Amazing Asian Adventures!!: Kuala Lumpur!! (day 1)

We arrived in KL tired and still kinda achy, but we were VERY glad to check out of the hostel. The bus ride from the airport to KL Sentral station was an hour long, but it was air conditioned and we were able to put our baggage into the hold underneath (not the case in Singapore... that shit rode on our laps). Once we got to KL Sentral, we hopped a train for roughly 33 cents CAD for about 2 minutes to the neighbourhood where our hotel is.

Guess what.... It's a real hotel. Like, with our own bathroom and an elevator and stuff. HOLY MACKEREL! The bathroom is kinda funny though. There's a toilet and sink, and a shower head on the wall beside the sink... and a drain in the floor. So... you just shut the door and shower in the bathroom as if it's a shower stall. LOL. Oh, Asia. You're so funny.

So after we checked in and relaxed a bit, we realized that the Batu Caves were only a $1 train ride return fare away. And since they're free to visit... basically FREE DAY! The transit system here is very nice, and pretty comparable to the TTC, only cheaper, better, cleaner, nicer, and air conditioned. Oh, and run by robots. And uses reusable tickets. Take that, wasteful and expensive and manually operated TTC.

So we arrive at the Batu Caves. It is officially my turn to have a vacation. Temples FTW, guys. Temples. Outside the caves and at the bottom of the stairs is the world's tallest statue of Murugan. It's 140ft tall and gold. Holy crap. Then you climb about 9000 stairs (because I haven't climbed enough in the last 4 days, right?) while monkeys run amok and steal stuff from children and firghtened people. Haha. Actually, a monkey or two might have scared the shit out of me during our stay at the caves.

Inside the glorious caves are several small temples dedicated to a variety of Hindu gods and goddesses. Each of them adorned with flower garlands left by worshippers. At the main temple, several people gathered for services, and the music started up. Drumming, horns and a huge bell echoed madly through the caves as the worshippers gathered before a drawn curtain. After much praying and fanfare, the curtain opened, but my view was obstructed and I couldn't see which deity was before the crowd.

After a while we went up to another level of temples within the cave and had a completely freakish run in with someone Matt and Josh know (and I know by name only) from McMaster, from 10 years ago! He apparently works in South Korea now and is vacationing in Malaysia. Random, fun and weird.

We chilled with some monkeys and a huge pond of koi fish for a while then hopped the train back to China Town where our hotel is hidden away, inside a huge clothing store. Oh, Asia. Again with the funny.

I think we all need an early night tonight given our run of exhausting days and nights lately. Tomorrow we visit Petronas Towers and have dinner with Josh's cousin who lives here in KL that we had the chance to meet when we were in KK. That's all for now, folks! Enjoy the pics of Beautiful Batu Caves!