Just go lah: Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur and the Cameron Highlands

January 28-February 1st: Our first trip outside of Singapore was to Malaysia. I went with 2 other exchange students and we left right after class on Thursday. We took a bus which was quite the experience. We ended up having the entire bus to ourselves so going through immigration at the border wasn't stressful at all since he couldn't really leave without us. The most surprising moment for me was when we got out of the bus at the border to scan our passports, EVERYONE and I mean everyone was sprinting. We were caught up in the crowd and ended up running too so we didn't look quite so foreign but it was such a funny occurrence.

First stop: the Batu Caves right outside of Kuala Lumpur! It was neat to visit this the weekend after Thaipusam because the largest celebration of the festival occurs here. This large statue is Lord Murugan, the lord the whole celebration of Thaipusam revolves around. Walking around inside the caves we could still see some of the remnants from Thaipusam.

Yes, we did climb all 274 steps to the top of the caves.
Fun fact: the biggest celebration of Thaipusam (see last
blog post for an explanation) occurs here with the devotees
climbing all of these stairs carrying their 70 lb kavadis.
It wasn't pleasant climbing all the stairs just carrying my
purse... I can't imagine how they do it.

The second set of stairs once inside the caves,
beautiful view looking up however there was not
much to see inside the caves.

This beautiful view of the Kuala Lumpur made all the stairs worth it.

This was one of the first views of the city we got, on our way to the caves! It's one of the oldest mosques in Kuala Lumpur

Petronas Towers day and night!

At first we were very unimpressed with Kuala Lumpur but after walking around the non-financial more touristy area and discovering all of the following beautiful buildings, our view of KL completely changed. I probably wouldn't spend more than a day in the city or go out of my way to visit it but I'm glad that I got to see it.

The national mosque of Malaysia! We actually stumbled upon this completely by chance after walking through what seemed like the Central Park of KL. It was a very pleasant surprise. We even came during a service so we were able to hear the songs as we approached.

Cameron Highlands

After the busyness of Kuala Lumpur we were all ready for a more relaxing and beautiful landscape. The highlands were exactly what we were looking for. About a 3 hour bus ride from KL, and much higher in the mountains we were relieved to have less humid and hot weather.

The Cameron Highlands are known for their tea, specifically the BOH Tea company. This is the view of their cafe where we were lucky enough to enjoy a nice cup of freshly brewed tea looking out on the tea plantation.

Maggie, Juliette and I enjoying the beauty of the Camellia Sinensis plants (otherwise known as tea leaf plants)

The only way to get up to the tea plantation was hiring a taxi, so we hired one for 3 hours and on each of the steep curved roads we were all convinced we were going to die as we whipped around the corners driving completely on the other side of the road but alas we survived and our taxi driver actually turned out to be really cool.