggs, and cheese-stuffed naan. After Jah picked us up from our house, which is the furthest one out from the village, we set off to the boat jetty for a quick morning meeting. Then we took our 15-minute boat ride to the nearby Bateq village we had visited a couple of nights prior.  Our visit to the village was primarily so we could speak more closely with tribe members and dive deeper into learning about their ways of life. With Andrew, Stella, Jah, and Angah as our Malay translators, we listened to detailed descriptions of their day-to-day routines and elaborate folktales about tiger pe...

  Selamat malam! This is Sadie and Kate reporting from Kuala Tahan, Malaysia.  We woke up bright and early (well, Kate did — Sadie woke up 15 minutes late) and enjoyed lempeng dan jem (pancakes with jam) and some sedap (delicious) tea. We attempted to converse with our homestay family only in Malay, but didn’t last long, so instead we practiced counting to 20. Our homestay dad has a challenge for us that before we leave Kuala Tahan, we must have a full conversation only in Malay, no English. Wish us luck! So far we can count to about 5, say thank you, and introduce ourselves.  We live with Din (our dad), Mamarodi (our mom), Emira (our sister — or kakak) who’s 15, and Emil (our brother — or abang) who’s 18. Sadly, Emil had to jet off to his job where he identifies disaster victims, so we mostly spend time with the others. Emira doesn’t have to go to school this week since she is on vacation for Hajj and Hari Raya Haji. Only our dad speaks English, so we asked him about hi...