Malaysia & Singapore: Day Three

Hello again, everyone!

Our Sunday morning, and our last day in Kuala Lumpur, got off to a very early start. We woke up super early to get to the Petronas Twin Towers to stand in line for free tickets to go up the tower. Everyone we’d talked to told us to get there early, because the line gets long fast!

We took a taxi to the towers and got a spot in line. However, the small lobby quickly filled with people as the morning crept by slowly. We got to the towers before 6:30 am, but the ticket office didn’t open until 8:30. A security officer came by and told us that we couldn’t stand in line as a group for the sake of space, so I held our spot in line while Amanda, Maria, and Margarida grabbed breakfast. I’d already had a donut and milk, so I waited until Margarida came and took over for me. I’d started to get a little hot from all the bodies packed so tightly together, so I went and sat down with Amanda and Maria.

We finally got our tickets, but they wouldn’t admit us until 4:15 that afternoon! We tried to take a taxi back to our hostel from the towers, but our driver went the long way and we discovered his meter was increasing the rate too fast. We were being ripped off! Instead of paying around 5 Ringgits, we were being charged 30 Ringgits at the halfway point! We had him pull over as soon as possible and caught another taxi back. At the hostel, we checked out so that we wouldn’t be charged for staying past noon and had them keep our luggage for us until we got back.

We still had the entire morning and most of the afternoon to do what we wanted, so we made a trip by city bus to the outskirts of the city to the Batu Caves.

It was an amazing sight! Pulling up to the caves, which are set inside a beautiful riverside mountain, you see a gigantic golden statue of a Hindu deity. You also see the long staircase that leads to the entrance of the caves.


I balked at the climb we had to make, but Margarida reminded me that after the Great Wall, this would be “peanuts.” Keeping in mind her words, I set off with the others up the staircase to the top.

I hadn’t realized that the Batu Caves were a holy site for the Hindus, and the majority of the cave visitors were Indian. I’m not too sure about this practice and its significance, but many families carried their infants up the stairs, and the infants were bald and had chalky powder rubbed on their heads. I’m not Hindu, so I do not know the meaning behind it. I did see one adult man with his two children, and all three had shaved heads and chalk. My guess is that it is a Hindu practice comparable to a Christian baptism, but again I’m only guessing.

On the way up the stairs we also saw A LOT of monkeys! They were just hanging out and playing with one another. They seemed okay until someone had tossed a coconut to them. It almost hit one of the babies, and the biggest one (I presume the father) flipped out! He ran toward the group of tourists closest to him, shrieking. Everyone backed off quickly, and things settled down.


The monkeys were everywhere, not just on the stairs but in the caves as well. They were very fascinating, but the aggression from the papa monkey reminded me of my monkey bite in Bali, so I was cautious.

One monkey had found a bottle of milk and was trying to drink it. I thought monkeys were smart, but this one didn’t seem it at all. He couldn’t figure out how to get the milk out, even though the cap was off and he could have drunk it like a human. He managed to poke a hole in the bottom, and it began pouring out, but he didn’t drink from it either. Instead, he decided to use his hand to scoop out the milk from the top, but milk is liquid and just fell out of his hand. In the end, all he managed to do was make a mess on the ground and his face, and he tossed the carton aside.

Another monkey stole a plastic bag full of groceries from one man. I bet the food was intended for an offering or something, but the monkey got to it first. I had to laugh as the man began chasing after the monkey, but he gave up and just let it go. The monkeys had a field day going through the food, tossing the plastic bag back to the tourists.

Coconuts were everywhere at the caves. I don’t know if they had coconut trees nearby or if people had brought them from somewhere else, but either way the monkeys got a hold of one of them. They had a hard time figuring out how to open it, and although most of them gave up one was (sort of) smart and pushed it down the stairs. It hit a couple of legs along the way, but eventually it opened up and spilled coconut milk all over a bunch of tourists. Another monkey got to it before the one who pushed it. Smart idea, but a good way to lose your lunch to your buddies. Stupid monkeys…

Monkeys weren’t the only animals at the caves. There were also a few roosters, who kept cock-a-doodle-doing even though it was noon. One guy also had a snake wrapped around his arms and neck like a scarf, and he was letting tourists pet it.


The caves themselves were amazing. There were a few Hindu temples built inside the caves, which were actually in use! There many Hindu statues and paintings built into the cave walls, and it was really cool to observe Hindus worshiping and smell the incense burning. One thing I will miss about Asia, and especially the temple I live next to in Macau, is the smell of incense burning.

The cave wasn’t long; it was just a couple of large chambers before it ended. Apparently you can hike ten kilometers into the caves, but we couldn’t find that part.

The caves had openings in the ceiling, which let natural sunlight fill the caves.


The caves were amazing, but there wasn’t too much to see. We soon turned back and climbed down the stairs, where we found a group of taxis that would take us back into the city. However, no one would use their meter and would only haggle the price.

Maria fought with them until they agreed to 20 Ringgits. The only catch was that we had to go see the batik, pewter, and watch factories if they would take us for that price. We asked them why we had to go, and they said that the factories had deals with tour agencies as well as taxi drivers. The more tourists they brought to these places, the more times their name would be entered in a drawing for a free vacation. We decided, hey, why not? We had plenty of time before we had to be back at the Petronas Towers for our tour, so we went along with it.

We got to see how batik fabric was made at our first stop, and they also showed us different ways to wear batik wraps, using Amanda as a model. We didn’t buy anything, but it was cool to see how they were made. The next stop was a watch factory, but they didn’t show us how it was made. Our taxi driver wanted to take us to the pewter factory, but at that point we were tired of factories and just asked him to take us to the city.


It was still fairly early when we arrived at the towers, so we decided to do a little shopping at the mall, which is located in the first few floors of the towers. We had lunch in the food court, and I treated myself to dessert at Starbucks as we sat outside by the small lake at the base of the towers.

The time finally came for our tour of the towers, but we were rather disappointed that they didn’t take us to the top (or rather, THEY were disappointed; I was perfectly fine with that). Instead, they took us to the sky bridge between the two towers on the 40th floors. We had a fantastic view of the city from the towers, but we figured we could go to the top of any office building in the city and have the same view; it was great, but not worth getting up at the crack of dawn to wait in line for two hours.



We went back to our hostel, where we e-mailed our families before heading out for one last shopping trip. We still had to pick up some toiletries (since mine had been taken at the Singapore airport), and I needed a Malaysian Sim card to call my family while in the islands. Unfortunately, my phone wouldn’t accept the Sim card, and we wasted a lot of time waiting for the employees trying to make it work. Maria went to exchange more money and Amanda and I stopped at the ATM. We’d heard they didn’t have ATMs in the islands, so we withdrew all the money we thought we needed for the next five days.

We hurried back to the hostel to grab our bags and head to the bus station. Since we still hadn’t eaten dinner, we stopped at the Pizza Hut next to the station. Unfortunately, Pizza Huts aren’t considered fast food restaurants in Asia, and we were seated and ordered from a menu like in a normal restaurant.

We made it in time for our bus after a hurried dinner. I had tried to use the bathroom at the Pizza Hut, but it was located in the mall and didn’t have its own bathroom. I wandered all over looking for the restroom, and when I finally found it on another floor I found out I had to pay to use it! I’d left my wallet in my purse, which was downstairs in the restaurant with my friends, so I just gave up and went back to the restaurant. Instead, I used it at the bus station, where I also had to pay. Luckily, I had my wallet with me this time.

After loading up on the bus, I settled in for the bumpy eight-hour ride…

Coming up next, “Malaysia & Singapore: Days Four through Eight.”

Love,
Kati