A Case of the Mondays

We had hoped to make it to the eastern coast of Peninsular Malaysia. You see Malaysia has two geographical areas – Peninsular Malaysia, which shares a border with Thailand and Singapore; and Malaysia Borneo, which shares the world’s third largest island with Brunei and Indonesia in the South China Sea. With all this geography for us to run wild in we were unable to. No buses were heading east due to the monsoons. We could have flown, but may just end up sitting in a hotel room due to the heavy rains. So, we stalled and stayed a couple extra days in Kuala Lumpur (KL). KL is a very liveable and manageable city with a few tourist attractions and we had saved one of the famous for last.

The Patronas Towers are a Kuala Lumpur landmark

A monument to the government’s commitment to their policy Vision 2020 – to make Malaysia a fully developed country by the year 2020.

The Patronas Towers were the tallest buildings in the world until 2004 when Taiwan built the Taipei 101 building. The Patronas Tower’s magnificent twin towers dominate the cityscape and we had saved going up to the 41^st floor skybridge for our last full day in Kuala Lumpur. That is until we were told the towers are CLOSED on Mondays! So we quickly took a picture and reconsidered what we could do on our last day.

We couldn’t come up with anything that would make us feel better other than dim sum

We have said it before, we are extremely lucky to be in Malaysia during several large cultural celebrations and staying in Chinatown allowed us to witness several days of lion dances.Many businesses in Chinatown hire lion dance companies to come and ring in the new year with a lion dance ceremony. The lion represents guardians in Buddhist cultures and only the lion can exorcise demons. So businesses hire lion dance companies to bring in good luck and fortune and vanquish last year’s demons and misfortunes, as well as keep any new demons away, done with loud cymbals and firecrackers.

This year is the Year of the Ox – both of ours’ zodiac year. And we’re going to need all the good fortune we can get.

Kuala Lumpur: Lake Garden District

We decided to spend a full day exploring the Lake Garden District of Kuala Lumpur. Our hotel is on the edge of the Lake Garden District and we decided to head out on foot to get to the park. The Lake Garden District was on the other side of the freeway, which looked like a bowl of spaghetti on our map. Kuala Lumpur, scratch that, most of Malaysia from what we hear is not very pedestrian friendly and after much backtracking, walking along a freeway off-ramp, and under and over major roads

We found ourselves walking through the Malaysia Islamic Centre during an assemblyIt was somewhat intimidating after seeing signs such as this along the road

But we enjoyed the beautiful Islamic architecture and made our way to the park

The Lake Garden District is basically a large botanical garden with a deer park, butterfly park, hibiscus garden, orchid garden, and SE Asia’s largest bird park. We had heard the bird park was a great attraction, but we just wasn’t up for it so we headed to the orchid gardenThe orchid collection and garden itself was somewhat disappointing. We had hoped to see orchids growing like they do in nature, off of fallen trees and on stumps, but they were in pots and strategically placed in the gardenWe only saw one tree where the orchids were living off it like in the wildThe rest of the garden grounds is worth seeing, for the interesting plants mostly, and especially since it’s freeWe decided to walk along the main road and make our way through the park. As we made our way out to the main road from the orchid garden we encounter monkeys!They were just pouring out of the hills where the orchid garden was and slowly making their way towards the souvenir shopWe couldn’t believe these monkeys were just living in this park in the middle of a large metropolitan city

Indian Malaysia

About an hour outside of KL (Kuala Lumpur) is the Batu Caves, a series of sacred caves inside the limestone hills. The Batu Caves are dedicated to the Lord Murugan, the Tamil Hindu deity of war. We had planned to visit the sacred temple cave, but was blessed to find out that the Hindu festival of Thaipusam was being celebrated when we were there.

"Devotees prepare for the celebration by cleansing themselves through prayer and fasting. Kavadi-bearing have to perform elaborate ceremonies at the time of assuming the kavadi and at the time of offering it to Murugan. The kavadi-bearer observes celibacy and take only pure Satvik food, once a day, while continuously thinking of God. On the day of the festival, devotees will shave their heads undertake a pilgrimage along a set route while engaging in various acts of devotion notably carrying various types of kavadi (burdens). At its simplest this may entail carrying a pot of milk, but mortification of the flesh by piercing the skin, tongue or cheeks with vel skewers is also common.

The simplest kavadi is a semi circular decorated canopy supported by a wooden rod that is carried on the shoulders, to the temple. In addition, some have a littlespear through their tongue, or a spear through the cheeks. The spear pierced through his tongue or cheeks reminds him constantly of Lord Murugan. It also prevents him from speaking and gives great power of endurance. Other types of kavadi involve hooks stuck into the back and either pulled by a walking behind or being hung from a decorate bullock cart or more recently a tractor, with the point of incisions of the hooks varying the level of pain. The greater the pain the more god-earned merit."

We could not believe our great fortune to be at the Batu Caves during this incredibly fascinating celebration.

Once inside the large cave we witnessed anointing rituals and traditional offering ceremonies.

The shrines inside and outside the caves were elaborate as all the Hindu temples we saw all over Malaysia.

And of course this wouldn't be SE Asia without a few cave monkeys.

We did witness an exorcism of a woman by a shaman with lime hooks in his back, devotees shaving their heads, a Hindu band performing by the river where devotees showered in their beautiful clothes to cleanse themselves, and a shaman in a trance smoking a cigar, seated on a chair made of nails, anointing people. All captured and lost somehow during transferring from camera to laptop. Disappointed and saddened doestn't begin to describe how we felt after we realized the images and video were lost!

We did capture the festival grounds, including all the yummy food.

And all the beautiful people in their colorful festival clothes.

Thaipusam, an incredibly colorful show of devotion and an experience which made us reconsider traveling to India someday.