May 11th, 2005 On Monday May 2nd it was the pulic holiday Labour Day here in Singapore. So, given the extra day off, we decided to take a long weekend and go up to Kuala Lumpur to explore what we had heard of a place called Batu Caves which was noted for lots of great rock climbing.
Saturday
5:30am, the phone rings and the text reads "nothing looks good at this time of morning, not even goats." Adam Turner
We gathered the troops, Lena organized the bus and hotel arrangments and we headed off for a weekend of exploration and climbing.
The cast of characters:
Jeremy Brodhead, our ringleader, keeping the hot Malaysian sun off his head using a banana leaf. Just like the Balinese do!
Adrian Gair on the bus on the way up to KL. Don't let that smile fool you, if you're belaying him, you'll need an umbrella!
Adam Turner at a lunch stop in Malacca, on the way to KL. Have motorcycle, will travel. Have a foxy woman on the back, will travel to Malaysia!
Ange Laning, foxy woman! She's responsible for educating our youth here in Singapore!
Wayne Morais on the bus on our way to KL. This was more flattering than the sleeping pix!
Lena Kwa, coordinator extroidinaire! And bringer of a thousand Baygone coils!
Kelly Shaffer, don't make me shower at that backpacker bathroom! The Executive Suite at the Hotel Istana calls me!
A Durian stand in KL, that we passed on our way to find some dinner. Durian is a very popular fruit here, which many people really love. It's the kind of fruit that you either love or hate though, as if you can get by the stench of it, it really does smell like a sewer, it is supposed to be sweet and delicious. Neither Jeremy nor I have been able to get beyond the stench, and it's odor tends to linger even after you have walked well beyond where you may find it, in an enclosed shop or an open air market, like this one.
One of our first views of the Petronas Towers at dusk on our first evening in KL. Notice, even in Malaysia, there is a McD's! We couldn't wait to get a closer view of the famous Towers at night.
Goofing around on the lawn outside the Petronas Towers.
The gang out in the courtyard behind the Petronas Towers.
(front-Adam, Kelly, Ange, middle-Jeremy, back-Wayne, Lena, Adrian)
After some Margarita's this is what the Petronas Towers looked like to Ange.
Here are the Petronas Towers from the courtyard in the back of the towers. At the base of the towers there is a huge mall! The towers are above the mall! Lots of upscale stuff too! We had wanted to go up to the bridge of the towers but we had to be there by 7am, to reserve tix as they only let a set number of folks up there each day. Tix are sold out rather quickly so needless to say, we did not get to walk where Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sean Connery walked.
Petronas Towers at night. We ended up walking by an Embassy, and learned that all the Princes and Kings of Malaysia had gathered this weekend for a meeting. We were trying to figure out why there were so many motorcycles and officers standing around but we had also seen some motorcades driving thru the streets as well, with sirens and a big ta-doo about them. We found them, and were able to walk up pretty close to the stretch Rolls Royce parked out front of the Embassy. The officers were quite nice, some posing for pix, and allowing us to do pretty much what ever we wanted to do. It was a crazy feeling and an incredible backdrop.
Sunday
The next day, we awoke, and had a family style backpacker breakfast in the common room, of cereal, toast and PB, with tea or coffee. We met Ange and Adam who luckily got an executive suite at the Hotel Istana (the bike needed to be kept underground!) and made our way to Batu Caves by taxis.
Wayne, Lena and I eating breakfast.
On our way to Batu Caves, since we had 7 people, we had to take 2 cabs. As luck would have it, we had only one guide book, which was in Jeremy's possession in the other cab, (Jer, Adam, Ange) while Adrian, Wayne, Lena and I got dropped off at this park, of which we had no idea where we were. We had one phone, Adrian's, and Adam's phone had roaming. So, Adrian called Adam, and while they were at the climbing wall, we didn't know where we were in proximity to them. Adrian made a few calls, and then called Adam and told him the park name where we were. They then show up a while later, in a Polis car. Ange had worked her magic and got the officer to bring them all to us! All told, a trip to the wall should have taken us about a half an hour from KL to Batu Caves, but for us, it took over 3 hrs! We were, hot, frustrated, and now getting hungry again.
The friendly Polis officer waving to his new friends!
We still had to get to the wall, via on foot now, and made our way thru a Kampong Village and neighborhood to get there.
Walking to Damai Wall in the background.
I just love this picture of Jeremy with the huge banana leaf! It really does work to keep the rain and sun off.
Through the Kampong Village, near the climbing wall, we saw some family run businesses of making prawn crackers, gluten rice crackers and garlic!
Close up of prawn crackers. These were sitting out in the sun to dry, then, they can be packaged as is, and sold or, we've seen them already boiled in hot oil, where each flake gets HUGE and puffy! It's a light, but greasy snack food.
Gluten rice crackers drying in the sun.
A close up of the gluten rice crackers. These, you would just eat when dry for a crunchy snack.
And the one that really caught our eye, our favorite, GARLIC. We've never seen so much garlic in one place. These women were preparing the garlic, by cleaning up the loose paper skins.
mmmm, close up of tons of yummy garlic! Gabe and Jill--this reminds me of the days of baked garlic and baguette!
She's threshing the garlic.
And just outside, here are the bags of completed, cleaned up garlic! BIG BAGS of Garlic!
Adam and Ange at our Kampong lunch! Awesome Mee Goreng and lime drinks.
Old Woman at a fabric/sewing shop next to where we had lunch.
On our way thru the Kampong Village, after lunch, we ran across these kids and families all hanging out.
When we finally got to the wall, we were all so impressed. It was big, and the rock was awesome limestone. There were features in the rock which made it intersting even if you were on the ground. Big Caves you could see up inside of, and climb to. There was a kampong village just next to where we set up to climb and 5 times a day we would hear the Muslim chanting, calling to folks to pray. While up on the rock, it was an awesome feeling to hear the chanting in the background.
Batu Caves, Damai Wall. The blue flag that is up in the left side of the wall is about 3 pitches up! We were setting top ropes for ourselves and only were doing the first 60 feet! And you can see in the bottm left corner, a climbing wall, man made for working out. This place was well maintained and the people here, very friendly. We even recognized some climbers from Singapore all the way up here!
Ange doing her first lead climb since her course on Krabi. She'll set up the toprope for the rest of us. She's just to the left of that staircase.
Close up of Ange setting the top rope.
Kel climbing an easy climb!
Lena and Adrian in the Executive Suite at Hotel Istana chillin out after a shower, Thank You Adam and Ange and a big day of climbing in the heat!
Monday
Monday was the day we had to head back to Singapore so we decided to have an easy morning, of breakfast and packing, and then head out into KL. Since we couldn't get tix in time to go up to the bridge at the Petronas Towers, we opted to check out the KL Tower, boasting being one of the World's Tallest Towers!
I just liked the reflection of the KL Tower with the camel!
KL Tower.
OK, so do I look like a tourist or what? When we got to the top of the KL Tower, they gave us a set of headphones so we could do a self guided tour, which we did. Everyone looks as ridiculous as me, so at least I don't stick out!
View 1 of Kuala Lumpur from KL Tower.
View 2 of Kuala Lumpur from KL Tower.
View of the Petronas Towers from the KL Tower.
It was so hot and muggy that we couldn't see Batu Caves from the tower, but it was out there! We couldn't see too far b/c of the heat but we did notice all the swimming pools on top of the hotels around town.
After our little tour of KL, we had to rush to make it to our bus on time! So we swung by our little Muslim hostel and grabbed our bags and all of us packed into ONE CAB and sped off to the bus station, which we didn't know where it was! Luckily for us, the bus was delayed!
And as we waited for our bus to arrive, we were entertained by a Karaoke competition. This man, was totally serious and not only did he have on the cultural Malay dress, but he sang a Malay song in the competition. Not quite sure how they were gonna judge this one! Karaoke is major big time stuff here in Asia and Malaysia's saying is that they are the 'real asia'!
I like to call this one, 'smokin'at the bus stop'.
This is an example of beating the system. Cigarettes are $11/pack in Singapore, but only like $4/pack in Malaysia and since our good friend Adrian is a smoker, we helped to save him a few bucks and we each brought a pack of smokes across the boarder! Mind you, this isn't something we like to do....but it saved Adrian a lot of money!
