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Published: October 29th 2008
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Batu Caves Entrance
This big guy greets you before you enter the caves. Pretty impressive, but I wouldn't want to be the guy who had to paint it. Well, hello folks and Selamut Datang (Welcome) from
Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capitol. Thanks for checking back in with me. It's been a little while since I last wrote anything or added any pictures. Let's see, I think the last thing I wrote had to do with the Mt. Kinabalu trek, and that was nearly 2 weeks ago! Since then, I had moved on to Semporna, on the South China Sea, where I took some scuba diving lessons in one of the world's most dramatic coral reef habitats (
Sipidan Island and the other islands nearby). I didn't take any underwater photos, but just think if the most dramatic National Geographic photos that you've ever seen with gin-clear water, sea turtles, scorpion fish, stingrays, octopus, brightly colored corals... you get the picture. It was extremely breathtaking and I'm very happy that I finally became a certified scuba diver. Unfortunately, I also contracted a bacterial infection on my ankle while diving - dive fin rubbed a hole into my ankle - that became kind of serious, and wound up laying me out for a few days. I knew it was time to go to see a doctor when I was walking (hobbling) around
Mabul Island
Archipeligo about 25km from Semporna. That's our dive boat in the foreground. during the day's 90+ degree heat, sweating, and also shivering! My foot had already swollen up to about the size of a Nerf footall, which would have given most reasonable people cause for alarm. Having already been in the town for a few days or so, I had met a few people that I felt comfortable asking about where to find a doctor. Several people referred me to Dr. Syed, but who's name is pronounced (for whatever reason) as "Dr. Shit" or "Shet," depending on who you ask. Before seeing her name actually spelled out, I was understandably a little leery of seeking her medical care, but since she was the only game in town, went anyway. With a shot in the butt, a bunch of pills to take, and some antibacterial cream to rub onto my extremely ugly looking foot wound, she fixed me right up... $14 US is what it cost! All I could think right after paying is about is how in the US, insurance companies and HMOs have made it such that a simple runny nose will set you back at least $100... and you'll be lucky if you even see a doctor for that!
Petronis Towers at Dusk
Yep... They're pretty big! I tried counting the storeys but kept losing my place. I think they say each is 110 storeys to the base of the spires. Notice the five tiers towards the top representing the 5 pillars of Islam. So, getting back on track, I hoofed it back to Kota Kinabalu following Semporna via an 11-hr bus ride, crawled into a hotel for a few days where I basically just allowed my body to recover, then flew to
Kuala Lumpur where I'm at right now. I'll be heading out for Bangkok tomorrow and on to Nepal on Saturday - finally! I haven't seen a thermometer here, but I think the temperature in the sun is somewhere between 91 and 950 degrees F. I hear Bangkok is no joke when it comes to hot and sticky heat either. I'm very much looking forward to Nepal where the daytime temperatures have been in the upper 70s lately. I've enjoyed the equatorial heat and being able to enjoy the water, etc., but I'm really ready for a change of climate.
A couple notes about Kuala Lumpur: It's really a very compact city where the new high rises are built right alongside the older, street-level buildings. It seems to be a very well organized city, and has a public transport system comparable to Boston or New York. It even has a
monorail! (I wonder which technical colleges or institutes in the US
No Parking!
I love this photo. offer monorail conducter professional training?) As a hub for Asian banking, it's truly an international city where Mandarin, English, Arabic, as well as a host of other dialects are all pretty common. Basically, it's a city that seems to be thriving and enjoying it's growing status as a cultural, Asian hub of sorts. If the world economy is supposed to be in the toilet with real estate & development meltdown serving as the flagship turd therein, then Kuala Lumpur doesn't appear to have received that memo. From all outwards appearances, the city seems to be thriving. It's a fun city to walk around in too. People are pretty friendly, and it's a good spot to spend a couple of days. But it's a city, afterall, and I generally prefer wide open spaces.
The only other slightly interesting thing to report kind of falls under the heading of Coincidences or Small World stories. I recently met an anthropologist named Elizabeth (same name as my sister) who's been out here for about 7 months as part of a post-grad thesis project. As it turns out, she is from South Carolina (same state in which my parents and sister currently live) and
Sepua Island
This small community has been living on this island for generations, No power, no running water... food is picked off the trees or caught at sea, water is collected in cisterns during the rainy season, or brought to the island by boat from the mainland. even knows - and has patronized - the bar that my cousin owns in Rock Hill, South Carolina (Daddy's Money, perched right across the street from a small college and catering to it's student body, in case you were wondering about the namesake). Now I know that there are bigger coincidences than this that could happen, but since I can count the number of Americans that I've met in the last month on one hand, I thought this was kind of cool. She's a really nice girl and is finally heading back home in a few days; I wish her the best of luck finishing her thesis, but she seems like a pretty smart cookie, so I'm sure she'll do fine. (As the casual reader may be able to tell, she's probably going to read this herself, hence the complimentary tone).
Alright, what else to report from Malaysia, and specifically from Kuala Lumpur. Hmmm, well, I saw the Petronis Towers, which until recently, were the largest buildings in the world - they were pretty big! I also paid a visit to the Batu Caves, an ancient Hindu sacred spot that was only unearthed about 100 yrs ago. Hard to
Batu Caves
This is about the best photo as I could get, but I'm not sure if it actually conveys how large it really was inside. Inside the cave, Hindu holy men were carefully attending to the worship areas... that is, when they weren't trying to hawk useless, overpriced crap to tourists. believe, considering how big they were too. I'll try to include a couple of photos. Hmm, not much else since last time. Well, I'll just try to post some photos and let you all see for yourselves. The next blog entry I make will probably be once I'm in Nepal, provided I make it through Bangkok in one piece. From what I understand, it's not the type of place that you want to indiscriminately ask people if they have change for a $100 bill. It should prove to be exciting though.
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