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

It's on, like Hong(key) Kong

As Gloria mentioned in the previous post, visiting Hong Kong for her was a very meaningful chance to connect with her past and experience the place her parents came from. For me, it was similar, but a bit different. For pretty much the entire time we've known each other, Gloria and I have been going to my family's events, which often happen at "The Cabin" (built by my dad, his parents, and his siblings), or "The Farm" (where my Mom grew up).

It's all very accessible to us and definitely has a lot of meaning, but it is all one-sided. Gloria has told me many times how much she wanted to show where her family comes from, and I really wanted to see it as well. Seeing the housing where Gloria's parents lived and the emotion that goes along with it is something I'll never forget. Also, it was pretty fun to watch Gloria's Mom (completely in her element) leading the way through Hong Kong's markets (we'll get to more on that in a bit). Overall, it was a truly amazing trip and it had a lot of meaning for all of us.

Ok, now that we've got the serious stuff out of the way, back to our (hopefully) informative and (sometimes) funny posts.

Hong Kong was a lot of fun. It's definitely a unique place and we saw a ton of cool stuff. First up, Big Buddha!

The Big Buddha, or Tian Tan Buddha, is a huge statue that was built in the 1990s. Time to bust out some more Wikipedia knowledge: The Buddha is 34 metres tall, weighs in at a svelte 250 metric tons, and was the world's tallest outdoor bronze seated Buddha prior to 2007. The statue is meant to symbolise the harmonious relationship between man and nature, people and religion, and is a major centre of Buddhism in Hong Kong. The site is right next to a monastery and is a really serene place.

Just before walking up the 240 steps to reach the Buddha

It was obvious that this is an important place, as there were many people praying at the site. It definitely added to the serene feeling.

Gloria's parents taking in the scenery

An example of the statues surround the Buddha, depicting offerings being made

One of the really neat things about this area was the personal history for Gloria's dad. The picture below shows him in front of a building that was a B&B he used to come to when he was a kid. It was clear this place held some great memories for him and it was fun to see it with him.

From the Buddha, we hopped into the gondola which passes over the mountains and over the sea, to drop us back in Hong Kong.

Next up, the bird market. The bird market is essentially a place to buy birds and things for your birds, but mostly it's a place where some elderly men bring their birds to hang out with other birds in beautiful, meticulously kept cages. There is a lot of beautiful singing, and some funny talking birds.

You talkin to me?

From there we went to the nearby flower market. As you can imagine, Gloria was right at home there. Tons of flowers, of every kind, and the smell was overwhelming. I don't think I've ever smelled so many flowers in my life.

Later that evening, we headed out into Hong Kong proper to experience a bit of the city. This is where we saw more of what I imagined Hong Kong would be like: an insane number of people crossing the street at every corner, restaurants all over the place, and general city life. It was actually really nice to be back in a modern city.

Pardon me, coming through.

One interesting thing we learned while out in Hong Kong: the crazy cost of real estate. The picture below shows a restaurant that has been in Hong Kong for decades that is now going out of business. The reason: rent is doubling. This place has apparently been in business at this location for over 40 years, but they just can't afford to stay there anymore. If you look closely, you can see that the line of people waiting to get into the restaurant stretches all the way down the block. Quite literally hundreds of people waiting to get into the restaurant. Crazy. (Also notice Gloria's dad in the shot. With his orange hat he's kind of the anti-Where's Waldo)

Gloria's parents also took us around the city to show us all the places they used to go and to show us how they used to get around. Despite having a modern rapid transit system, Hong Kong still keeps some of the old trolleys running as well. Gloria's parents used to ride the trolleys to get in and out of the city years ago, and it was very cool to take a ride on one of the trolleys and get a feel for how they used to get around.

Ma's chariot

Street view of the trolley line

One of the more entertaining aspects of our trip was our fobulous finds around the city. What is fobulousness you ask? Well, I'll let these pictures speak for themselves:

Oh the irony

Wait, you have WHAT in stock??!!

Ohhhh, suits. 

Indeed. Shangeboy is wise. Or profound, or something.

Since our trip took place just before the Chinese New Year, there were a ton of decorations all over the place.

Also, there were some special attractions that are especially popular around CNY. One of those is the Lam Tsuen Wishing Tree. The story behind the tree is that people would write their wishes onto pieces of joss paper (which is traditionally used in various Chinese ceremonies), then tie the paper to an orange and throw the wish up into the tree. The belief is that the higher the wish lands in the tree, the more likely it is to come true. Here we are in front of the original tree.

Unfortunately, so many people threw wishes up into the tree that the weight of the oranges causes some branches to break off and fall. So, authorities disallowed the practice, and instead built an imitation tree nearby to hold new wishes.

Ah, the grandeur of fake nature

Of course, we had to partake, so we set about writing our wishes down...

This test is hard

...and got ready to toss it up in the tree.

Wishes written down and ready to go

What happens next is truly, epically, glorious. Seriously. All those years of playing baseball as a kid are finally about to pay off (I was a pitcher after all). Here we go!

So yeah, that was my big moment. At any rate, our wish made it into the tree, so there it is for posterity (or until they clean up the fake tree).

Since it was just before Chinese New Year, there were also about as many versions of the chinese zodiac characters as you could imagine. So we took some time to find our signs and have a little fun.

1980 - Year of the Monkey

1977 - Year of the Snake - spitting image.

1950 - Year of the Tiger -AH TIGER MOM!!!!!!

1949 - Year of the Ox

After our wishing tree and zodiac adventure, we were famished. Luckily there were some street vendors nearby who were quite happy to serve us. Gloria's parents told us we had to try a traditional Chinese snack, which we gladly obliged. It's a ginger tofu snack thingy, and it's delicious.

Looks like butter, tastes like happiness

After the wishing tree and our tofu snack, we spent the evening back in Hong Kong. Specifically, we took a trip up Victoria Peak, which is the highest point on Hong Kong island. Despite the rainy weather, the views were still pretty spectacular.

On Sunday we took a trip to some of the local markets in Hong Kong.

This is right before the butcher started yelling at me to stop taking pictures and chased me away.

This was where Gloria's mom truly shined. She led the way, showing how to get the best deal everywhere we went (the real trick was send the white guy away so they won't give tourist prices).

Searching the markets for the best deals

So, as I hid around the corner, Gloria and her mom worked on finding a jade bracelet. They scoured the market for the jeweler that her mom remembered had great stuff at good prices, and what do you know they found her.

Now, for those who haven't seen the process of putting on a jade bracelet (I hadn't before this moment), it requires a bit of work. Since the bracelet is a solid piece of Jade, it has to be "worked" over the hand. It is supposedly quite painful, but Gloria's mom stepped up to show us all that it doesn't really hurt.

What's the big deal? This doesn't really hur - OH DEAR GOD!!!

Yeah, no pain at all...

Happy customers and the shop owner

At this point I want to add a little story that happened several times during the weekend. When Gloria introduced me to the Jade saleswoman, she made a comment that I kept hearing over and over. The phrase is "Leng Zai" , which translates to 'pretty boy'. I like to think of it as big, strong, handsome, burly, man.

The shop giving me a complimentary jade Buddha pendant for being such a leng zai

As we were leaving the markets we noticed something interesting. Since it was Sunday, most if not all of the domestic help in Hong Kong is now from Indonesia (they are much cheaper than Philippino labor that dominated this market in the 80's and 90's), and on Sundays, they all come out to an area near the markets to hang out, eat, nap and just be with people from their own country. There were literally thousands of Indonesian women! We felt like we were "home".

All Indonesians just hanging out

As I noted earlier, Hong Kong has some seriously crowded streets. This was especially pronounced on Sunday, when everyone was out and about hitting up the markets.

I see Waldo!

Red-topped buses everywhere

So, that's about it for our Hong Kong visit. It was a fantastic, once in a lifetime visit for me. Getting see where Gloria's family comes from was a truly meaningful experience and I'll always remember it. I'm so glad we had a chance to do this.

With that, we'll leave you with this image that I thought looked cool. Peace out!