Escape The Batu Caves

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I arrived in KL with three Swedish friends in pouring rain, tramping through China Town looking for cheap accommodation, flip flops slipping and disappearing into the milky city water.

Grabbing the first accommodation available we soon discovered that although ideally located above a popular Reggae Bart, it was also home to both a Malaysian nut job who would lope down the corridors whistling and banging on the walls and three hookers who were forever applying make up in the communal toilet.

Aside from the disastrous choice of accommodation we had an awesome time, traipsing through the city, heading to the Petronas Towers at night and haggling for bargain fakes in China Town Market.

We spent a day in the Batu Caves just outside of the city. A massive limestone edifice used as a Hindu Temple and home to hundreds of monkeys on the lookout for tourist’s snacks.

Taking a tour around one of the caves conservation sites we found ourselves inches from poisonous long legged centipedes whilst bats screeched overhead. Everything was done by torch light and so after 45 minutes I was surprised to find my group had dwindled to three people. Three people with unfamiliar faces looking at me quizzically. Then it dawned on me, I had managed to swap tours, onto a tour heading back into the caves deep interior whilst mine was heading out.

Twenty minutes of scrabbling over rocks, avoiding unseen trap door spiders I managed to escape Indiana Jones style, pride in tatters.

It was soon time to leave Malaysia, but not without heading to yet another island first! Two days of lazing on a beach, rock climbing around tiny outlying islands and squid fishing sated my appetite for the coast and I headed back to KL, excited for the next part of the trip – Sumatra.

Malaysia had proved to be an interesting and exciting country. Parties and motorbikes in Langkawi; jungle treks in Cameron Highlands; surfing and jelly fish in Cherating and the city buzz of KL.

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