Day 3.. Monkey Business

 

I was excited about today! The Batu caves had been a place I had read about. A majestic temple in a cave but more pertinently for me, another cave called the Dark cave where you could hire a guide and go in and find bats and snakes and insects. Also if you waited until dusk you could see the bats fly out. At least that's what the rough guide had said. 

It was only on the train into KL, when I was googleing, that I discovered that the Dark Cave was permanently shut! Bu@@er! Still at least I could see the bats fly out.

Batu caves a few days ago, was the centre of a religious festival celebrations with hundreds of thousands of people descending on the site. I was hoping that, now it had ended, the caves would be a more peaceful place.

After the hour to get into KL, it was the another 45 minutes to the North, though these trains didn't run as frequently as others, so I had to wait for a bit in KL, before finally boarding the train and heading back out of the city. 

North of KL, it appeared to be poorer, with shack housing, more like the housing I had seen in Ecuador or Uganda. 

And yes, it was still ridiculously hot! Blazing sunshine seems to be the everyday forecast here so I had made sure I was loaded up with a large bottle of water.

I arrived at the station in Batu and immediately was greeted with the sound of music and a throng of people. There were stalls selling food, religious artefacts and ornaments, even one selling snakes and parrots. I declined to hold the Royal Python that was held out to me with a hopeful look😂

The crowds were almost overpowering, god knows what it was like during the festival! I made my way along the lanes between the stalls, the mass of humanity already beginning to get at me. 

The first cave I stopped at was not the main one and cost 15 ringiit to enter. I stepped into the cave and my eyes had to adjust, not to the dimmed light, but to the garishly lit religious statues and scenes all around. Every nook and cranny was stuffed with a statue and bright coloured lights. It was not pretty! The cave itself, if you took away all the taccy displays was magnificent. The dark limestone? walls reaching up high above into tunnels in the ceiling. Stalagtites and Stalagtites had joined together in places to form columns.

A waterfall of water gushed down and rickety metal and stone steps wound up to the top. Very steep and narrow, it was my first taste today of the effort to be expended throughout the day. Needless to say there were a lot of stops 'for photos' on the way up.

It didn't take long to walk round and the nature of the decorations meant I didn't linger too long, so I headed out. On my way out I found a guide to ask about the bats and when they would fly out. 

There aren't any bats here anymore, we chased them out. They caused too many problems! 

Well that totally ruined my excitement levels! 

Despite my disappointment at the two things I was looking forward to, not being available, I pressed on to the main temple. At least I knew the monkeys were still here. And boy were there monkeys! 

At the bottom of the 270ish steps to the main cave temple, was the huge golden statue, famous around the world. But more importantly, there were monkeys everywhere! They were totally fearless and bounded around the steps, sitting on the railings, drinking from water puddles. 

I started up the stairs. In front of me a monkey had found a bottle of milk, and was rolling it around and lapping up the milk as it spilled out. Very ingenious. They came so close, running past your legs and jumping up on the handrails beside you. Even the mother's with their tiny babies clinging to them, didn't mind the people getting close, and I managed to get so many close up shots. 

On one hand, it was brilliant... being so close. On the other hand, it made me sad as I have seen monkeys in various parts of the world, where they belong, in the jungle, foraging as monkeys should. These were foraging but through the bins and plastic bags left lying around. It wasn't great.

And there was a huge amount of rubbish, admittedly probably mainly from the festival and efforts were ongoing to clear it up, but it was pretty awful. 

Eventually I got to the tops of the stairs and stood looking into the cave. A wonder of nature with cathedral like space above. A cat came over to be petted (or maybe I chased the cat to stroke it, whichever you think is more likely🤣) and the monkeys bounded around the entrance. Inside the cave some smaller temples and then steps up to another one. This part of the cave had a  roof open to the sky and you could see the green jungle above.

I can see why this cave would be chosen as a religious site. It was truly a natural breathtaking wonder... but it would have been more wondrous to me if it had remained unadorned... but that's just me. 

I didn't take long to look around and ended back at the top of the steps. There I met an English girl with a guy from Oz and we exchanged the usual conversation... where are you from? How long are you here for? What have you seen so far? 

As we were standing there 2 monkeys came and sat on the handrail next to me... so I got out the camera and took a few pictures. One of them had clearly got out of the wrong side of bed as he bared his teeth at me and tried to grab my phone. No dice mate. not today! 

Then I took a selfie with the other more friendly one and as I did, he reached out and grabbed my backpack strap. Caught red handed on film! 

Down the steps again, only to stop and watch this poor monkey, try and lick a few drops of water up from the steps... poor thing! It was so hot. 

I got out my bottle of water, opened the top and started pouring the water onto the step, indending to give him a larger puddle to drink from. He bounded over, put his hands out and grabbed the bottle and my hand, pulled the opening towards his mouth and drank straight from my bottle. 

I... well as you can imagine, was absolutely stoked with this! Luckily a nice lady from Uzbekistan was filming it and sent me the video on WhatsApp. It was a good moment for sure... sad that the monkeys are so used to people, but such a cool moment for me... what a juxtaposition of feelings. 

I then realised that the water was now undrinkable, so just outside the temple, I found a discarded plastic tray and started pouring the water into that. Another monkey came over, snatched the plastic tray up and tipped the water out and then bounded off... ungrateful sod..

I filled it up again and then was overcome with a desire to get out of there as quickly as possible and find some real nature. 

Turns out that was easier said than done. I had identified a nature park North West of the caves as somewhere that looked suitable and ordered a grab... but the traffic around the caves meant it took 50 minutes to reach me, from less than 1 mile away. Nuts. In the meantime I was waiting by a dusty, soggy, noisy main road with a throng around me. Cars and vans and motorbikes fighting to get into the queue to leave Batu caves. Add the heat to that and by the time the Grab arrived, I was almost miserable.

Still, in no time after that, I was surrounded by jungle noises. There were a fair few people at the park entrance but no where near as many as at Batu, and it was a whole lot more peaceful. I sat in their cafe for a late lunchtime snack, petted the resident cat, and then headed up the trail. 

Immediately I passed into the jungle area, I saw a troop of monkeys playing in the trees. This was more like it. Monkeys, where monkeys belonged. I sat and watched  them for a while, enjoying their antics. The young ones chasing each other and annoying the older ones, who just wanted to squat on the tree branch and have some peace and quiet!

After a while I thought I had better go and find the waterfalls. So I headed up a flight of steps, what would be the first of very many steps. They were pretty steep and I took my time. Pausing to watch as a monkey jumped from tree to tree. Then up ahead, music and laughter. I had come to first waterfall pool. Families were bathing and sitting under the waterfall. Blankets were laid out for picnics and all around the monkeys roamed... trying to grab food left behind. Rooting through the not insignificant litter left behind.

I watched them for a while and then felt the need to remove myself from a place with other people... so headed on up the not insignificant amount of steps. Up and Up and up... to another pool and more people. And so it continued for about 4 pools. The waterfalls were nice but not nice enough to hang around listening to shouts and screams of small children and accompanying music. 

Eventually I came to a place where the path was no longer paved and much more like an actual jungle path. Huge leaves littered the trail, 5 x the size of leaves back home. I might have stuffed one in my rucksack 😉

Here it was far more peaceful and although the music and shouts occasionally filtered up, it was much more to my liking. The trail continued up, over tree roots and rocks and past a bit of landslip... this was more like it. The river was still running beside, collecting in small pools and I stopped at one of these. It was idyllic. I stuck my feet in the cool water and sat there basking in the beauty of my surroundings. Almost proper jungle. The suddenly something bit me!

At first I thought it may have been a crab as I had seen one earlier but then I saw lots of small fish. They were the culprits. Hey ho... people pay for that. So I stuck my feet back in, gradually cooling down a bit after the steep hike up... did I mention it was really hot!? 

One or two people passed me, but respectful of the peace up this high. Eventually I got up and carried on up to the top of the falls. Here the trail wound round before going back down and I would have taken that route but the park shut at 1830 and I still had to get back to Maria's which would take a couple of hours. So I sat there at the top for a bit, watching a very nearly almost wild monkey play in the trees then had back down, which of course didn't take nearly as long as the way up. 

Due to the down speed, I then had a bit of spare time to sit and watch the monkeys at the pools again, fewer people now as the park was near closing. Watching them camper around inches from me was great fun and here they seemed a little more wild than the ones at the temple. It had been a good day. 

The journey back was long... unfortunately the traffic was pretty awful and one Grab driver cancelled on me before another one took pity on me... the delay however meant that I missed my train back from the Batu Cave station by about a minute.... as we pulled in, it pulled out! 

Unfortunately this line wasn't nearly so frequent as the others and the next train back to KL left in 1 hour. 

Food time... 

I picked a small cafe and ordered chicken and fried rice... as innocuous as I could get. However the drink I picked from the fridge was undrinkable... I have no clue what it was... the chicken was mainly bones... and the rice had an inordinate amount of chilli in. Bearing in mind that Korma is the hottest I can take, soon my mouth was burning and I couldn't finish my food. Oh well. 

Eventually the train arrived and I began the long journey back, aware that it would be in decently late when I got back but in my defense, missing the train was not my doing. 

It had been a long day but with many highlights and hopefully gives a taster of better things to come in Borneo next week. Fingers crossed 🙈🙊🙉