Hi Guys

We have been all spiritual today and took a trip to the Batu Caves. After a bit of a run around we eventually found where to catch the bus and it was a bouncy rickety 30 minute journey to the caves 13km out of the city.

The Batu Caves are a holy shrine for Hindus and every January or early February about 1 million people congregate here during Thaipusam to engage in masochistic feats which include sticking big hooks and spikes through their skin and attaching ropes and pulling carts. Apparently they feel no pain as they are in a trance and really zoned into their beliefs!!!! Unfortunately as it was not January we were unable to give it a go!!!!!

You are greeted at the entrance by a Huge Hindu God painted gold and it must be 50 metres high and very beautiful. The fun then starts as you have to negotiate 272 steps that are pretty steep to get you up to the shrine and they number each one to add to your pain!!!

On the way up you are joined by the resident monkeys that live here and steal bags of food right out of your hands if you are not keeping an eye on them you loose your lunch in a flash.

You reach the top and enter the big limestone cave which has some natural light flooding in from the top. There are several shrines around and Mel got blessed by a holy man and got some powder painted on her head. Then comes the sucker punch to get to the last temple there is about another 40 steps but it is well worth the extra effort.

Coming back down is a slow process as one slip and you would tumble all the way to the bottom and be in a mess. We decided to get lunch while here and visited one of the restaurant/cafes they have here. Both of us settled for the meal on a banana leaf where you get rice with 2 sauces on top plus some poppadums and chilli paste plus a potato concoction and onions and another yellow looking substance all for RM5/80p!!!

All of it was fantastic and we ate with our right hand only which we are getting proficient at!!!!

Once we were full up we walked down to the other shrine and watched one of the afore mentioned monkeys steal a guys carrier bag of bananas straight out of his hand. Within 3 seconds he had snatched the bag extracted and peeled the first banana and was chomping away from up a tree, the guy did see the funny side of it and so did we.

Took the bus back into town RM2/30p but had a kamikaze driver who must have nearly knocked several motorcyclists off their bikes!!!

Back at the hostel we were relaxing and got invited to share a Malaysian feast to mark the end of Ramadan with the owners of the hostel. We could not resist even though it was only several hours since we had eaten!!!

The food was knockout I had Malay Laksa (noodles,chilli,onion,greens) covered with a prawn broth and Mel had Malay chilli noodles. We followed this up with curry and sticky rice then banana and coconut cake, pineapple tarts and monkey nuts. Needless to say we are both very full and are lying down as we speak!!!!!

It has just started to thunder and rain quite heavily which it seems to do at around 6pm every night for about 40 minutes or so.

If we can move we may go out later!!!!

Lots of Love

M & M

xx