Asia Holiday 2013, August 23 (Apes-A-Poppin')

The KL train system is a little bit disjointed, so I had to take a monorail to KL Sentral, walk down the street to the bus and train station of the same name, and then get on one of the two possible train lines out to Batu Caves at the end of the line. It's always a relief when your destination is the end of the line, saves you having to think.

I asked for my ticket to Batu Caves, which cost a surprisingly low RM 1 (about 30 cents). After I got on the train I noticed the train ticket had the words "KL Sentral" and "Sentul" printed on it. Sentul is a station about halfway to Batu Caves, but sounds nothing like it so I can't have been a mistake... So now I'm questioning if I have the wrong ticket (probably) and wondering what's going to happen if I go all the way to Batu Caves. I was contemplating getting off at Sentul and sorting it out, only I noticed that the trains only run every thirty minutes. New plan, go to Batu Caves and go into angry tourist mode if someone questions my ticket. When I got to Batu Caves it turned out to be a non-event, all the ticket machines were broken and everybody was able to just walk on through! Disorganised countries can occasionally be good...

The entrance to the caves is pretty unique, a big gold statue and a big staircase. As you walk up the staircase there are crazy monkeys everywhere, waiting to snatch your food, your bags, anything that isn't tied down. Some guy walking up next to me was feeding them twisties, which SURELY cannot be good for them. I just wanted to reach the top without losing my backpack, which already had holes in it and was starting to fall apart. Once you get inside the caves there isn't much else to see, just a large cavernous space (and more steps).

Entrance to Batu Caves.

The steps into Batu Caves.

Feeding time.

Inside Batu Caves.

More steps inside Batu Caves.

I caught the train all the way back to KL Sentral and beyond, a few more stops south to Jalan Templer. When I got out I was looking for Bukit Gasing Forest Reserve, but there were no signs (no surprise there). All I had to go on was a Google Map photo I had saved to my camera. The walk to the reserve was sketchy, to put it nicely. It began walking along under an expressway, then up some stairs and across a bridge alongside oncoming traffic, then more walking beside the road on a busy street. Finally I found the first street I was looking for, and turned off into a suburban area that felt like a rural country town. I took a few more turns until I thought I would be at the reserve, only there was still no signs. The only clue I got was someone with a sign outside their house across the street asking people not to park there. After reaching a couple of dead end streets I saw what might be a path in between two houses, and ventured in. After trekking through the jungle for a couple of minutes I found a signboard with a map and confirmed I was (somehow) in the right place!

Walking to Bukit Gasing Forest Reserve.

More walking to Bukit Gasing Forest Reserve.

Still walking to Bukit Gasing Forest Reserve.

The "entrance" to Bukit Gasing Forest Reserve.

Besides this map there were no other directions along the path, so I had to memorise the order or left and right turns in case I got lost, as I had not brought any breadcrumbs. I went down one direction which was just leading to a stream, but there was starting to be too many twists and turns, so I came back to the main trail. I continued along the main trail, passing a faded sign in Malaysian language with a sketch of three big spiders on it - that can't be good. I passed one person the entire way to the end of the trail (about half an hour), where I came across the suspension bridge. It was made out of some ropes, with planks of wood to walk across, and some offcuts of rubber tyres attached to them - in summary, not the world's safest bridge. It was probably a good ten metres of the ground, so you might not die if it collapsed but probably would suffer some fun injuries. I took a walk out onto the bridge, and it seemed stable enough, so I made it across the other side and back, and then all the way back to where I started the hike, even passed one more person on the way back.

A view of sorts.

Might be best to just turn back when you reach this.

The "suspension bridge".

Bits of spare tyres.

Made it out alive.

Walking back to the train station.

I took the train back to KL Sentral and had a look around Brickfields (Little India) before changing across to the monorail line. From some photos it looked like the Brickfields had some really cool colours on the houses and streets, possibly a bit of art deco, but I must have been in the wrong places because all I saw was restaurants and convenience stores.

I got a sort-of self-serve yoghurt for lunch, from a place called Crumbs. They only have plain yoghurt, but the quality is much better, and you get to choose your own two toppings. I went with oreos as the middle layer, and marshmallows on top, brilliant! I also got some snacks from Lavender, which is another one of these self-serve bakery places. My new three favourites places:

• Self-serve bakery
• Self-serve frozen yoghurt
• Self-serve shoe stores (that have sizes for EVERYONE)

The only reason I mentioned Lavender is I decided to take a risk and grab a few things I had never heard of. This is often a big risk, because if it tastes horrible you either go without food or drink, or have to leave your hotel and go find a suitable replacement. I lucked into this awesome bread called Luo Song (Philippines bread apparently) which was super soft and buttery. Sadly I haven't been able to find much information about it at all on Google, so maybe they spelt it incorrectly.

Lunch!

Luo Song bread, must find more of this.

After a quick rest at the hotel I walked over to Berjaya Times Square, another massive shopping centre that had at least 10 floors of stuff. Inside the front door they had the World's Biggest Captule Vending Machine, as part of a 10 year anniversary, although I didn't actually get to see it in operation. The shopping centre even has it's own permanent indoor theme park on some of the upper floors! The idea of an indoor roller coaster sounded interesting, or perhaps frightening, but it seemed to be designed for kids other than that one attraction - maybe it's a dumping ground for kids while the adults do their shopping.

The world's largest capsule vending machine.

The indoor roller coaster.

I walked down Jalan Alor (jalan or just "jln" means road or street by the way) which has all of these local Malaysian and/or Chinese restaurants with tables and chairs set up out on the streets. The wait staff were particularly keen to get you in, they'd even start walking down the street a little bit with you (similar to South Beach in Miami). My best strategy so far, which works most of the time, is to avoid any eye contact, and do not walk with any hesitation. That's when they get you! They have the menus up on big board above the restaurants so you easily get an idea of what they had on offer without the need to stop, and I didn't really fancy anything.

Jalan Alor.

The next couple of streets over were a bit classier, with actual restaurants and pubs. I had marked down two that I was interested in, an Indian and Mexican restaurant, and settled on the Mexican simply because they were the ones selling margaritas! I can never choose between a burrito and nachos, but ended up with nachos once again, as well as a large (bad idea) margarita mixed with blue curacao. It looked pretty innocent when it arrived, but this drink was a KILLER. The alcohol was as strong as anything I can remember, although to be honest I don't drink a lot of alcohol. For whatever reason, and I think a combination of being dehydrated and having lost about ten kilograms this year, just one drink knocked me out (not literally). I had to hang around for something like 30 minutes after I'd finished my meal before I was confident of walking back to the hotel without incident.

Nachos!

STEP-O-METER: 37170 steps