Batu caves

An easy subway ride took us to the Batu caves.  You can see the massive Hindu deities as soon as you step off the train.  The first cave is a temple filled with bizzare scenes from Hindu mythology.  I have no idea what most of the stories were,  but they were all fascinating . The next cave was up hundreds of stairs that were all lined with monkeys. One of them almost bit sunni.  In the cave the monkeys run wild,  throwing coconuts,  fighting with each other,  and scavenging for food.  We spent a good hour watching them. One man fed them a bag of bananas,  said a prayer and smashed coconuts on the ground.  The monkeys all fought over who would get to drink the juice.  The last cave was filled with bats and rare spiders so you had to pay to get in and take a tour. It wasn't that great,  but the cave had a huge wind tunnel and it kept us nice and cool.

The mall across the street from our hostel has an amazing vegetarian restaurant so we had dinner there.  Why don't malls in states have easy access vegi food???

We were going to finish the night with a pub crawl with the hostel workers,  but it was $15 a pint! We choose to get our drinks from the mini mart instead and just wandered around all night with a British girl we met. Good times!

Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is like times square on Crack. We are staying right smack in the middle of this steamy,  consumer paradise.  Endless giant malls, busy traffic,  construction,  and a sea of beautiful girls in colorful head scarfs. Went to their version of the twin towers which has a mega mall underneath.  It is aways way too hot out side or way to cold inside.  I can't fathom what this place must spend on AC .

There is a huge streetfood market right  behind our hostel.  It's filled with great smelling food and loads of people trying to sell you junk while you eat. At one point there was a midget singing  karaoke on one side of our table and a crippled girl singing on the other. Very surreal.

Funny signs

Weird signs from around the city.









Durian smells  so bad!  People wear  gloves when  they  eat it.  Gonna  try some  soon.

It begins...

Started out the annual adventure with a 15 hour layover in Frankfurt.  We got in around 6am,  took the S Bahn to the city center and farted around all day.  Ended up falling a sleep by the river and got a nice sunburn.  It was actually pretty chilly in Germany (tried not to complain since the rest of the trip will be hellfire hot) . The next flight was perfect... Good movies,  no crying babies,  and plenty of well deserved end of the school year relaxing. 

Singapore isn't the orderly paradise I was expecting.  We're staying in "little India"  and although  not as messy as the real India, it's still hot and dirty. The metro is flawless and down town Singapore is full of strange architecture and eerily clean streets. We started our morning at the massive  botanical  gardens,  ate some gross mystery food in China town and soaked in the bizarre skyline along the waterfront.  Ended our second night in some backwater street food mall,  eating and drinking like the locals.  Off to Malaysia in the morning.  I hope the lousy hostel where we're staying at booked us a decent bus.  Fingers crossed...