I made my way into town and to the hostel where Kristina had booked me a room. Kristina and her friend Marki, who had arrived from Indonesia the day before, came and met me at the hostel later in the morning and we spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon exploring Chinatown, Little India, and the flashy shopping district called Orchard Road.
During Marki's Master diver scuba course in Indonesia, she met a girl named Hannah who is from England, but has been working in Singapore for nearly a year. We were extremely lucky to be invited to stay with her at her gorgeous apartment (with a huge outdoor pool!) while we visited the city. Her apartment complex is right next to a large nature reserve that had lots of monkeys living in it, who weren't at all shy!
The 3 of us (Kristina, Marki and I) spent the next few days zigzagging across the huge city via its extensive public transit system. We tried some weird food, drank a lot of freshly squeezed tropical juice, visited a few fancy hotels, walked around the botanical gardens, shopped, and even did a half-day trip to a small jungle island off of Singapore called Pulau Ubin, where we rented some bicycles. Here we saw plenty of mangrove trees, colourful flowers, huge iguanas, and some wild boars.
We also stumbled upon a really weird little park called the Tiger Balm Garden. It was full of all these strange, gaudy sculptures that (we think) depicted scenes from Asian myths and religious stories.
After 3 full days and nights of touring, we regretfully left Hannah's hospitality, knowing that it would be the most luxurious experience of the whole trip. Marki made her way to the airport to return to Indonesia, and Kristina and I hopped on a city bus that took us across a bridge out of Singapore. When we got into Malaysia, we found a coach bus that took us to the capital, Kuala Lumpur. The trip was 5 and a half hours and cost us 30 ringgit each, which is just under $10 Canadian.
We stayed in the big city for only 2 days, but found that it was plenty of time to get the general idea. We saw the enormous Petronas Towers, explored the Chinatown market (this may become a theme...), did a bit of shopping and went to the Batu Caves.
The Batu Caves are on the outskirts of town and are one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India, dedicated to Lord Murugan. It is the focal point of Hindu festival of Thaipusam in Malaysia, which happens to be going on right now, so it was very busy and exciting.
To reach the mouth of the main cave, you have to climb about 300 stairs. We were soaked through from our own sweat by the time we reached the top, but on the plus side there was this giant gold statue to admire on the way up. There were some small shrines inside the cave, and also some mean monkeys living in one part that will steal from visitors who are careless with their belongings.
On our 2nd and final evening, the hostel we were staying at hosted a barbecue for its guests on the rooftop terrace. The food was delicious: grilled chicken, noodles with veggies, salad, fresh watermelon, and some fries. We played a few silly games and got to chat with some great people who gave us some tips and ideas for the rest of our trip.
We are now finishing up a full day of travels and are on our way to the Malaysian island of Pulau Langkawi for some much needed beach time!
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