Well, we had a long day today. As I mentioned (I think) in my last update, Courtney and I were awake about 6:00 AM this morning, and we trekked to a new hostel and had to wait a couple of hours to get a room, so we went down a flight of stairs to the internet place and posted that journal. About noon, we went back up to move into our new room, but he didn't quite have it ready yet. He had a big room where our stuff was locked up, so we decided to head out to the Batu Caves for the afternoon. They had a map at the hostel on how to get to the bus stop where we could catch a bus to the caves, so we got to the bus stop and started waiting for our bus (Bus #11D). We were waiting, and another guy on another bus starts yelling at us, so I go and talk to him, and tell him we want to go to Batu Caves, so he tells us to get on the bus, he'll stop at Batu Caves.
You have to see it to believe it, but each bus in KL (at least the Metrobus bussing company) has 2 people working on it, one drives, the other scouts out customers and gets them on the bus. It's totally a business to them, the more paying customers they have on the bus, the better. He then starts yelling out the buses new destination (Batu Caves) to everyone else, and lots of other people get on the bus. The bus ride was only 1.60 RM (that's about 50 or 60 cents, CDN) out there. But, he didn't actually take us to the caves. Instead, he stopped on the shoulder of a busy freeway, and opens the doors, and people start piling out. Of course, like dummies, we just sit there, and then he starts motioning to us to get out too. I tell him, Batu Caves, he says, ya, and points off into the distance, saying, "you get off here, Batu that way" and points off towards a mountain. Confused, we all get off, and just start following everyone else, assuming they're going to Batu as well. So, here we are a busload of people all walking down the middle of this busy highway, cars avoiding us. AFter a a few hundred metres, I realize why he kicked us off early. The highway to Batu Caves was backed up for a mile or more. Walking the rest of the was WAY faster than trying to bus it. As we were walking along the highway, we could see the caves, and the stairway leading up to it. As we got closer, you should have seen the garbage!!! Holy moley, the garbage 1.5 million people can create is unreal!!! Of course, the place was like a fairground still, all kinds of merchants have their temporary shops setup, selling their "Hindu" wares, they had a small amusement park, but it was shut down after the festivites from the previous day. There were quite a few people there, but the place is so huge, that it wasn't a bother.
At the bottom of the steps leading up the cavern is a donation box, I put in 1 RM (BTW, RM is the currency, a Ringett (not sure of spelling), and 1 RM is about 40 or 45 cents Canadian). We started up the 272 steps, and I was getting pretty pooped by the top. But it was worth it. There were all kinds of small Hindu shrines and statues inside, and lots of Hindu's still worshipping inside. It was quite a site to see. We took lots of pictures and some good video. While inside, it started raining, hard, so we waited inside for a little while, and it started to let up, so we started back down the stairs (with everyone else that was waiting for the rain to let up). Half way down, the rain started pouring again, we got soaked, but didn't matter, it was very warm. We walked around the booths stuff, then decided to head back to town.
We had no idea how to catch a bus back, so Jason asked a cop, and he said to go to the tire store and wait, so we started towards it, and the bus we were supposed to take (11D) to get out there was just pulling up dropping people off. Perfect!! Except he wouldn't let us on!!! He waved us away, and shut the door in our face! Great, now what? We contemplated just starting to walk back, but the caves are 15 km from KL, so we just waited, then another bus (a Metrobus) came by, and we asked him where he was going, and he said something we didn't recognize, then he asked us where we wanted to go, and we told him Chinatown, and he said, he's not going there. Dejected, we walked back into the tire garage to stay out of the rain, while this bus got loaded up with passengers. As he was getting ready to leave, he yells at us, I go over, and he asks us if we're going to Chinatown, I say yes, and he tells us, ya, he'll take us there, so we pile on the bus. It's standing room only, so we stand near the front of the bus. The bus leaves, and bus-buddy starts coming around to collect the fair. It's 2RM's for the ride back (it was 1.6RM for the ride out), which is cheapo. Well, the ride was back was unreal. The bus driver was driving like he was racing in the Indy 500, swerving in and out of traffic at low speeds (the traffic was heavy, we couldn't go fast). But there was no way the driver was just gonna sit in one lane, he HAD to be in the lane that was moving fastest at that particular moment. At one point, some guy in as Honda CRV pulled in front of us, and the bus driver started honking his horn to get him out of the way, or speed up, and we're literally 1 foot from the CRV, horn blaring, and the damn bus driver isn't gonna slow down. All of a sudden, the CRV stops abruptly, because of traffic, the bus driver slams on the brakes. Everyone in the bus gets thrown forward. The front door of the bus was open, and a poor old Hindu woman almost got thrown out on the freeway. I was watching what was going on, and was prepared for it. Anyway, no, we didn't hit the CRV (how he avoided it, I'm not sure). At least we knew the brakes on the piece of crap bus worked very well.
So, anyway, we keep driving back into town on this bus, every once in a while, he stops at a bus stops and a few people get off. At one traffic light, here's what happened, if you can imagine this. In Malaysia, they drive on the left side of the road. So, at this particular intersection, there is 3 lanes of left turn traffic, and about 3 or 4 of straight through. The straight through traffic has a red light, but the left-turn lanes are free, so cars are turning left onto this other street (just like we'd turn right...we don't need a green light). The bus driver, being the impatient kind, decides he's gonna drive in the left hand turn lane, upto the traffic light, then hang a hard right and pull in front of all the cars waiting at the red light to go straight. And he pulls it off and gets ahead of them all.
A little while later, our bus driver, being rather insane, decides he needs to move up in the traffic jam, so pulls into the oncoming traffic lane and starts driving!!!!!!!!! Cars are coming at us, and are having to swerve out of the way of the bus!!!!!!!!! AFter passing a number of cars, he starts trying to force his way back into the traffic jam. I take a look behind the bus, and guess what I see??? A bunch of cars had followed the bus, hoping to get ahead in the traffic jam as well. I didn't know whether to laugh or pray for my life.
Then, at another point, the driver decides he's gonna try to pull a right turn, into oncoming traffic. There were no right turns allowed here, but he was gonna do it anyway, screw everyone else. So, he just put the bus in gear, and takes off, when there's a little break in traffic. Now, this bus is not a speed demon. It goes rather slow, and he can't get across the oncoming lanes very fast. Cars are coming at us in the oncoming lanes, and have to come to a quick stop so as not to hit our bus.
Anyway, it was definately the weirdest and wildest ride of our lifes. I'm still totally amazed we didn't hit that CRV on the highway.
When we finally arrived back at our hostel, he had the room, so we moved in (very small room, there are four of us (myself, Courtney, Jason and Stephanie), there are two bunkbeds, so four beds altogether).
AFter moving in, we're hungry, so we walk to the Petronas Towers, because the hostel dude tells us there's a great food court there, with everything you could want. On the way, we walked through an "urban forest", where we can see a bunch of original trees of the area. There are monkeys in here as well, but we didn't see any. We get to the towers, it is quite impressive. We walk around the food court, then decide to eat at Chili's Grill and Pub. Court and I have chicken fajita's. We didn't go across the bridge linking to the towers (not yet anyway, we may go back and do that). After supper, we went back outside and sat by the huge pond/fountains and park area surrounding the towers. Very, very nice and calm and beautiful. (Mom: You'd *LOVE* this part of KL. The shopping in the two towers is amazing. Courtney said, if she had some money, she could spend a lot of time there.)
AFter supper, we walked back to the hostel, and layed down for a bit, then Jason wanted to get some sandals, so we walk around Chinatown for a bit, then we split up, Jason and Steph go there own way, Court and I sit down for a drink. It's about 9:30, so we start to head back to the hostel, but neither of us were paying much attention to how we got there, so we had to do some walking to find our hostel. We decided to hit the internet place posting this stuff.
Courtney got some photo's up on her MSN Photo Album. Check that other post for the URL. I'll try and get some on my web site soon, I forgot the cable for my camera at the hostel, so couldn't do it tonight.
Check out the pics, and let us know what you think!!
That's it for now. It's 11:30, we've been awake since 6:00AM, so it's time to go to bed. Tomorrow I think we're heading to a waterpark (wave pool, water slides and the like). We did WAY to much walking today, we must've walked more than 20 miles. We should have bought one of those things that tell us how far we walk, so we could find out how much we really are walking.
Anyway, until next time!!
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