Going Batty in the Batu Caves!

Thiapusum is a Hindu religious festival celebrated at the end of January (or early feb in some years). In Malaysia it's celebrated in Penang and most impressively in Kuala Lumpur where upwards of a million people make the pilgrimage to the Batu Caves 18km north of KL, and climb the 272 steps whilst carrying burning pots or covered in piercings that would not look out of place in a Clive Barker story. Google pics of the festival and you will understand!

All this occurred on the 27th Jan this year, your intrepid reporters bravely went to the caves on the 28th ( mostly cos we don't like large crowds and neither of us fancied being set on fire or perforated by hooks and chains!).

The area of the caves is pretty spectacular with some amazing scenery but... The commercialisation of the area was not pretty with loads of rubbish and dubious liquids running down the streets (although we had just arrived after a million people had just left so I'll forgive them if they hadn't finished the clean up yet!).

We set off up the steps towards the caves, stopped to avoid people still carrying burning bowls of fire, took some photo's of the numerous monkeys sitting around (plotting to steal your sandwiches at a moments notice) and finally made it to the top!

The caves are huge with numerous pigeons and bats flying through them. Gemma is not a fan of "wing'ed things" as she puts it, but put on a brave face and continued through the cave. Half way into the main cave, climbing the last few steps one of the bats expressed its own dislike of "Gemma's" by crapping on her from a great height! She took this as a sign to get the hell out of the cave and we made a sharp exit. I told her it was good luck but she seemed unimpressed!!!!

We stayed on in KL for a couple more nights, sampled the park and some of the more open areas of the city which were really impressive.

We are now in Melaka a much smaller and quieter port town on the SW coast of Malaysia. We are staying in a brilliant little guesthouse in Chinatown and have been chilling here for a couple of days. Will post more about it later but so far this is the best place we have stayed! It's got a sort of laid back Cornwall village vibe ( although there's still no sign of a beach!).

Until next time!

G+D