Malaysia...Hannah and the Batu Caves

By sheer luck my friend Hannah was also travelling in Malaysia while I was there. She was on her way home when I met up with her in Kuala Lumpur. If you ever want to meet a friend in K.L. I do not recommend meeting up at the Petrona Towers. After an afternoon of near misses we finally passed each other near the subway. We then set off in search of beer to catch up on what we'd been up to for the past five years. That night turned into a tiny bit of a bender but we blamed the downpouring of rain that kept us safely dry in the bar. We stayed until the super drunk and overly philosophical owner closed shop and kicked us out into the rain. The next day being her last in KL, we met up early and set off for the Batu Caves just North of the city.

These caves are a popular Hindu Shrine that hosts an annual Thaipusam festival. I read all about this festival on the plane, having just missed that years fun and it was definitely a place worth going to. From the pictures and articles I read about the caves, people walk out to these caves from downtown KL and then climb the 272 (I counted 271 1/2 stairs) often carrying something with them (read coconuts hooked onto naked bodies) for good luck the next year.







The newspaper said there was close to 2 million people at the three day festival but when we were there it was quite empty. In the pictures Hannah is clearly upset that we couldn't claim the march up to the top as exercise. Admitedly we didn't make it to the complete top of the caves. Once inside the main cave area there were way too many monkeys for our comfort (I love Hannah for hating both monkeys and rats, I didn't feel so stupid having someone else jump at their sight). They were guarding the last set of stairs and each attempt we made to get past had them skuddle closer to us and we ran away in terror.


After the caves Hannah used her bargaining skills to get a cheap cab back into the city. The one Taxi driver was very impressed with her haggling skills and told me to never marry the woman because she'd take everything. Having her with me was perfect to head into to Chinatown to haggle down prices on some cheap fake goods. Unfortunatly all the stuff there was the same crap knock of goods that you can get here in Korea for about the same price so we just window shopped.


The last picture of Hannah before she had to set off for the airport and her long journey back to England. It was great hanging out with her and made for an excellent break up of my solo trip.