Malaysia, Part 3
February - March 2008

 

 

Thursday, February 28th

Today has been a very enjoyable day, at least for me and Hazel who were sightseeing and shopping.

In the morning we took a taxi to Petaling Jaya (PJ). We grabbed a quick breakfast from Starbucks (ack, another American chain!) and then Hazel and I checked out the shops in the Amcorp Mall. Many of the shops did not open until 11am so we were a little early but I still managed to spend 50RM (about £8.50) on two lovely Indian embroidered cotton blouses. Hazel and I also bought some snacks from a stall. The lady kindly told us what everything was and then we chose a vegetable spring roll, a rectangular fried cake of minced prawns and sago, and a bun filled with some sort of bean paste. We ate them in the taxi to the Batu Caves.

There was no entrance fee to the Batu Caves. Maybe they consider the 272 steps penance enough! Thankfully today was cooler, overcast and occasionally rainy so much more pleasant than the sunny heat yesterday.

We were surprised to see monkeys milling around everywhere -- very well behaved, didn't bother with the people at all. We watched the monkeys for a bit and took some photos at the bottom of the steps.

 

 

 

 

The world's largest statue of Lord Murugan. They are not kidding, it's huge! It was unveiled on Hazel's birthday 2006, see http://www.tvsmith.net.my/duasen/290106_murugan.html

At the top of the steps was a stall selling trinkets (snow globes of buddha and the like) along with cold drinks. Walking a bit further in led to yet more steps up to the back of the cave which was open at the top to natural light. Lots more monkeys up here! We watched some people being blessed by a priest at the Sri Subramania Swamy temple. Hazel was intrigued that everyone took their shoes off to enter the temples.

 

 

Back towards the entrance of the cave was a souvenir stall selling all manner of interesting things including brightly coloured musical pictures of various gods, complete with flashing lights. I think Hazel would have happily had one in her room. Instead we bought a laminated pictures of Ganesh, accented in gold. I drew the line at snow globe buddhas. See the colored musical pictures in motion - requires Windows Media Player.

Back down at the bottom of the steps we looked for some lunch. There were some vegetarian cafes but we walked to the last of the row of shops and found a small cafe serving roti, a thin pancake like bread. I ordered two banana roti as I thought Hazel would like this but she wouldn't eat a bite. Still, it was fun to watch it being made and I thought it was very tasty! It came with three dipping sauces. One was a bit buttery, another was coconut and chilli based and the other was tomato based. All lovely. See the Roti Man in motion - requires Windows Media Player.

After lunch (my lunch anyway) and a look at the heaps of coconuts waiting to have their tops sliced off and a straw inserted, we looked for a taxi. Our taxi to the caves was 18RM but our taxi back, off the meter, was 50 plus another 10 because our driver got lost and charged me for the privelege. I didn't feel like arguing!

Back at the Amcorp Mall in PJ, Hazel and I hit the now-open shops. We found a grocery store on the lower level where she could get some familiar snacks for a late lunch: chocolate milk, Babybel cheese, an apple and some Sunmaid raisins. Next door to the supermarket was a Chinese store selling mostly toys and housewares. We did well here, getting Hazel a pair of pool shoes, a Dora the Explorer inflatable swim ring and a beach ball. Now we're all geared up for our beach holidays.

I didn't have a chance to carry on sending the rest of the pictures yesterday. But now I am sitting in the KL domestic airport waiting for our flight to Penang and there is free wireless broadband. Yippee! So, carrying on from the Batu Caves, when we got back to the Amcorp Mall Hazel and I did a bit more shopping. I spent ages in a book store looking at all the cookbooks but in the end couldn't pick one to buy. Hazel got a story book that tells a Malaysian legend about a great white crocodile that turns into an old man to catch a lift on a ship so he can fight a battle against a big black demon. He wins the fight but is injured and swims to an island to die. He tells another boat to shout out at a particular river that he is dying on the island and then hundreds of crocodiles all go to see him off.

We went to dinner at a hawker centre in PJ.

We started with some "treats" from a stall outside the centre. One was a banana leaf wrapped around some sticky rice that was stuffed with a mixture of shrimp paste and coconut. Another banana leaf contained a bright green sticky rice flour jelly-like substance (hard to find the words to describe it!) that enclosed a super sweet filling of grated coconut mixed with brown sugar. David had an orange jelly-blob that contained a slightly granular tasting paste made of mashed up green beans.

Inside, one of the stands had small snacks including century eggs. They were a funny brown colour with a bit of blue at the large end. I asked if they were like tea eggs, which I have made at home, but no, the answer is horse urine. I would love to know who was the bright spark that dropped an egg in a bucket of horse wee and thought mmm, must try this as a snack. They are also eaten with congee (rice porridge). I'm not sure that would help. Also on the subject of food, we haven't yet attempted (or seen/smelled) durian, the king of fruits, but here is a link to Wikipedia's entry on it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian). I'm not sure I could get past the appearance of the flesh let alone the odour.

 

 

In the end, we picked two kinds of roast pork for David that came with sticky rice.

Hazel had a lovely fish ball noodle soup and she really enjoyed it.

I had Penang style Hokkien Mee or Char Kway Teow -- noodles with prawns, cockles, fish and bean sprouts. Very tasty, here's a recipe: http://www.malaysianfood.net/recipes/recipecharkwayteow.htm.

Then to share we had grilled, spiced sting ray. It was similar to Cajun blackened fish but with different spices. So tasty. The bones are soft and cartilagenous so you just munch them along with the fish. We also had oysters cooked with beaten eggs -- amazing.

Finally when we were already stuffed to popping point, we tried dessert. A mountain of shaved ice (the picture doesn't do it justice as some of it had melted) squirted with a variety of brightly coloured syrups and sprinkled with sweetcorn kernels, with beans mixed in for good measure. Oh yeah, and a scoop of ice cream on the top. Hazel ate the ice cream but wouldn't eat the ice, I didn't like any of it and David thought it was OK. So, probably won't be seeking out one of those again!

After dinner Hazel needed a powder break so we headed out back to find the toilets. Everywhere we had visited thus far had a mix of squat toilets and Western toilets. Not so, here. No toilet paper either, just a bucket with a ladle. This was also a variation on the usual rubber hose that most of the other toilets have had. I am glad that I brought along several travel packs of Kleenex and have also discovered that there are more uses for L'oreal 2-n-1 cleanse and toner wipes than listed on the packaging!

Outside the toilets were a few fish tanks with some enormous fish. Not sure what type but they reminded us of our gouramis in the tank at home, only significantly bigger. There are lots of fish ponds here with koi but also with fish that we used to have in our tropical tank years ago, like platies and swordtails. No heaters needed here of course.