Sunday November 14th
We’d arranged a taxi for this morning to take us to the Batu caves a little way outside the city in Selangor. Since some of the taxi drivers are a bit dodgy, we paid extra to have ours wait and drive us back.
The Batu caves are high up in a massive limestone rock. It is one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India. To reach the main cave you pass an enormous statue of the Hindu deity, Murugan. This was impressive! Apparently it's the largest image of Murugan in the world.
We then took the next step – well actually there are 272 of them, and very steep they are too!
Alongside the steps sit numerous macaque monkeys, some with young and all on the lookout for snacks. They’re not averse to stealing whatever they can grab.
They also have enormous fangs and could inflict serious damage. We were half hoping they might teach a lesson or two to the idiots who teased them, or even hit out at them with umbrellas.
The caves open out into huge chambers where numerous small temples and shrines are situated.
The whole place is filled with the scent of incense and if you ignore the few stalls selling gaudy rubbish it’s a beautiful place.
If the steps going up were hard, going down was just as much a problem. Not only are they steep, but they’re shallow too, and the prospect of small monkeys leaping in front of you to trip you up is a little daunting.
Safely at the bottom, we admired the other shrines, temples, caves etc.
There are numerous effigies of the God Ganesh and one huge one of Lord Hanuman, the Monkey God.
Our driver took us back into the city, but we asked him to drop us at the butterfly gardens. He was quite keen to wait there and drive us round all day. It turned out it was his first day in the job. We hope he doesn’t expect them all to be like that!
The butterfly gardens are quite small but are beautifully landscaped and butterflies – some the size and colour of small tropical birds – flit past you constantly.
Trays of blossom are laid out every so often. These are sprayed with glucose and honey as there isn’t enough nectar in the flowers alone to keep all the butterflies fed.
From the butterfly garden we dodged the gauntlet of taxi drivers who assume everyone walking is insane. They may have a point.
We headed for the bird gardens but apart from using their toilets, gave them a miss. We’ve seen so much bird life in the wild, we didn’t really want to see them in captivity. Some are free to go where they want however, and a couple seen from outside were pretty impressive.
We were trying to find the Lake Gardens without much success and, ignoring suggestions to the contrary, Sherpa Margaret led us through Hibiscus and Orchid Gardens since the lakes had to be on the other side. The gardens were beautiful though.
Walking through a deer park (without any deer that we could see) we decided we might be going in the wrong direction and asked someone where the lakes were. A very short time later we bought a large bottle of water at the lakeside café.
We took our time walking through the Lake Gardens which are beautiful and very quiet, though thunder was rolling ominously in the distance.
Cash was a bit tight by now after paying our taxi fare so it was good that the water worked out at about 50p. Sherpa Margaret redeemed herself though by leading the way to the main railway station where there were sure to be ATMs – and she was right!
Now that we were loaded once more we decided to splash out on another taxi to get us back before the rain started.
At KL main station, there is an excellent system operating. You go to a counter and state your destination. You then pay the fare and are given a voucher. The taxi driver takes the voucher (to redeem later) and you’re taken were you want – however long it takes. This was brilliant for us as we hit rush hour traffic and getting to the hotel took ages. It cost us 13RM - about £2.60!
Beer ‘clock again!
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