After Singapore we made the short flight to Kuala Lumpur. I had survived an entire month of travel with no health problems, but in Singapore of all places I picked up my first case of travelers stomach. I have a baby stomach to begin with. If I run too fast I throw up. If I take a shot I throw up. Really a lot of things make my belly ache, so it's amazing that I lasted so long with no problems. But this short flight was a test on my body, and I spent the entire time hovering around the bathroom. This made my first 2 days in Malaysia a kind of blur, I became much more familiar with the bathrooms of Kuala Lumpur than the sights.
The second day we were there we headed to the Batu caves, a group of caves outside of the city that houses Hindu temples. You have to climb almost 300 stairs to reach the caves, and the entire staircase is crowded with flocks of wild monkeys. When we first got there I thought they were really cute and watched as people fed them bananas, coconuts, or whatever snacks they had handy. I climbed the stairs but was feeling kind of weak because I hadn't eaten much the day before. I bought a Sprite at the top to get some sugar and was kind of in a daze as I wandered around the cave. Suddenly a monkey ran by me and grabbed the can right from my hand. An Australian family was walking behind me and I heard the woman say 'what a cheeky monkey!' Afterwards I watched as another monkey stole a soda bottle from someone. The monkey then proceeded to unscrew the cap and drink it like a human. Smart little monkeys!
This is the tallest statue of Murugan (a Hindu deity) in the world.
KL also has the Petronas twin towers, the tallest twin buildings in the world and the third tallest building in the world (after Dubai and Tapei 101!). Underneath is a shopping mall with any store you can dream of. My appetite was slowly coming back so I indulged in an Auntie Annes soft pretzel.
Kuala Lumpur is also a very multicultural city with a strong Indian and Chinese presence. On the street our hostel was on there is a Hindu temple and a Chinese temple. And of course as a Muslim country there are lots of mosques all around. I had read that you need to dress conservatively on the streets, so I pictured the city as being very serious and uptight. But it was very modern and felt just like any other city.
We went to visit the National Mosque where there are only certain hours tourists are allowed in, and women are given a robe to cover up inside. We wandered around for a while and when we were looking at the prayer room a volunteer came up to us to give us some information about the building. He ended up talking for over an hour telling us all sorts of things about the mosque and Islam. I realized how little I actually knew about the religion and it was a very interesting conversation. Some things I found very interesting and agreed with, and some things were a bit of a stretch. For example his argument against evolution was that if evolution existed people would have eyes on the back of their heads and wouldn't have to eat because we would have evolved to make life easier. He even pulled out pictures of things in natures spelling the word Allah in Arabic, just like when Catholics think they see Jesus in a piece of toast. He gave Helen a copy of the Koran, and for some reason I got pamphlets including 'Sex in Islam'. Overall it was a very informative trip.
The outside of the mosque.
The main prayer room. This room holds up to 3,000 people and the area outside can fit another 12,000! Non-Muslims aren't allowed inside.
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