When we were planning this trip, we knew that Vietnam would be our main focus. However, since we were in Southeast Asia already, we felt like it was a good opportunity to explore some other areas. We decided Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia would be a good place to start. With the kids returning to the United States, it was time for us to venture out on our own kid free.
Our flight from Ho Chi Minh to Kuala Lumpur wasn’t too early. Nevertheless we felt we needed to be at the airport in plenty of time. We got a taxi to the airport and were fortunately able to pay for it with a credit card. I had pretty well used up my Vietnamese dongs.
We anticipated a bit of a challenge at the airport. Silvette had accidentally put the wrong departure date on her visa application. Even checking with immigration in Hanoi seemed to indicate it was not a big deal. However, she would need to pay a fine. We anticipated about $20. When we got to the agent in immigration, and she realized the mistake, she called an officer over, and he marched us across the front of the immigration room. It felt like the walk of shame.
We waited a little bit for an agent to come and talk to us. Her determination was that we owed 2,000,000 dong. We told her we had no dongs. In fact the agent in immigration in Hanoi had told Silvette they would only accept American dollars. The agent then used her calculator for a while and finally came up with the sum of $85 that we would owe. By my app the exchange rate should have been closer to $79, but who were we to argue? Fortunately we had enough money with us so we paid the fine and finally made it through immigration.
The rest of the flight was pretty typical. When we arrived in Kuala Lumpur the immigration lines were long again, but we had no problems. When we planned the trip, we had decided that since we didn’t know anything about the area, we would pay for a service to get us to our hotel. However, we didn’t see my name when we left the luggage claim area. We finally found the office for the service. They soon had us taken care of. Someone took our luggage and helped us get on the train to downtown. There a nice car met us and took us to our hotel. We appreciated the low stress.
After a nice nap we had supper at the hotel. We were the only ones in the dining room so it seemed a little odd. The hotel is not small. We were on the 11th floor. We were going to go out and try to get a lay of the land from our hotel, but it started pouring rain with lightening so we stayed in. Tomorrow we will begin to explore this unique city.
Malaysia is a Muslim country. The easiest clue to see this is that the majority of women wear head scarves. Despite that, one of the main tourist points near Kuala Lumpur is a Hindu site called Batu Caves. We decided this would be our first site to explore in the city as the forecast was for a dry day. First we had to get to the caves.
Kuala Lumpur has a pretty nice light rail system. One of the lines near us goes right to the Batu Caves. In fact it is the last stop on the line. We had to walk about twelve minutes to get to the station. It required going up a number of stairways. A ticket agent was on hand so it was easy to buy the round trip tickets for $2. However, the train we expected to take didn’t show up so we ended up sitting and waiting for quite some time for the next train to come. The air conditioning on board was a welcome relief. I felt sorry for the workers clearing out the brush on the other side of the station.
When we arrived at Batu Caves, we discovered that the area consisted of more than just the caves. There were a number of temples around the base of the caves that invited people to come in and visit and perhaps worship. However, all of them had signs saying no shoes allowed so most people didn’t go into these temples. Interestingly behind one of the temples was a very tall statue of an eagle.
There were also a lot of monkeys around. People would give them bananas to eat, and there were banana peels around on the ground.
The most interesting aspect of this whole area was the colors. Everything was very brightly painted, and there was a lot of detail in all the carvings around the temples. Even the stairs up to the caves were painted. There are 17 sets of 17 stairs. Each set of stairs is painted a different color so there is kind of a rainbow effect to the stairs. In front of the stairs is a huge golden statue which dominates the scene.
Before women could climb the stairs to the Batu Caves, someone had to check their clothes. If they were insufficiently covered, they were given some cloth to cover themselves with. It didn’t matter about men. They could wear shorts, but women couldn’t.
The climb up the 17 flights of stairs was challenging, but not too bad. The main difficulty was the heat and humidity. That made it more difficult. One of the things that fascinated me as we climbed up was the concrete finials at the ends of each stair section. Although well worn, one could tell there had been layers of paint on them. I liked the looks of them and took photos to show all the paint layers.
We finally reached the top of the stairs and entered a large cavern. We had to walk down stairs to enter the main floor. Inside there was a temple on the left hand side. I decided to go into this temple and took off my shoes, but then I saw a ticket counter and decided not to spend the money. The sides of the temple were not closed so one could see inside. Again there were elaborate carvings on the roof of the temple. There were some other figures around the cave as well.
At the end of the cavern were more stairs. These led to another area which was not a complete cave as the ceiling was open. Throughout this area the natural cave formations were quite interesting. In this space another smaller temple sat on the left hand side. There were actually two priests inside working. Bare feet were required to enter.
We walked back to the main entrance of the Batu Caves. Here we discovered that monkeys had taken over. A young woman was throwing food at them and had attracted quite a number of monkeys. Interestingly quite a few of the monkeys had babies that were holding on to their mother’s belly.
We then heard a commotion and saw a monkey running up a light pole carrying a bag it had stolen from one of the women. There did seem to be some food in the bag which it ate. It dropped something from the bag which the woman grabbed. However, a pink garment got left on the light pole. The monkey ran away, and the garment didn’t fall. These monkeys can be a nuisance.
We carefully walked down the stairs and then went to get some water bottles as the heat and humidity were getting to us. From there we headed back to the light rail station for Batu Caves. We didn’t have to wait too long for the train to show up. Again we were happy to enter the air conditioned space. What we didn’t realize was the train would sit there for over 40 minutes before it would leave the station. We were glad to be inside where it was cool, but we were very ready to have it move along. We observed the architecture of the city on the way back.
Back in our hotel room we rested a bit and then walked over to a mall to have some dinner. The heat and humidity hadn’t really abated much, but we walked slowly so as not to get too sweaty. After we ate, we wandered around the mall and discovered a Starbucks. We went to check out their gift cards which I collect. It turns out they were having a 25th anniversary celebration for being in Malaysia so I had to have a number of gift cards. Now I needed to spend them before I left in a couple of days. I needed to find more Starbucks stores.
The Batu Caves proved to be an interesting cultural experience. However, there is much more to see in this large, modern city. Next week we will look at some of the other cultural aspects of Kuala Lumpur. I hope you will join me.
Do you collect anything in particular when you travel? I’d love to hear what you are on the lookout for. Share your thoughts in the comment box below. Until next time…