The Journey

Kuala Lumpur was rather a halfway house between moped madness and car craziness. My main lingering thoughts are of pot-holes, huge gold statues and the Petronas Towers. We (four of us) procured a taxi. The driver used carriageway, road signs and traffic lights as only a passing guide and enthusiastically illustrated what he was talking about with both hands coupled with turning around to grin at us while travelling at high speed. His taxi was the grimiest we had encountered and appeared to have no suspension and little left of the silencer so the cab filled with noxious fumes. He was very cheap though! We hurtled along, dodging around pot-holes, ducking in and out of traffic and driving, seeming suicidially straight at trucks. Somehow we managed to negotiate the twenty miles without separating our spirits from our body.

We visited the Batu Caves and marvelled at the massive gold statue that loomed above us as we drew near. We trudged up the thousands of steep steps past the massive carved figure and into the caves. Some devotees carried bricks or buckets of sand up the steps to demonstrate their sincere devotion (the ancient shrine was still being constructed).

The caves were an ancient site of worship. It was an impressive huge cavern with a collapsed roof allowing light to flood in. We fed the monkeys and photo’d the hundreds of shrines.

We climbed back down to check out the many temples around the base. Then I went in this cave that was like a Hindu version of Disneyland – very strange.

People and babies were painted up with yellow paint and were all in their best duds. It was a hive of activity! Throngs of people were milling about with women in bright coloured saris and the men with bright clothes and robes.

Clambering back in the death-mobile we headed off for Kuala Pumpur and parked up right by the central square.

The Petronas Towers were remarkable and very picturesque but we couldn’t go up because there was too long a queue – you have to book in advance. So we contented ourselves with staring up at it.

Diving in and out of traffic we somehow arrived at Independence Square, where we jigged about, stood in the middle of the large grass area and wondered at the array of different architecture then visited a museum which featured a model of the city.    

Time was running out so our manic driver thundered off to the war memorial. We then had a brief glimpse of the Palace before thundering back to the ship.

For some reason we had sore backs, sore throats, stinging eyes, were pumped with adrenaline, had developed a cough and were deaf. But it had been another great day.