This one covers Sunday November 25 and is a bit longer than usual due to a lot of activity and staying in Singapore for the next couple of weeks.
Day 2 started in KL with a nice breakfast in the Hilton Executive Lounge followed by an excellent 25 percent off 90 minute massage for Jim while Susan drank coffee and played Candy Crush. (Actually I don’t know for sure If she did but I think it is a good guess.)
After the spa treatment I looked at the pool outside the 8th floor of the hotel – pretty nice!
Ameer picked us up promptly at 1 pm and we drove straight to the Batu Caves.
Batu Caves is a limestone hill that has a series of caves and cave temples in Gombak, Selangor, Malaysia. It takes its name from the Sungai Batu (Stone River), which flows past the hill.
Entrance to Batu Caves with the Murugan statue: (stock photo).
And now our photos here and at the end of the blog. As you can see there are 272 colored steps to the left of the Lord Murugan Statue which is the tallest statue of a Hindu deity in Malaysia and second tallest statue of a Hindu deity in the world behind the Kailashnath Magdev Statue in Nepal. (I doubt if we will make it there this trip!). It is 140 feet tall and took 3 years to build and was unveiled in January 2006 during the Thaipusam festival. (I haven’t looked that festival up yet.)
Our driver parked and said he’d wait in the car or in a restaurant if we wanted to walk up and down the steps. Susan was always up for it but I had some trepidation due to my sprained ankle but once I surmised that the “restaurants” were mainly shacks without air conditioning I decided to give the steps a go based on my recent training at The Pit Fitness Center in Singapore.
Squatting – Benefit Number 1
For the select few of you who are not only following this travel blog but my Singapore Fitness and Nutrition Blog (quite a bit shorter I’m sorry to say), you may remember that I started some of my physical training by hiring a personal trainer from The Pit, a gym in Singapore focusing on weight training, general fitness, mixed martial arts and boxing. (Who knows which ones I will do?).
At the same time I began the 28 day Squat program listed below and am currently on Day 8 or 9.
This program is listed here:
https://blog.myfitnesspal.com/the-28-day-squat-challenge-youll-want-to-start-now/
I explained to my trainer at The Pit that I was doing squats also and he helped reposition me to do them better.
Well, the squats must have helped my leg strength because even with the sprained ankle I was able to make it all the way up and down those 272 steps into the large cave where we admired the paintings and statues. It was quite impressive and I’m really glad that I decided to do it. We took it slowly and after spending a few minutes inside the cave we made the round trip in about an hour so it felt like a nice accomplishment. So making it up and back is what I call Squatting Benefit Number 1 as I think the squatting helped my legs out a lot. We took our time and the only semi-scary part was when I suddenly looked up and almost touched a monkey perched on the railing on the way down. There are many of them searching for food and water and I was so scared that I screamed loudly as I’m prone to do and a few people looked at me but just continued down. So fortunately I didn’t fall or get bitten by a monkey and have to make another visit to a foreign hospital.
(Yep he is the one that almost bit me before he went for the water.)
After finishing the Batu Cave we bought some souvenirs and I purchased a Diet Pepsi and some Indian snack food which was sort of like a trail mix and quite tasty, but Susan didn’t like it.
So we met up with our driver Ameer and started toward the airport stopping at Putrajaya.
Putrajaya is a city in Malaysia, south of Kuala Lumpur. It’s known for its late-20th-century architecture including the Putra Mosque, made from rose-colored granite with a pink dome. Nearby is the immense, green-domed Perdana Putra, which contains the prime minister’s office complex. The 3-tiered Putra Bridge is inspired by Iranian architecture, with 4 minaret-type piers overlooking the man-made Putrajaya Lake.
It was a modern, “built from scratch” city primarily for government workers including the Prime Minister and all of his departments such as Treasury, Finance, etc. as well as the Federal Court of Malaysia.
The Federal Court of Malaysia (Malay: Mahkamah Persekutuan Malaysia) is the highest court and the final appellate court in Malaysia. It is housed in the Palace of Justice in Putrajaya. The court was established during Malaya’s independence in 1957 and received its current name in 1994. (See Photo).
Judge term length: Compulsory retirement at age 66
Composition method: Royal appointment with the advice of the Prime Minister.
(Susan’s good friend from Duke, Libby McKeever, might be out of a job if she was in Malaysia since she currently works for a Federal Judge in his 80’s who has a lifetime appointment. And 66 is not sounding that old anymore…)
There were a large number of buses and tourists and a lot of children spending their Sunday in front of the Prime Minister’s house and at the mosque. I thought it was interesting but for some reason Susan thinks that there must be a country directive that all taxis have to stop by Putrajaya on the was to the airport! (She could be right.)
Here are a few Putrajaya photos with the second one being the Federal Court, the fourth one the Mosque and the fifth one the Prime Minister’s Palace. By the way I forgot to mention that KL is also building a new building (The Exchange 106) that will cost 10 billion, will be 133 feet higher than the Petronas Towers and will be among the 15 tallest in the world. Ameer was mentioning that the former Prime Minister was the one pushing for this but he didn’t mention the intrigue in this New York Times article. The sixth picture below shows it a bit to the right of the motorcycle but the article has better depictions. It was supposed to be done in 2018 but I don’t think they will make it. More text and other pictures are after the pictures below.
After Putrajaya, Ameer took us to the KL airport where we had three hours to wait for our crowded plane back to Singapore. After going last quite a few fast food places like Burger King, McDonalds, Garrett Popcorn, etc. we settled on a place serving “local” food and I had a nice order of chicken satay and tempura prawns. Then we headed toward the gate after one more stop…
Squatting – Benefit “Number 2”
I think the picture speaks for itself and Susan cautioned me against using it but then again she says “he has no filter!”
This of course is one of the famous “Malaysian Toilets” which the article below calls the “worst” toilets in the world. Some of you have likely seen similar ones in other parts of the world such as in parts of China or even in the one of the office buildings at the steel plant U. S. Steel acquired when we purchased a steel plant in Smederevo, Serbia and later sold it back to the government for 1 dollar after investing several hundred million that “went down the tubes.”
In any event, those who know me at all know that balance is not my strong point, but with the recent squat training I was able to display “the equilibrium of a Kung Fu Master” as described in point 5 of the article and I escaped the toilet dry and intact!
https://thetravelmanuel.com/why-malaysia-has-the-worst-toilets-in-the-world/
I do hate to end this blog on a down note because in general we had a great time in KL and would like to spend more time in other parts of Malaysia which has many beaches and historical towns such as Penang in Northwest Malaysia along the coast. It had been nicknamed “The Pearl if the Orient” due to its rich culture and high standard of living. This is where Susan’s good friend and classmate from Duke, Mary Kimmitt Laxton and her husband Steve Laxton have two good friends so we are hoping Mary and or Steve come see us and go to Penang with us.
After a short flight and quick customs visit now that we have our Employment Pass and Dependant Pass (yes that’s mine and how they spell it) we met Kenneth the driver and headed back to our apartment in Singapore.
We’ve already scheduled Kenneth to 1) take Susan and me to the airport on Friday December 14 where we fly to Tokyo, San Diego, Chicago and Pittsburgh with tight connections taking only about 24 hours to get to Pittsburgh just after midnight the morning of December 15 due to the 13 hour time difference.
We will stay in Pittsburgh until the 29th because the kids bought Susan and me tickets to Chicago where we stay with Susan’s sister Betsy Jaeschke and her family on December 29 and then in a hotel in downtown Chicago on our “first” wedding anniversary on December 30th and then we stay at friends Ray and Shirley Parpan’s on December 31 where we attend Chuck Jarik and Andrea Bacon’s annual New Year’s bash with 2018 trivia.
We fly out of Chicago back to Singapore on January 2 arriving January 4, through Tokyo again but skipping San Diego! Next trips we know of after that are to Hong Kong for business the week of January 14 or 21st and then likely to Siem Riep Cambodia for Chinese New Year on February 2-6 but more on those trips next year!
The blog will probably be a little quieter the next couple weeks although the Past President of the Rotary Club in Singapore is taking us to Chinatown this Saturday along with a couple of dinners next week and Kevin Hart on stage on December 13 before we fly out the next day.
If the left foot and now right knee (which gave out unexpectedly yesterday) are OK I will try to check out more Singapore sights or golf in Indonesia while Susan works.
Whew, we wish everyone a great holiday season. Oh, yeah here are a could holiday scenes, the famous rainbow bread ice cream sandwich at the Takiyama Mall and a Polo Store so Chuck you would feel at home here! Jim Hollingsworth
Singapore Travel Blog 