So far:
We traveled by plane, train, car, bus, boat, motorcycle, scooter, horse carriage and becak, 
visited 5 countries,
went to 16 destinations,
took 11 flights,
and stayed in 20 hotels, apartments and bungalows and 1 night on a boat.

And some more general things we love about this trip:
being able to spend so much time together as a family
discovering new places together
watching Jace try loads of different types of food and loving most of them
meeting lots of new and inspiring people
being outside so much and seeing Jace run around and play with everything he finds
watching our little boy grow and learn and seeing him so at ease wherever we are

Of course it’s not always easy. Like all young parents we struggle with raising a very active and stubborn toddler, but we’ve added an extra hurdle by doing it while traveling. Also we’re still adjusting to this new way of traveling as a family. If you’ve read our post about traveling with a child, you’ve noticed that there’s quite a few things that change when it’s not just the two of you anymore. That being said, we’ve had so many amazing experiences, met so many fantastic new people and seen so many great places, we wouldn’t have missed that for the world!

Jace is generally a very happy child and it’s a lot of fun to watch him discover all these new places, new people, new tastes, new animals… He smiles a lot and is constantly running around checking out his new environment. He loves to go exploring with us We know he won’t actually remember this trip, but we hope this sense of discovery, the idea that anything is possible, all the impressions he gets and the foods he tastes will stay with him when he grows up.

We’re very much looking forward to our next 6 months on the road!

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The flight over here was pretty uneventful. We left at 5PM, arriving in KL around 8PM and then had to take a taxi to our rental apartment which took about 45 minutes. So all in all it was a bit too late for Jace. Note to self: try to get an earlier flight in the future…. We were lucky he did manage to sleep a bit in the airport.

It was our first time with Jace in a big city, but he did really well and we enjoyed the change of scenery. The studio apartment we choose was very close to Maluri LRT station, so convenient enough to get to the city center. It was also only a 5-10 minute walk to a mall with a big supermarket, which was great for buying diapers, baby wipes etc. The biggest plus of this apartment was the view though! Unobstructed view of the Petronas Towers, wow, especially in the evening when all the lights are on.

When we first arrived they gave us another room, but when we complained that it didn’t look anything at all like the pictures on the booking website (and the tiny little fridge didn’t work), we could transfer to a bigger room. A much better room with a much much better view

We haven’t really done a lot to be honest. This detailed guide for Kuala Lumpur with kids tells you a lot more about what KL has to offer. We wandered around Bukit Bintang and China Town, went to KLCC and the Petronas Towers, went to Rainbow Runners dive shop (quite a tour to get there, first LRT almost to the end of the red line and then a taxi) to buy a new BCD for Mau, took Jace to the park next to our apartment to play in the playground, wandered around the neighbourhood and generally saw A LOT of shopping malls. Enough to last us a few months at least.

Jace loves being on the train, metro and monorail, actually he loves all means of transport so far. His hair color attracts a lot more attention than in Bali. We’ve even had a few people that wanted to take a picture with him. Oh well… He smiles a lot, waves at everybody and is his own curious self, so all is good. Although his main diet is still white rice and chicken, he’s trying out some new foods, so we’re happy about that.

It was nice to be in a big city again and I’m sure I’ll miss the easy access to all the stuff we can buy here, but I’ll also be glad when we leave. I miss the sunshine and the beach. We’re inside way too much! The apartment is on the 20th floor and has no balcony to sit outside, so when Jace sleeps we’re inside too. We usually go out for lunch and dinner and end up being ‘home’ late which messes with Jace’s schedule. He’s skipped his naps a few times or only did a 30-minute power nap in the stroller and goes to bed much later than normal. But he’s handling it pretty well and it does allow us to go out a bit more. Hopefully it will get back to normal when we reach our new destination. I’m not ready to give up those few hours of rest in the afternoon and the evenings when he goes to bed at 8!

Again we had A LOT of trouble deciding where to go to next. I really hope this is something that will get easier in time because it takes too much energy. At the moment there weather all over South-East Asia isn’t very good, so all the places we normally could have chosen now have rain and thunderstorms at least once a day. And since Jace already has a heat rash from the humidity here in KL we really wanted to go somewhere that’s a bit more dry. Sooo… after days and days of searching, comparing and spending HOURS on the internet we’ve finally decided to go to Sulawesi. North Sulawesi (Manado, Bunaken) seems to be a bit too expensive, but AirAsia has flights to Makassar in South Sulawesi for a decent price. So that’s where we’re going tomorrow. Back to Indonesia again. I knew we weren’t done there yet

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