The last week in KL has been uneventful. I sat around on my ass a lot, with my infected foot in the air, surfing the 'net and messing with my photos. You know you're sitting too much when your ass starts to hurt. A couple of days ago I went with a fellow guest to see the Batu Caves. These are a series of large limestone caverns used by hindu as a shrine. There are several small temples around and inside the caves. It is kitschy. The big event occurs around january or february, in the festival of thaipusam when some 1 million hindu come to the caves. The truly devoted attach objects to their bodies by passing pins and various other sharp implements through their skin. They then walk up the steep 200+ steps to the caves. It seems rather painful.

Getting to the Batu Caves was not painful, but it was entertaining. First we walked to puduraya station, were directed to the nearby local bus stop, waited at the wrong station, then caught sight of bus #11, which is what you take to the Batu Caves. We hopped on the bus, which drove 30 meters in traffic and stopped at the station. We figured the driver was just waiting until it was time to go. Another man hopped on and started changing the bus sign. The ticket collector, a muslim woman wearing a light-coloured traditional loose dress and head scarf, sat impassively in a seat. I asked the driver, 'Do you still go to Batu Caves? Oh yes yes. But the number is changing? Oh, we go close. But we want to go exactly to Batu Caves? Bus goes to Waratu, it's close. No no, we want to go exactly to Batu Caves.' obviously, this wasn't going anywhere. We got off and wandered around till we found the real bus #11. Some 45 minutes later we got to the Batu Caves, which are opposite a picturesque overpass. There's no crosswalk, which I thought was odd given how many tourists must come here and the situation in the rest of kl (where there are crosswalks). A row of vendors were stringing fragrant flowers for people coming to worship. It must be very colorful during the festival.

The first thing you notice at the Batu Caves is the giant golden sculpture of Lord Murugan, the god of war. The next thing are the red and white steps leading up to the caves. The third thing is that there are actually limestone cliffs here. One of the temples overlooks a garden of true kitsch, complete with giant plastic flowers. The red marble floor is unusually shiny for a hindu temple where I am more accustomed to an old worn stone floor. The carvings are not sensational though the place manages to give a feeling of a little india in malaysia. We ate lunch at a friendly vegetarian shop: chapati, vegetables, fake chicken. the shopkeeper, who didn't speak english, kept coming by to bring us more food--dhal, vegetarian chicken in thick indian spice, water. it felt like grandfather was waiting on us. Asian tourists wander around with umbrellas. Pigeons collect food in the central square. Macaque monkeys, some with young, hop along the steps and yellow fence. One monkey is greedily eating through some food in a plastic bag. We walk up the steps, whose width varies in a random manner yet always remains too short for a Western foot in a shoe. Along the way we pass the "dark cave". Ten ringit if you can guess what the endless recording is saying in a heavy indian accent ("welcome to the dark cave, guided tours 30 minutes").

The caves are fully civilized and mostly open to the outside air. Several souvenier shops ply the visitor at the large entrance. Here too an endless recording of some hindu music plays, certainly it would drive me batty; perhaps it even drove the bats away. Old cave formations, stalagmites and stalactites, hew to one of the walls. In some caves they make a big deal that such formations should not be touched. Here there is graffiti, discarded wood, certainly many thousands have touched these now dry formations to which no more shape will be accreted, only worn away by devotion, my hand. In any other cave the jagged limestone would be spectacular, here it must vie for attention with tall lamp posts and metal fences. In the second cave chamber there are several peripheral shrines and a small central temple with a sculpture of peacoks pulling a charriot. Workmen were building a rickity scaffold up to one of the lamp posts, probably to service it in preparation for the upcoming festival. One of the workmen is attached with a rope to the pole, a heartening thing given the apparent instability of the enterprise.

We go back to the hostel. The next morning I'm chatting with one of the employees at the hostel. He's friendly and has been a great source of tips for malaysia. I say I have no idea where to go today. He suggests the cultural center. Sounds good. We decide to wait for another guest to join us. I mail a package off to home--some excess stuff no longer needed, including two external disk drives. At least one kilo less to carry, at a cost of myr$93 (about usd$25) to mail home by registered air mail. Eventually we meet up and walk to what should be a close-by place. We walk. My foot's a little sore but ok. We walk some more. We pass some buildings and construction sites. Kl is full of construction sites. They like white gleaming buildings with clean, straight lines. EVen the central mosque is made of straight, chisseled architecture, gleaming white. KL looks very modern and similar to singapore. The skyline is dominated by the petronas towers. How did people orient in this city prior to the towers? It seems all directions are relative to the towers. He calls his friend. It's obvious he's not quite sure where it is. We walk some more. Finally we come to what is a nice but obviously very touristy facility.

We're starved at this point, not having eaten proper lunches or breakfasts. The only food at the touristy place is very expensive and not much of it. We get 6 satay (malay kebab-like things) for myr$12, on top of which must be added another 15% surcharge. Our friend declines the satay--he grew up making the stuff--and says last time he visited the place it was a lot cheaper and full of malay. He and his 18 brothers and sisters (from two mothers) were eating those satay. His sisters grew the vegetables and rice, food was cooked in home-grown palm oil, fish from the padi (rice) fields provided protein. We go inside, look at a few costumed manequins, and I get some information about places to see. They have a cultural dance show 4 times a week from 15:00 to 15:45 but we had already missed it.

From the tourist center we catch a cab to Kampung Bahru. This is supposed to be a more traditional Malay neighborhood in Kuala Lumpur. Christine is hoping to see some genuine village homes. The neighborhood has fewer tall buildings but otherwise it looks just like any other residential city neighborhood in Malaysia. We find some food stalls. We're starved by now. I buy various sweets. Some kind of layered tapioca with alternative white and brown stripes. A sort of sugar syrup filled dough ball. We eat a delicious outdoor buffet. I have rice, string beans, delicious chicken cubes in some kind of reddish onion sauce, and a quiche (huh, no I didn't expect this either). Then I run over and buy more sweet things--sweet sticky rice cooked in a banana leaf, another one of those syrupy dough things, some kind of bean paste flower-shaped thing. Yum. Finally hunger is conquered.