Mantis Attack

This video was shot by my friend Sara from outside our bungalow in Koh Tao -- literally, "turtle island" -- Thailand.

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Greetings from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which is the world's biggest shopping mall. This place has more Louis Vuitton, Cartier, and Valentino designer shops than (probably) NYC and Paris combined. It's the ideal location if you want to buy a $250,000 watch.

Why such extravagence? In a word, oil money. We paid homage to this yesterday by journeying to the viewing platform of the Petronas towers, which used to be the tallest towers in the world until, recently, a tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, took away that honor. (Petronas -- like "petrol" -- is a multinational oil and gas company).

Leaving Thailand was bittersweet. We spent a total of 2 months in Thailand on this trip, and I could easily turn around and spend yet another month there. It's a paradise of beaches and islands and jungles. It's not "cultural travel," so to speak (its so full of tourists that in some places you could easily go 24 hours without seeing a Thai person), but when you're on a 2--year trip in some of the world's most difficult places to visit, you sometimes just want a utopian slice of heaven that gets away from it all. Thailand is that place. Now we're back to "reality," in K.L., but only for a moment. We fly to Bali tonight.