Last Days in Malaysia

On our return trip to KL from Melaka, we drove a bit north of the city to visit Batu Cave. Batu Cave is caverns inside a limestone mountain that was little known up until 100 years ago. Today, Batu Cave is the site of a Tamil Hindu temple. An enormous golden statue of Lord Murugan greets visitors. To enter, you must climb the 272 steps to the cave entrance. Once inside, you can see that the cave has two distinctive caverns, both with tall sides opened to the sky.

We missed the Thaipusam festival by a few weeks. During this festival, over a million devotees of Lord Murugan congregate at Batu Cave and engage in an incomprehensible piercing of the flesh to honor Lord Murugan. It is all very hard to understand. Statues of Hindu gods decorate the interior.

In preparation for this year’s festival, workmen were busily repainting the numbers on the steps. We climbed up and down all 272 steps under a blazing sun.

We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel, which was walking distance to the Petronas Towers. Despite what we thought was an early start the next morning, by the time we arrived at the tower to pick up two of the 800 daily free tickets to the Skywalk, there were over 100 people in line ahead of us. After standing in line for over an hour, the time slots we needed to make our tour and still catch our flight to Singapore that afternoon were gone.

The Petronas Towers are not the only tall game in town. We headed to the Menara Kuala Lumpur (Kuala Lumpur Tower). Opened in 1995, the Menara KL is the 4^th highest communication tower in the world. From its perch on Bukit Namas (Pineapple Hill) we got an unobstructed 360 degree panoramic view of KL. The Petronas Towers along with the aggressive urbanization of KL were visible everywhere.

After some more walking about the wide and mostly tree-shaded avenues for KL, we packed our bags, took the train to the airport and bid adieu to KL.

We were absolutely impressed with the prosperity of the country. The cities were clean and well maintained. We always felt safe and welcome.

To the Malaysian people we say, “Terima Kasih!” (Thank You!)