Thanks so much CaliLady, I'll shoot Allen an email once my dates are more firm :)

Oh good, needmorevacation. And not to boss you around, but I hope you'll spend one or more of your exploring weekends in Malaysia. I found my 3 week trip to East Malaysia (Borneo) in September to be one of my best ever, mostly because of the wonderful people, and beautiful flora and fauna.

Currently I'm planning on Penang and Brunei. Penang is a 'for sure', but I'm unsure of how much time I want to spend in Singapore on the weekends :) I do have the option to do a week off at the end, but I was thinking Bangkok/Chiang Mai- who knows I may end up in Borneo after needing some 'green time' away from the city!

LL,

Sharia Law isn't (nor ever will be) the law of the land in the US. I'm still not following your lede here.

To answer your hypothetical: it's easy. No one should stop traveling to the USA because of Sharia Law...because it's not law here! Whereas, in Brunei, it is. And all of those bullets I listed out are accurate and enforceable there.

As an aside, I also must mention that it's pretty narrow to associate or link any rise in Muslim places of worship with Sharia Law being enforced. That's like saying there are more Christians in the US, therefore that means that there will be more Timothy McVeighs tomorrow.

My point was not to start a political debate--that's better suited to the Lounge--but rather to simply point out that, objectively speaking, women can be executed or sexually mutilated in Brunei for multitude of trivial reasons (last I checked that's not happening in the US, the UK, or most anywhere else in the civilized world.)

I want to go many places in the world but, for me, my sense of wanderlust will always be superseded by a sense of justice against any brutality and violence against a country's own people.

I'm sure parts of Germany were beautiful during WWII...who on Earth would ever have wanted to vacation there then? Let's just ignore those Nazis, cuz it's so verdant and green. #smh

Brunei...

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/...y/1905544.html

I haven't found any evidence of the more barbaric aspects of Sharia being carried out in Brunei. The law is a deterrent, don't break the law and you've got nothing to worry about.

USA...

In the USA there's no need to break the law, going to school is dangerous enough...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

No wonder you people spend so much time in SE Asia...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/violenc...f-life/5318698
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/stat...-death-penalty
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/ame...lled-iraq-war/