Pictures on the next two posts! Here's a bit more of what we got up to at the weekend :)
On sunday, we got up early for Dim Sum Chinese breakfast before heading to a local tourist attraction called Batu Caves. The first thing you see as you approach it is a gigantic solid gold statue of Lord Murugan (the Hindu god of war and victory) which is 140ft tall - which is about 23x my height! I was awestruck.
Outside the caves there is a straight staircase made up of 284 steps, which we laboriously climbed after receiving a blessing or two from the Hindus in the temple at the foot of the staircase. When we received the blessings we each tipped the Hindu 1 Ringgit (about 20p) - except Andy. He will kill me for telling you this, but he mistakenly gave a 50 Ringgit tip instead, as the bank notes are of a similar colour! It's so funny, and he is still miffed about it now - we dont miss an opportunity to banter him about it. His excuse is that he is colourblind, which although true, doesnt excuse him as the numbers are written on the notes.
So at the top of the steps we had a really cool view of the surrounding area and we were at the same height as the gigantic gold statue. It was very humbling. We explored the cave at the top of the steps for a while before coming back out. On the way back down, Andy and I took the guided tour of some of the other caverns, which was very interesting. At one point we all turned off our lights and stood on the pitch black for about half a minute - I've never experienced dark like that, it was a cool experience.
After a refreshing coconut water at the foot of the stairs, we went back to Pearl's parents' house to chill out for a while (two club nights in a row + stomach infection + stair climbing really took it out of us!) before heading out to dinner at a nearby place which specialises in Satay sticks (basically the same as kebab sticks). They were unbelievably delicious, perfectly tender and cooked in a spectacular tasting sauce. One of my favourite meals here so far, as evidenced by the 16 empty kebab sticks on my plate afterwards! I was so full and sleepy, but we went out and got some shisha with Tucky and his friend Edmond before turning in.
The next day we got up really early as we were heading to the neighbouring state of Melaka, which has a lot of historical significance. We had breakfast at Pappa Rich, including toast and egg and bacon, which was very tasty. Afterwards we embarked upon the 2 hour drive to Melaka (thanks Tucky!) and we had lunch as soon as we arrived. We had blackbean soup, chicken fried rice balls, roast chicken and steamed chicken.
Next, we drove up to the fort of Melaka, which was built to try and protect the city from the invading forces from Holland and Portugal, who both wanted to control use of the Melaka Straight road. The fort was unsuccessful, but there are still remains today, along with commemorative plaques and memorial stone tablets dedicated to those who lost their lives. After looking around the fort and taking a lot of photos, we took a walk down the street to have an exotic ice cream type thing called Cendol, which is a traditional Southeast Asian dessert that mixes ice, sugar and red beans. Odd combination, but the red beans gave it a really cool texture.
We then looked in some shops before driving back through an incredibly long traffic jam (thanks again Tucky!). Back in KL, we went for dinner at a steamboat hotpot restaurant, where everyone has their own individual hot pot and food to cook in it rolls past on a conveyor belt, sushi-style. After some initial difficulties getting to grips with the concept, I managed to have a wide variety of foods, including prawns, mussels, beef, chicken, fish, baby octopus, crab, tofu, fish balls, broccoli, cabbage, and so on. Afterwards we had some delicious purple flavour (yam) and chocolate chip ice cream, went home, and slept like babies.
That's all for now, thanks again for reading - next time we will tell you about our experiences on Tuesday and Wednesday, which we spent mostly alone, with no Pearl or Tucky as our tour guides! (Mostly)
See ya!
Alex
