Bye Bye, Kuala Lumpur

Day 84: Our last day

Today is the last day of our trip... well, kind of. This is the last destination before we return to Singapore. So Gaurav got up at 5am to get tickets to go inside the Petronas Towers. The ticket office only opens at 8:30am but the tickets sell out so quickly that people line up starting around 5:30am! (Yes, Rachna slept while he went and did this!). The time passed by quickly, as he chatted with a Ukrainian woman in line who was buying tickets for her family.

So he got the tickets and came back to the hotel. We had breakfast, packed up our bags and left them at reception, and then went back to the towers for our appointment (they give you a time slot for the visit).

We first went up the Sky Bridge on the 41^st floor (which took us exactly 41 seconds to reach), and that connects the two towers, and then up to the 86^th floor at the top of one of the towers to see the beautiful view of the entire city. We thought it befitting to end our trip at the top of a tower, which is where we began our trip in Auckland, New Zealand some three months ago.

After our visit through the towers, we went to town to have lunch, and then went back to our hotel to pick up our stuff and head to the airport. The staff at our hotel was so attentive and kind the whole time we were there – always asking after Rachna’s health and making sure we were enjoying our stay. 

We got to the airport, checked in, and took our flight to Singapore, sad for our trip to soon be over. We arrived in Singapore and went to Kyung’s place – our final stop on the way home. 

Sky Bridge

 View of Kuala Lumpur from the top of the tower

Hinduism in a Muslim country

Day 83: Our last city

We got up this morning, had breakfast, and then, contrary to the suggestions by the hotel staff (considering how little Rachna can walk), we took public transportation (the monorail and train) to the Batu Caves.

We got off the train to the sight of two humongous statues: one of Lord Hanuman and one of Lord Shiva. We saw a few temples and then walked up the 270-some steps to the caves. We bought coconuts to drink the water on the way up, which was a big mistake because all along the way there were monkeys on the steps. And since Rachna was walking really slowly, they targeted her (the easy target). Gaurav tried to defend Rachna but the monkey hissed and almost jumped on him, so Rachna threw her coconut, and the monkey ran to grab it!

When we got to the top of the steps, the entrance to the cave was nice, but there were not many statues in the cave. We walked around once again realizing we got suckered into the tourist trap! We did find out, though, that almost a million people gather here to celebrate various Hindu festivals during the year, which must be cool to experience!) We left the caves and went to the main part of town, where we grabbed a quick bite. Rachna was exhausted from walking so we went back to our hotel and rested. 

In the night, we went over to see the Petronas towers, the famous twin towers of Kuala Lumpur. They were completely lit up and looked nice against the night sky. They were gigantic and the architecture that captured the old and modern art was fantastic.  We had some dinner in the area and then went back to our hotel for the night. 

Huge Hanuman statue

Massive Shiva statue next to the steps to the cave

 Petronas towers at night

Giving alms and departing

Day 82: Bye Bye Laos

Sadly, we bid farewell to Laos today. So this morning, as a parting gift to a town we loved, we woke up at 4:30am to go to town to give alms to the monks. Our hotel took us to town and arranged a spot for us to sit and provided us with the sticky rice that we would offer. The monks began their procession and all walked by us, opening the top of their bowl to allow us to put in small portions of rice for them. It was a bit hard to get it in all the bowls, as they walked by pretty fast, but we did it! We ran out of rice fairly quickly (we were supposed to give less to each one) but we were happy to have had this be our last act in Laos.

Because of Rachna’s accident, we were thinking of just ending our trip early and going back to Singapore directly, but Rachna didn’t want us to lose out on our last destination, so we took our flight to Malaysia, as planned.

We spent the entire day in airports getting there, with Rachna being wheeled around in a wheelchair the whole time! With this experience, we certainly learned to appreciate how challenging it must be for people who have disabilities throughout their life, and were extremely thankful that Rachna’s condition was just temporary. We arrived in Kuala Lumpur at night and took the hour and a half taxi ride to the city, checked into our hotel and went straight to sleep!

 Giving alms to the monks

Rachna in the wheelchair section at the airport (in much better spirits)