Malaysia - KL to Sitiawan

From KL we did a short side trip to see the Batu Caves, a half hour train ride out of the city.
The caves at Batu are located in a large limestone escarpment. Inside the caves are several shrines and small temples, dedicated to Hindu deities.
The large cave has a shrine dedicated to Lord Murugan, the god of war. It is guarded by a large golden statue of himself and we were looking forward to seeing it. It’s 43m high and one of the largest in the world. Unfortunately, our visit coincided with some spit and polish for his Lordship, and he was covered in scaffolding and shrouded with extensive blue tarpaulin, so not at all visible. I am sure he’ll be back on show soon, looking sharp and glinting in the sun!
The caves are a site of pilgrimage for Hindus and particularly Tamil Hindus, who attend a big festival annually. Someone told us that it gets very busy during this time with overwhelming numbers.
It was busy enough the day we went, although not first thing as we were there early. Later it was crazy busy when we descended back down from the Cathedral Cave.

A rainbow staircase of 272 steps lead up to the cave. Amanda and I climbed them without breaking a sweat or getting out of breath, so kudos to the cycling as it must be making us a bit fitter, something we’d not quite appreciated before.
Arriving at the cave entrance I understood why it’s called the cathedral cave. A huge cavern, with a roof formed of large stalactites resembling columns, organ pipes and pulpits, like the interior of a gothic church.
Descending the steps inside, the cool damp air hit me along with the smell of incense, and I could hear the sound of swifts and their high pitched ‘click-clicking’ as they swooped in and out of the cave in the vast stone atrium above.
There were shrines placed throughout the cave. Some were small with effigies of deities ensconced in the face of the rock. Others were large enough to go inside and devotees could enter to receive a blessing from the pujari or sadhu, (priests or holy men), who accepted the offerings of pilgrims and placed them at the foot of the statues of the deity, chanting and raising lit oil lamps in some form of ritual.
We saw one lady dressed in her finest sari, walking slowly to the shrine, barefoot, slightly limping and balanced a metal pot on her head, held only by one hand.
When I looked up later what this act was all about, I found that a Hindu devotee balancing a metal container on their head is a common practice associated with religious rituals and festivals. I think this lady may have been carrying out the act of a ritual offering. Possibly a symbol of devotion, sacrifice and of carrying a burden. The pot could have contained milk or water to be offered to the deity. She certainly carried it up the 272 steps but may have travelled even further and I wonder how far she had walked. An amazing feat with her inner balance and focus, to shut out all the surrounding worldly distractions. The man and lady accompanying her walked patiently by her side, in attendance, never helping physically, but allowing her to slowly make her way to the shrine. She passed the pot to the priest and he poured it into the shrine, her act of devotion completed.
One man walked by me with his offerings in a plastic bag, probably bought from one of the stalls at the entrance. A macaque appeared out of nowhere and snatched hold of the bag.
The man, a little startled at first was resolute and unwilling to let go. For several seconds both were giving no quarter, and there was a sort of push pull type physical struggle over the bag and its goodies. Man determined, macaque persistent. It would have been hard to place a bet on a winner - it was too close a contest and one that was ultimately decided when the bag tore in half.
The man let go, and the monkey quickly emptied the rest onto the floor, and quickly gathered its prize.
I had never seen a monkey eat a banana until this moment. A monkey by the shrine stuffed two bananas down like a tree branch being passed into a shredding machine, along with one apple, in less than one minute. Some going.
Emerging back into daylight we got a great view looking back down the staircase to the plaza and visitors now milling below. Droves of huffing and puffing visitors ascended the steps in a constant stream of people. A conveyor belt of humans emptying into the caves mouth.

From trees next to the steps, the macaques appeared in numbers, dropping down from the rock face and then onto the balustrade of the staircase like stealthy primate commandos on a mission. Visitors meant potential food. There were monkey mums with infants, roving gangs of youths and an old puffed up alpha male chased away other challengers. He had very big incisors! It made me a bit sad to see them sucking the last bits of juice from a plastic cup, or licking the remnants of a bag, then discarding it, for another to then grab it and check for any leftovers.
We called into two of the temples on the main plaza, each one brightly coloured and with several effigies of the various deities.
The holy men busied themselves by dealing with offerings from worshippers - taking bags or food and other gifts, carefully placing them on the altars.
They also sort of ‘tout’ for blessings, catching your eye or beckoning you over. We acquiesced, Amanda receiving her tika first and then I got one from another holy man in a later temple. A tika or tilak is a marking on the forehead in a coloured ash. We also received a sacred thread tied around our wrists, and were then invited to make a small donation. We noticed that worshippers had different tikas - three horizontal lines to show devotion to Shiva, a vertical line for Vishnu and a single red dot for Shakti.

Leaving KL we took our bikes onto the Komuter train. The train passed through a green landscape of forested hills, palm oil and banana plantations for much of the way. Alighting at Tanjong Malim we cycled through a university campus to our hotel set just off the main highway. A modest town with monotonous terraced concrete blocks of shops and housing it didn’t inspire. Struggling to find somewhere open to eat we found ourselves walking along the shoulder of the busy highway to a Dominoes Pizza place. An unpleasant experience: both for the walk and the terrible margarita.

The next day’s cycle followed Federal Route 1 all the way. A heavy rain shower all morning dampened our moods from the start - Amanda’s even more when she got soaked from a huge splash by a passing car.

In Sungkai, a carbon copy of the previous night’s town, our hotel was particularly grim. Painted cell-block grey, our room had no window, no furniture except the bed and one fluorescent bulb hanging from the ceiling. A common option in Malaysia, no-window rooms presented us with a much cheaper option. It wouldn’t be the last time we would have a ‘no window’ room.

To escape the room we went in search of food. Of two places, found via Google, the first was shut, the second terrifying-looking. Wandering the streets we came full circle, finding a small local resto just around the corner from our hotel! Simple noodles and rice dishes later, served by a very friendly waiter, we were much happier. Much better than the previous night’s pizza! Heading back as dusk fell, the street was alive with swooping swallows, flocking to roost along the eaves of the buildings and on the power cables. I have never seen so many in a single place. Balancing in long lines they chirruped away incessantly - filling the air and one of the loveliest sounds to hear.

Next day was a long 64-miler along uninspiring, largely straight roads with a distant vanishing point cutting a line between swathes of palm oil plantations. So much of it. Plantations stretching to the horizon. Long lines of trees regimented and in various states of the growing cycle. Vast areas were being cleared and the ground prepared for new saplings to start their life.

Malaysia is the second largest producer of palm oil after Indonesia and its export contributes a huge amount to their GDP and significant revenue for the Malaysian economy and thus people’s livelihoods. So versatile, palm oil is found in half of all packaged products in supermarkets including around 70% of personal care products (your soap, shampoo, makeup and lotion). Significant amounts of palm oil exports are also converted into biofuels. In terms of yield it is vastly more productive than any other alternative. Therefore there is huge demand for more and more of this efficient wonder plant. Sadly at the expense of natural habitat, and according to Wikipedia, working conditions with the use of illegal immigrants in Malaysia.

As we neared Sitiawan large housing estates echoed the plantations we’d passed through with long lines of regimented identical homes.
A large sprawling town at the intersection of a couple of major dualled highways it served as a stop on the way to the island of Pangkor. Tomorrow we’ll cycle to the marina to catch the ferry.Læs mere