Kuala Lumpur: Not Where Koala Bears Come From

Since we've been here in Jakarta we haven't had many visitors. So when we got an email back in January saying that our friends Jim, Chris, and Sara would be traveling around SE Asia for a few weeks, we were pretty excited. One of their stops was in Kuala Lumpur, so we headed out there meet up with them for the weekend. We also met up with a friend of a friend (one of Matt Zeller's old coworkers named Rahul). Despite being associate with Zeller, Rahul was actually a cool guy. Who knew? Kidding. We love Matthew Susan Zeller. He's a peach. But I digress....

The first stop on our trek was the Batu Caves. 

The Batu Caves are a huge network of limestone caves located about 13 km outside of KL. They are around 400 million years old, and the main cave is reportedly one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside of India (it is a focal point of the Hindu festival of Thaipusam in Malaysia). We didn't know any of that prior to going there, so we just checked it out not knowing what to expect. 

When we first reached the area where the caves are, we were greeted by this guy:

Hola

Apparently this is Hanuman, a Hindu deity. He plays a central role in the Ramayana (for those keeping track: the Kecak dance we saw in Bali is based on the Ramayana). So now you know. Onward! Walking past Hanuman there are a bunch of vendors selling things, but that's not what we came here for. To the caves! Finally we find it:

The statue you see behind us is Murugan, the Hindu God of War and Victory. It's HUGE. 140 ft. tall and apparently the tallest statue in Malaysia. This picture doesn't do it justice. It's monstrous. The caves are at the top of the stairs on the left of the statue, and it's quite a hike (272 steep stairs). But we're all young and spritely, so we took em on!

These stairs are not joke

About halfway there, with a monkey friend

As you can see, we ran across a lot of Macaque monkeys. They were all over the place, running around, getting food from people, etc. I caught this guy as he was climbing/jumping down:

These ones were just hanging around, eating, caring for their young, etc.

After the 272 stair climb, we made it! Let's see what these caves are all about.

The caves are pretty huge, and it's very impressive. There is shrine inside the caves and I believe this is where the Hindu festival of Thaipusam takes place. Walking a bit further into the cave we reached a spot where it opened up to the sky and there are another couple shrines. 

If you look closely you can see some of the characters on the roof of the shrine. I don't mean to be disrespectful in any way here, so I apologize if I am. But take a look at this guy:

Hello, ladies

He just looks to me like he is an old school movie star or something. It struck me as kind of funny, and again, no offense intended so I apologize. Anywhoooo...the area in the cave is pretty cool looking and has a lot of neat rock formations and things. 

This is a stalactite. It's science.

The one bummer was saw was a lot of trash strewn about in the cave. That's been a fairly common theme across most of SE Asia and it's too bad. There are so many spectacularly beautiful places that are getting overrun by trash. Hopefully they're able to clean this up before it gets too bad. Anyway, we made our way back out of the cave and down to ground level.

The view on the way down 

After our triumphant cave exploration

So remember all those vendors selling things? Well one of them had delicious coconuts for sale, so of course we stopped and had some. We earned it, right? 

Yeah, I'll have a #2, extra machete

I'm very happy to be here! 

It's refreshing AND delicious

Seriously, those coconuts were delicious. Just what we needed. We then headed back into the city and spent a few hours searching for a mosque Jim had heard about that was supposed to be a must-see. After several hours of walking and searching, we discovered it was under construction. We did manage to catch a glimpse of it through the construction fence, and even got a close up look when a random stranger opened the gate for us. We made it about 50 yards onto the construction site before some of the workers came out and kindly "escorted" us away from the premises. Oh well, it was a good effort.

Later that night we hit one of the real highlights of the trip. We took a firefly boat tour on the Selangor River. For those who might be a little skeptical (as I was), it's actually pretty cool. The boat tour left from a dock that was surrounded by various riverside restaurants and things that looked a little shady, but we were not to be deterred so easily. 

Captain Jim is suspicious of you

We donned our safety gear, hopped in the boat, and headed out. 

Now, one thing to understand about this trip. On our way out to the river, it had been raining quite a bit. But it seemed to be holding off and we figured we were in the clear. It took all over about 5 minutes of the boat ride for the rain to come. And not just a little rain. We're talking SE Asia, downpour on the river monsoon type rain. It was glorious. Here we are getting soaked and "loving" it.

The rain eventually did let up and we started searching for fireflies. At first, we didn't see much and my skepticism was feeling confirmed. Then all of a sudden, we started to see what looked like some twinkling up ahead in some mangroves. Then a few more. And more. The next thing you know, the mangroves are sparkling like Christmas trees. It was definitely a cool thing to see. Sara even commented at one point that she kind of didn't believe that it wasn't just a bunch of lights being plugged in as we came by. Perhaps to dispell that myth, our boat captain turned directly into the mangroves and grabbed a few branches covered in fireflies for us to see up close. Sure enough, there they were, crawling all over it. So cool!

After the firefly cruise we headed back to shore and grabbed some dinner at the seafood place right there. We figured being right on the river the seafood should be nice & fresh. We were right. The crab and fish at this place was outstanding and we scarfed it down. Jim especially loved it.

Mmmm crabs

Jim is amazed

Fat & happy!

That was pretty much all the excitement for our trip, and we figured on Sunday we should find a place to chill and just enjoy the time before our flight. I found a review for a hotel bar that was supposed to be pretty good, so we went to check it out. Pretty good doesn't quite cover it. This place had a sick pool, with perfect views of the Petronas Towers, good food, and beers. A nice little Sunday.

After our lovely afternoon, we headed to the airport. But KL wasn't quite done with us yet. Our taxi was a hybrid petrol/natural gas car, which we thought was kinda cool. That is until halfway to the airport it started sputtering and couldn't get above 20 or 30 mph. Something about running low on Nat. Gas and not cleanly switching over to regular gas or something. Anyway, we stopped to fill up and all was well. Our driver then proceeded to take us to the wrong airport (he didn't ask us and assumed we were all flying international since we're Americans). So basically he had to circle back around and get us to the right airport, at which point he asked us for more money. Silly taxi driver, we're not rookies at this SE Asian take advantage of the white people thing. We kindly declined his "offer", paid the agreed fare, and headed to our flights. Jim & Sara were off to Bali & Komodo Island, while Gloria and I headed back to Jakarta and "real life". Until the following weekend that is....

...to be continued