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Published: February 12th 2009
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KL
Twin Towers KL was a large city with confusing looking highways. It was really nice of Al and Maureen (Geoff's PE teacher from Nelson) to let us stay in their beautiful apartment in Petaling Jaya. We enjoyed a day walking around the twin towers and craft complex nearby. We made a water colourful silk elephant painting which we have never done before. Learned different techniques of water painting and had a relaxing time under a hut surrounded by beautiful paintings, wood crafts and textile art.
We managed to come to Malaysia and KL at the same time as the Tamil Hindu festival of Thaipusam. It's celebrated around the country but especially and most significantly at the Batu Caves. Neither of us fully understand what the event is about but there are posts in Wikipedia that shed a little light.
It was truly an unbelievable event, difficult to describe in words or even with pictures. We will never forget it. Even though the event was just being held at the Batu caves north of town it took a while to get there by switching two different trains. There was a short shuttle train which we waited for nearly an hour with many
KL
Twin Towers others to get to the caves. We got there on Sunday afternoon after two full days of activity that began with a 7 hour procession from downtown. The area was cordoned off and was totally packed when we arrived. Right off the train we went up to a small temple where people prayed and received red powder on their foreheads. A giant statue of a green Hindu god stood beside the temple. The temple was surrounded by stalls selling all kinds of goods, food and drink.
We walked with the crowd around a bend where a square opened up and where the crowd was centered. On the left were the stairs up to the caves, beside it was an even more giant golden statue. In the middle was the procession of devotees waiting for their turn to climb up to the caves and all around were shops, vendor stalls, and make shift restaurants. Everything in between was covered with people! The Indian music blared and a beat was pounded out on drums.
The procession included men, women, and children, young and old. On their way up to the caves people brought different things. Some carried milk in cloth
KL
Twin Towers sealed silver vases on their heads others carried a bag of goods to deliver to the shrines and some lifted large and very heavy decorative displays made of wood and metal and covered with peacock feathers, flowers, and posters. Many of these display carriers also decorated their bodies with fruit, flowers or smaller versions of the silver vases filled with milk. The decorations weren't however attached to clothing or costume. They were attached to the skin with hooks. The worst example of this we saw were men with hooks in their backs attached to ropes. The ropes were pulled on by a family member or friend. Meanwhile, the man with the hooks in his back yelled and waved his hands, dancing and showing off to the crowd.
Apparently, the people receiving the hooks were put into a trance like state so they didn't feel the pain. It looked horrible from our side though. Meanwhile there were always drummers nearby pounding a beat encouraging them to continue and helped them prepare for and motivate them for the climb up the stairs. We were extremely curious about the whole event so we joined the line of followers climbing the steps. It
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Twin Towers was extremely intense at the start as the display carriers danced or had their legs massaged by their family members before the climb.
We slowly followed, up to the top, the centre lane given to the display carriers. At the top there were a few idols and the cave opened up quite big. Inside the cave, people were giving there gifts of milk or bags with coconut to volunteers at several shrines. The display carriers carried their displays to the end of the cave before another set of stairs where they took them off. We saw one being taken off and it took 4 guys to lift it of the ones' shoulders. They also took off the 'hookings', the ones who had the small vases of milk pored into a large one so it could be donated. We decided to climb the last 100 steps or so to the very top where a smaller chamber of the cave housed a small temple. Here people lined up to pray.
After watching for a while we felt it was time to head down. We reached the beginning of the steps and saw the large line up of displays ready to
KL
Twin Towers be carried up and that the crowd really was massive. As we headed down we really could see the effort people were expending to bring their gifts up the stairs. We climbed down and stayed near the procession with many others watching the beautiful displays and listening to the drumming. Later, we stopped for food and rested at one of the restaurants.
After experiencing all of this we wanted to find out where the display carriers were coming from. So we followed the procession through the massive crowd down a street towards a small river. On the way we ran into a local women who was bringing her cousins from India to their first Thaipusam. She explained a lot about what was going on, including that the purpose of the festival was for people to pay respect to the gods and also to give thanks for granted wishes or to pay penance for past sins. She explained that many of the display carriers were completing a vow where they promised to do something very difficult in return for the answer to their prayer. We followed her to the river where two groups of people huddled around two men who
were preparing for the procession. It was so packed that it was difficult to see but a short glimpse of one of the men showed that the entire top half of his back was covered by the mini milk containers.
The whole experience was bizarre yet breathtaking.
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