Kuala Lumpur

There is no doubt that the heat and humidity impacted our visit to Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur. In addition to making extended walking difficult, it limited our desire to take pictures given how we looked after even a short walk. We also found that although KL had significant public transit options, they often did not connect well and ended up reducing our required walking time by very little.

Nonetheless, as is often the case for us "city mice", we did enjoy exploring the city, seeing some of the sites, and learning some of the history of both KL and Malaysia. One of the classic old buildings in the city is the Sultan Abdul Samad building (left and bottom photos below), which was built in the 1890's during the British occupation, and has been a government building since then. The photo on the right is the Jamek Mosque, which is built at the confluence of KL's two rivers (the Klang and the Gombek), where the early residents of the city are believed to have settled. This was the primary mosque in KL from the early 1900's until the building of the National Mosque. We particularly like this picture of the mosque because of how it demostrates the old and the new of KL.

We visited the National Mosque, which was opened in 1965, only 8 years after Malaysia declared independence from the British Empire. It is beautiful.

All of the mosques that tourists visit offer the type of robe that Shana is wearing so that visitors can see the mosque while dressing in compliance with Muslim religious rules  (they have hoods to ensure that women can cover their heads, but Shana carried her own scarf for just this purpose).

We visited the city's Islamic Art Museum, which we found absolutely fascinating (unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside). Since Islam does not permit the depiction of sentient beings (at least for religious purposes), most Islamic art uses caligraphy. In more recent times, Arabic script is often used to create more abstract and even surreal art. In fact, in many cases, if you didn't know, you wouldn't realize that the paintings were examples of Islamic art.

In addition to the modern Islamic paintings, the museum had historical items that allowed us to learn more about Islamic history; and, one of our favorite exhibits was of various scale models of mosques from around the world. My personal favorite was a mosque in Pakistan that has a courtyard with sufficient space for 100,000 (!) people to pray at one time. That would be something to see.

Perhaps the most fascinating site we visited in KL was the Batu Caves. These caves are located north of the city and we were able to catch a train directly there. We went early to try to beat the tourist crowds (which we did), but we did not beat the Thaipusam crowds, which were enormous!

So, what is Thaipusam, and why did it bring huge crowds? Well, the caves include various Hindu temples built starting in the 1890's. The primary temple is dedicated to Lord Murugan and his primary festival is Thaipusam, which takes place in late January or early February -- this year January 25. We were fortunate that we were not there on the actual day, but even a week before, it was crazy.

The giant statue of course is Lord Muguran, and the mass of humanity on the left are people going up to his temple to make their offering. Most wear yellow (his favorite color) and carry their offering (generally milk) in a small jug on their head.

We had planned to climb the 372 multi-colored steps to the temple, and we did so with the mass of pilgrims. Although normally it is fine to climb the steps with shoes (although they need to be taken off before entering any Hindu (or Buddhist) temple), due to the holiday, we were told it would be disrespectful to wear our shoes on the stairs, so we went barefoot. The whole scene was madness, and when we reached the top, the crowd to enter the cave inside the temple was such that I bailed out, but Shana made it inside the cave, although not the temple itself.

As usual with all Hindu temples, the colors were amazing, and the massive crowd made it a unique experience for us tourists.

The headresses you see in the top center picture above is apparently another form of offering, and the carriers of those offerings, which can weigh up to 100 kg, often stopped to dance as the crowd did a call-and-response type song. Obviously, we understood very little, but it did make for fascinating viewing.

We were a little disappointed that we did not get to see the temples in a more "normal" way, but it was fun to see the Thaipusam madness and learn about the holiday from our research after the fact. One thing we learned is that Hindu pilgrims visit the Batu Caves from all over the world on Thaipusam, and many walk eight hours to arrive there on the day of the festival itself (traffic is KL is apparently a disaster that day). 

One more thing about the Batu Caves. there are many monkeys there. Generally, it seems that they can be a big problem for visitors, but when we first arrived, we noticed that they were being fed al lot of fruit (we were interested to note that coconut seemed to be a bigger favorite than banana). We deduced later that this is to sate them so they do not interfere with the crowds of pilgrims, potentially adding to the chaos.

Despite the heat and humidity, we did enjoy our time in KL. We ate well (of course), including visits to two different Nepalese restaurants. Nepalese food, which we first ate in Sydney last year, is Shana's favorite new ethnic food, and I agree with her love of the often spicy dishes. We recommend it if there is a restaurant near you.

More from Malaysia soon,

Jeff and Shana