Malaysia: Truly Asia (Batu Caves)

Malaysia borders Singapore to the north; the two countries are separated only by a narrow strait and are connected by a bridge. Because you are entering a new country, you must visit the immigration checkpoints on either side of the bridge, but you can drive across the border.


So, the BF and I have taken a couple of weekend trips to Malaysia, to check out different areas of the country. We visited KL (the capital of Malaysia) and toured around town for a couple of days. In addition to the historical and beautiful sights of the town, we ventured outside of the city a bit to see the Batu Caves.


The Batu Caves are a Hindu temple in the side of the mountain. They are considered the most important Hindu shrine outside of India, an interesting claim to fame in mostly-Muslim Malaysia. During the Thaipusam festival in the spring, THOUSANDS of people travel to the Batu Caves to celebrate the holiday. We were there in November, so there were merely hundreds of people (mostly tourists) visiting the temples. 


The first things we noticed on arriving at the caves were the GINORMOUS statues of key Hindu personalities guarding the entrance to the Caves.


Hanuman, the monkey god of Hinduism, stands 15 meters (that's 50 feet) tall outside the entrance to the caves, in full color and ceremonial garb. Hanuman guards the Rama caves, with depicts the stories of Lord Ramayana. To the right of Hanuman is a 43 meter (140 feet) tall Lord Marugan statue, which guards the entrance to the main caves, or the temple caves. We walked past the statue and climbed the 272 steps up into the caves to view the various shrines within its walls. 


Along the 272 step walkway up to the caves, there were dozens of wild monkeys roaming freely about. The little buggers were kinda cute, but definitely scary and creepy, so I tried to keep my distance, while the BF took pictures. The monkeys LOVED the tourists, who kept feeding them, everything from raw coconuts to oranges, apples, cookies and bread.

Touring around the caves, we saw many of the tenets of Hinduism explained in paintings and carvings along the walls and in dioramas. However, due to the damp, moist air in the caves, much of the artwork was showing its wear. But seeing the caves was still fascinating.

 

 

The pictures and dioramas were displayed in vivid color, representing everything from  the key deities and demons of Hindu as well as sage advice for healthy living. Much of the advice dispensed was either wise or amusing. 

We had a lovely afternoon touring around the caves, learning about Hindu traditions. Growing up in the US, I haven't met many (ok, any) people who profess to follow Hinduism, nor was I a religious studies major in college, so my knowledge of the belief is limited to what was included in a world history class in high school.

Traveling around Asia and seeing the  temples and shrines has been very educational. 

Malaysia: Truly Asia (KL)

On SE Asia television, there are lots of commercials for Malaysia tourism. Much like the South Carolina ads have the tagline "Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places", the Malaysian ads have a tagline: "Truly Asia".

Well, the ad campaign didnt inspire me to visit (I was planning to go anyway), but after visiting Malaysia, I can at least confirm that the ads are accurate. Malaysia IS truly Asia.

Really tall, shiny tower complex: Petronas Towers

In the last month or so, we've made two trips to Malaysia. As Singapore's neighbor on the peninsula, it is an easy place to visit and can be reached by car, bus, train, plane or boat.
Our first trip to Malaysia, we headed to Kuala Lumpur, the country's capital. Prior to moving to Asia, my knowledge of Kuala Lumpur was limited to the fact that it had a really tall, shiny tower complex that was once the tallest building in the world and has been seen in a couple of movies. Which was enough to make me want to visit. I love tall shiny buildings. Also, big old things.




What I didnt know about Kuala Lumpur (or "KL" as everyone here calls it) is that it has great shopping (think Fifth Avenue in NYC meets Rodeo Drive. EVERY major label has a shop in KL) and is a destination for people around Asia to vacation. While there, we saw several other Westerners and also lots of Arab people.Malaysia - especially KL - has a high Muslim population and attracts Muslims from other parts of the world to visit. 

Me outside the towers

What I find interesting is the juxtaposition of these  things. For example, we were strolling through the mall (adjacent to the Petronas towers) and saw stores targeting the "modern Muslim woman" with robes and head wraps in festive prints. But then we also saw woman in full birkas carrying bags from expensive stores. Does she wear fancy clothes under her birka, like in the (just plain awful) second Sex & The City movie? Does she wear them at home? Were the items gifts? Maybe the bags were all for her husband? 

As I'm tooling around town in my J. Crew seersucker shorts and Old Navy tank top, I wonder what these people think of me, with my exposed white skin and North American accent.....

Anyhoo.

The line for towers tickets

Me in the basement of the towers,
next to a scale model of the towers.

KL had big shiny towers. The Petronas Towers, home to the Petronas oil & gas company (among other companies) is a mixed-use building on offices, restaurants and retail. The aforementioned mall is attached to the towers. They sell tickets to the observation decks at 40 and 80 floors up, which was something I REALLY wanted to do. We'd heard that they sell out of tickets pretty fast, so we went to the towers straight away. No dice; they were already sold out. The helpful ticket agent told us to try again the next day, that the doors opened at 9, but people queued up earlier than that. So we went on about our day, exploring the city and made plans to return. Despite getting in line at 7:50am, we were too far back in line to get tickets to the observation deck before our bus back to Singapore.*

So we didnt go up the Petronas Towers, but we visited the KL tower (another awesome, tall shiny thing with a revolving restaurant in the top) and the top floor lounge of our hotel, which faced the Petronas Towers. We got to see plenty of beautiful KL skyline during the day and evening. We also saw Merdeka Square, the site of Malaysia's first independence rally in 1957 and saw such a beautiful mix or architecture style, inspired by the Middle East as well as European settlers.

  

 

Merdeka Square

The hotel bar

An awesome diorama of the city, on display in the KL
City Gallery.

The hotel bar

*Due to some...uh...travel snafus we had more time in KL than we thought and might could have gotten tix up the towers. Something about thinking our bus was at 12:30pm and really it was at 12:30am and we missed it and had to book last minute tix on an overnight train back to Singapore....but yeah.