Kuala Lumpur is Halfway!

As has been the custom so often when our cruise ship arrives in town we were greeted by some lovely and talented dancers and musicians.

While Karl went to a hospital near port to get a CT scan to see if he. had a kidney stone (he didn't thankfully), he told me to go ahead and go on tour since he didn't need help and wasn't feeling sick, just hurting when he coughed.  So I got in a tour van with some of the usual suspects to make the hour and a half drive from Port Klang to Kuala Lumpur.  Our first stop of the day was the colorful Batu Caves, a colorful Hindu shrine dedicated to the god, Murugan, standing there behind me.

I have to admit that on a warm and humid day the 272 stairs to climb to the top were a bit daunting, colorful, but a challenge.

Good thing I don't mind doing hard things once in a while, so up I started with dozens of others.  Once a year they have a festival here where there are a million and. a half people on the site all at once.  I can't even begin to imagine how dangerous those stairs would be with that many bodies on them.

The original shrine within the cave was created by an Indian trader in 1890.  As it became more popular it expanded.  

The original stairs were wooden but as they began to show signs of wear from many visitors these concrete stairs were installed around 1940.  It wasn't until 2018 that they were painted different colors, a controversial decision but one that stuck apparently.

As I was climbing, keeping an eye on my feet to keep from tripping on the steep, narrow steps, I almost didn't see this mama monkey and her baby sitting on one of the rail posts.  Neither one of them moved as people stopped to take their photo.

Some of the decorations were added outside of the cave, pretty pastel spots.

The caves here are said to be 400 million years old, having been formed by the erosion of the limestone they sit in.

The space inside is massive with multiple shrines and temples.

Two beautiful wooden doors provide entry into another section of the caves.

You walk down more stairs to get to the inner section, there even souvenir stores inside here.

If the floor looks shiny here it's because it was wet, the water drips from the top of the cave almost all the time, rainwater that has filtered through.  Since it rains pretty much every day in Kuala Lumpur this space is always wet.

A few more of the gods and goddesses of Hindu lore sit atop the rocks.

And if my skin looks shiny here it's because I was dripping wet, not so much from the water falling on me but the sweat streaming from every pore.

A Indian lady I had met on the way up suggested that rather than going straight up or down the stairs that it would be easier to weave my way right and left, sort of like you do when you ski down a hill.  So Jane and I tried it going down, steep looking isn't it, and we found that weaving actually did help.

Down at the bottom are a couple more temples, one was for our old friend, the elephant god, Ganesh, you can see him there on the front of this decoration. 

Here's most of the Ganesh temple, and then across from it is one for Hanuman, the monkey god.

There were too many people here for me to try to get a photo in front of the sign with just me in it.

The 140 foot tall Murugan statue was added to the site in 2006.  All in all it was an interesting place to visit.

After stopping at a Batik shop we next went to the Kuala Lumpur Bird Sanctuary where we didn't have nearly enough time to look around, barely 45 minutes.

These colorful birds were the first to greet us.  The yellow one is a a parakeet, the colorful ones are called Sun Conures.

Here's one of the latter peaking out and a pretty Indian Ring-necked Parakeet with a pink ring around its neck on the right.

More of the Sun Conures, I just loved their brilliant colors!

This one posed so nicely for me.

This pretty one is a type of parrot.

This one is called a Cattle Egret.

There were multiple peacocks walking around the sanctuary.  LeaAnn came up next to me while I was looking at this one and said, "What do you have to do to get it to put up its tail?"  We both started laughing when the bird immediately raised its tail and then showed it off by turning in a circle.

Next to it was this white peacock that I just missed flaunting its tail.

These two owls were types I hadn't seen before, on the right is a Barred/Malay Eagle-Owl and on the left is a Buffy Fish-Owl.  They both looked like old men with eyebrows that needed a trim!

These jewel-tones will always be some of my favorite colors.

This stork kept trying to pick up a feather with the tip of its beak and toss it into its mouth.  It looked so awkward sitting there.

This was a really big stork just standing around.

It spent a bit of time preening itself.

Then we turned a corner and there were dozens of them resting on the hillside.

I think they were all trying to cool off and air out just like we were!

Check out how this one has one foot wrapped around its other knee.  That's pretty good balancing!

These crazy looking cranes are called grus.

And just to be fair I thought I ought to add a photo of a peahen.  :)

We went into an older part of the city next, to where the British had built some of their first administration buildings when they came to this area to mine tin in the 19th century.  In 1957 Malaysia was given independence, apparently they had become too troublesome a colony to keep.  The country is still part of the British Commonwealth however.  The photo above shows Independence Square.  The Malaysia flag flies here along with each of the country's state flags.

One of the older colonial builings on the left.

The wide sidewalk here is in front of Independence Square and the nearby cricket pitch.  The latter isn't used very much anymore, Malaysians much prefer soccer.

This one was the first buildings built by the British in Kuala Lumpur in 1897.  The architecture is a nod to the Muslim Malay rulers.

The remainder of these structures run down the block  

for quite a ways.

Obligatory photo here.  I'm not sure if I really saw enough of KL to know if I loved it or not.

Behind the admin buildings at the confluence of the Klang & Gombak rivers the British built the Jamek Mosque in 1909.  It was the principle mosque in the city until 1965. 

Now it's pretty much an out of the way place on rivers that don't look the cleanest.

 

There was some nice street art on the buildings nearby.

And on this one around the corner.

We made a brief stop at the fun Central Market next.  With only 30 minutes to spend here it was either sit down and have something to eat, do some shopping, or shop a bit and find some food to go.  I did the latter, but even at that there wasn't a whole lot of time to look closely at anything.

I did find this sign in there that is inspirational when you're hungry.

For a country so small it's quite amazing that Kuala Lumpur has two of the tallest buildings in the world.  In this photo you can see the Warisan Merdeka Tower, or Merdeka 118, the world's second tallest after the Burj Khalifa.  It's part offices, part luxury hotels, part observatory.  This is as close as we got to it.

Once upon a time the Petranas Towers were the tallest buildings in the world, now they're just in the top 20.  They are however, the tallest TWIN towers in the world.

Here are some of the other skyscrapers nearby.

And yes, now I can say that I was there!  Karl didn't miss out on this spot since it's one he's visited before on a business trip.

We'd been told that it rains every day around 2:30 in the afternoon, and sure enough as we began our 90 minute trip back to port the rains began.  At one point it was like being in a good old Texas thunderstorm, torrents of water and lots of thunder.  Gratefully we had a cautious driver who got us safely back to Serenade where it was barely raining.

One last recognition for the day today, it was Halfway Around the World Day!  There was a big cake upstairs in the Windjammer Buffet to celebrate, as well as a party and balloon drop later in the evening.  Hard to believe we are halfway, yet when we think about all we've seen and how much we have yet to see we're feeling pretty blessed!