World Tour Stop 18 - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

We arrived in KL on June 5th. around early evening but after going through customs and driving an hour to our hotel it was fairly late. We were pretty exhausted but had not done any laundry since Australia, so we headed down the road to a laundromat and spent the evening snacking on Pringles and watching clothes spin. KL was the first (and hopefully only) time that that we felt that the culture we were in wasn't super accepting of women. In the laundromat we were wearing shorts and t-shirts, really the only clean things we had left and it was roughly one million degrees outside, but we were still wearing a lot less clothing than any of the other women and the men were giving us a bit of the creeps. We headed back to the hotel and had an early night. This was also the first time I got sick on the trip. I'm not sure what made me sick, possibly the food in Bali the prior evening or possibly it was just a lot of traveling and little sleep over the last couple months. Anyways, it was a rough night and I woke up the next morning feeling pretty crappy but went to the gym to try to sweat it out. That day we caught a cab to the Petronas towers in hopes of going up but they were sold out for the day and closed on Mondays (June 7th) and we had a flight out on Tuesday around noon, so we didn't ever get to go up the towers which was a little bit of a bummer. We did walk around the mall and KLCC park and take pictures of the outside at least!

We also had a beer and lunch at Delirium Cafe and enjoyed a little taste of Belgium in Southeast Asia.

That evening we'd heard of Sky Bar, which is a bar at the top of Traders Hotel and looks out over the Petronas Towers, and has this amazing swimming pool right in the middle. It was a really cool place to have a drink and a meal so definitely recommend it as a place to try out while in KL. Oh, the French Open was also on so we were able to watch Nadal take the crown for the 12th time while enjoying a delicious east west cocktail.

This was also a more toursity location so we didn't feel out of place or underdressed.

The following day we had booked a tour to visit the Batu Caves. This is a major touisty thing to do only twenty minutes outside city center. You can actually take the city train as well but we booked a tour so we could get the hotel pick up/drop off as well as a guide to tell us where to go and what to check out The Batu caves are essentially a Hindu temple built into a mountain. There are more than 2.5 million Indians living in Malaysia, the vast majority being of Hindu faith. The caves temple was started in 1890 and have been a tourist attraction for the last 20 years. The statue at the bottom is Sri Muruga and as a worshiper you request permission to make the trek to the top to pray. It is 140 ft tall and literally feels as though it is guarding the path up. The entry way is also filled with a temple and a ton of vendors (especially for women's sarees to cover knees). The most wonderful part is how vibrantly colorful everything is.

From here you climb 275 stairs to the cave entrance where there are additional temples and places to pray along with the most beautiful opening to the top of the mountain. It is so pretty. We obviously stopped and took pictures along the way so the climb was nice and easy.

On the way back down I believe the monkeys woke up and we got to see a number of little menaces running around and stealing treats and disappearing back up light posts and fences. They weren't so interested in us because we didn't have any bags or food on us, but still cool to be so close to wild animals.

From here on our tour we went to see the Royal Pewter company which they clearly took us to in hopes that we would purchase something but on a multi month trip we don't have a whole lot of room in the bags for souvenirs. Then we headed to the Thean Hou Temple which is a Chinese Buddhist temple and was beautiful. This was a place where a lot of couples go for marriage licenses and there were so many people dressed in wedding garb for photo shoots. Definitely a gorgeous temple with the KL city skyline as the backdrop.

That evening I was still feeling a bit under the weather so we ordered food in and had a relaxing movie night at the hotel.

We checked out the next morning to head on the Thailand and I must say that we were super excited for our next country!