Kelly In Malaysia: Pigs’ Tails and Foreign Friends

Our record of sleeping in past when we planned to was not broken this morning – we missed the free tickets (or any tickets at all, as they stop selling them after 11am) to go on the sky bridge of the Petronas Towers (twin towers). We managed to leave our non-air-conditioned dorm around 9am, and made our way to the wet markets (produce and meat market. We found many a delightful thing here, including pig tails, pig heads (hung up by the snout), pig feet, animal brains and other various organs, fish and chicken. The fish and chicken may sound harmless enough…

The fish was sitting in trays in a sweaty, dirty stall with no covering or refrigeration, simply some blocks of ice. The chicken… was live. And then slaughtered then and there, skinned, de-feathered and gutted by dunking it in an oversized bucket. Having figured they had not made enough health violations, they added some cats in cages to the tables that displayed food.

Having had quite enough of the wet markets, we moved on to something far more pleasant… temples and shopping. We went inside one Chinese temple, but felt very out of place and left shortly after. Bring on the Central Market. For 5RM (approx. $1.60) we had some little fish nibble at our feet for 10mins. This was possibly the most ticklish experience of my life. Once I managed to relax it was quite pleasant, and my feet felt ever so smooth afterwards. Gift shopping gave some pleasant air-conditioned retail therapy and then it was back to the hostel for a rest.

(Jess’s feet covered in fish!)

Upon our return, we discovered a roommate. A fellow Australian, from Newcastle, called Daniel. Together the three of us ventured out for lunch, then off the the KL Tower (Menara KL) where we went up a couple of hundred levels in the lift to the observation deck. KL is not an overly attractive city on the whole…

We then took the 45min bus trip to the Batu Caves, which are a Hindu shrine and temples. The bus was over-packed, picked people up where there was clearly no bus stop and a lady 2 rows in front of us was holding a pigeon. I was expecting to see a goat next… The caves were amazing, with temples being built inside the ENORMOUS caves. Getting to the caves… not so amazing. 272 (or similar) steps to get to the entrance of the caves. Needless to say, we were all ridiculously sweaty!

Daniel, Jess and I returned to the hostel to take a much needed shower and rest (again). As our air-conditioner was still broken, we got moved to another dorm, where we had many a roommate! Bibi from Amsterdam, and 3 other people who seemed rather anti-social. We met 2 more guys in the common room downstairs – Andy from the UK and Eemi from Finland. The six of went out for dinner in the night markets, stopping off to see the twin towers at night and headed to an Irish pub for some drinks. A very good night, with some of us heading home earlier than others to catch our early bus back to Melaka or a flight to Australia (Bibi got asked to come to Australia to photograph some festivals, lucky girl!).