Day 14 - Kuala Lumpur (6th October ‘24)

simonmtalbot

Oct 6, 20243 min read

Our original plan was to jump on an open top bus tour to cover as much ground as possible, however at breakfast we were reminded it was the KL Marathon. Seeing lots of people in their running gear eating piles and piles of food first thing in the morning seemed odd and we then realised the marathon had started at 3.30am so all these people had already done the marathon and it was their post-run refuel!

Because the marathon had taken place earlier in the morning, our thinking was that it might be better to do the bus tour tomorrow (an activity likely to be popular with recovering runners) and instead do the Batu Caves (an activity unlikely to be popular with recovering runners with its 272 steps).

We finished off our breakfast, jumped in a Grab and headed to the caves. The first thing we saw was the enormous gold statue of Murugan (the Hundu god of War and Victory). It is 43 metres tall. Alongside the statue is the multi-coloured steps that lead up to the caves. Inside the caves are a number of shrines and temples. There is no charge to go up and into the caves and it was pretty busy (though not as busy as we have seen it in pictures, so maybe our plan worked!). While there were of course lots of Chinese tourists (and a handful of Westerners), the vast majority were Hindu people dressed in brightly coloured saris and some with their faces painted or made up. It was clearly a special place for them to visit.

The other substantial population hanging out at the caves that are worth a mention was a huge troop of Macaques. These little monkeys had a reputation for being cheeky scamps for the most part, but they can get aggressive and tricky (mind your sunglasses and don't leave your bags open etc). We approached the steps and could see litter everywhere, but we soon discovered this was not the tourists, but the residents of the caves. The Macaques were everywhere. Eating out of takeaway containers, eating discarded coconut shells, rifling through bins, eating bananas (presumably fed to them by tourists). There were a good number of them carrying their babies underneath them as they jumped up and down the stairs, on and off the bannisters and into the trees that lined the steps. Climbing the 272 steps in humid conditions moved pretty quick when you had one eye on the monkeys!

We made it to the top and into the cave, we took our shoes off as we entered one of the temples. As we walked around the caves it was almost like it was raining inside as water was dripping from ceiling (and some of the drops were also probably rain coming through the holes in the cave ceiling).

All of the shrines, temples and little statues were really colourful which looked quite nice in what would have otherwise been a danky dark cave.

After a while of mooching around we made the descent back to ground level, avoiding the macaques (but still getting a few good shots!).

At the bottom we fancied stopping for a quick drink, so we popped into an Indian eatery with a view of the statue and stairs and sat their people watching for quite some time (while also tucking into a naan each!).

We made our way back to the centre of KL (through a rainstorm in a taxi without windscreen wipers!!!) and headed to the KL Tower. Due to the storm the top deck was closed so we thought we would ditch the idea and head downtown again. We used the monorail to head back downtown toward Bintang walk.

We popped into one of the malls in Bintang and stopped for a drink to decide what to do. We opted for the cinema - so we could put the brakes on a bit. We followed the google maps directions to the cinema at the other end of Bintang Walk (about 15 minutes away), only to discover that google maps was wrong and the cinema was in fact just a minute away from where we were sat.

We watched 'It Ends With Us', a movie of a book Kirstie has (but has not read). Not a bad film at all! When the movie had finished we did a quick lap of the mall, grabbed a late/small bite to eat and then headed back to hotel. Tomorrow will be a busy day!