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From Johor to Kuala Lumpur
Entry 63 of 138 | show all | print this entry |
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I feel like I am in limbo. There I am, having spent the last 3 days in hot and steamy KL and that is not the end of it yet. I have to wait another 4 days until I can go back to the Indonesian embassy and hopefully claim my 60 day visa. This is better to be going a memorable trip to Indonesia; with all the hassles I had to go through....... My life has been easy over the past couple of months, no bureaucratic hassles, easy living, easy food, great friends and then boom, it all turned upside down upon finding out the Lonley Planet's information is outdated as it is not possible to get a 60 day visa on arrival for Indonesia anymore. Well, all I had to do is go the embassy in Singapore and politely request for a visa. Well thought out, but I didn't even make it over the doorsteps of the embassy as i a) did not have another ID except my passport which I needed to hand in with my papers, b)did not have an invitation letter from an Indonesian sponsor and c) for sure did not have any return/onward ticket out of Indonesia as I am travelling overland. And all this happened the weekend before Chinese New Year with me having to organize an invitation letter and the embassy closed for holidays for the next couple of days. But hey, life goes on.
So, I left Singapore and my wonderful host Mullai, and headed with Mika, my HC host, to Johor. There, we jumped right into the holiday traffic and went to Kota Tinggi, a town located about 45 minutes drive from Johor Bahru. Kota Tinggi's main attraction lies in its waterfalls at Lombong. The waterfall spills into a couple of pools which were crowded with people bathing in full clothes. Welcome to Malaysia!!
On the way back from the waterfalls, we stopped in Kampung Makam to explore some of the old history, including a fort and royal tombstones. One of the most significant is Makam Sultan Mahmud Mangkat Dijulang of the 10th Johor Sultan at Kampung Makam. He was ambushed and killed by his general, Laksamana Bentan, on his way to Friday prayers. The killing was to avenge the death of the general's pregnant wife killed by the sultan over some jackfruits. The tomb is housed in a beautiful complex with rich architecture with the tombs of other royal members in the compound of antique-looking Masjid Sultanah Rogaiyah and a huge burial ground. In the vicinity of Kampung Makam, there are also Makam Tun Habab and Makam Tauhid. The latter has several tombs in its compound within stonewalls resembling the remnants of a building or palace. This site is believed to be the old Kota Tinggi.
On a less successful trip the next day, we attempted to find a small fishing village but instead ended up at a muddy looking seaside resort that was closer to Mersing than to Kota Tinggi. But the attempt in finding the place counted. When I finally got my Indonesian invitation letter, I packed up and took the night train to KL where I arrived tired at 5:30am. The luggage storage didn't open till 8am, so I had lots of time to kill with nothing else to do than reading a tourist magazine. Once I stowed my luggage away, I headed into the big city to visit the Indonesian embassy. Getting there at 9am and seeing a couple of people waiting in line got me all excited. Half an hour later, I found out that the embassy was closed due to a Malaysian Holiday. And yes, I did check the web site and it did not, I repeat, it did not list the Thursday as a public holiday leaving the embassy closed. Calling the embassy and listening to the lovely voice on the other end did also not reveal that there is a holiday to celebrate. So, off I went in the heat to explore the Petronas Towers, KL's trademark. Not that I care too much about skyscrapers, but the twin towers rather impressed me. They radiate significance, power and beauty, architectural beauty, that is. Unfortunately, it is rather difficult to get to the sky bridge at 42nd floor unless one has a lot of time on hand and can buy a ticket at 10am for the 3PM tour (which is free). So, I will try to get up there before leaving KL.
In the evening, exhausted and tires, I met with my servas host Polly who is a speech pathologist at the International School Kuala Lumpur. On Friday, I went to the embassy again, only to discover that, stupid me, I still did not have any return/onward ticket. Frantically searching for a solution as to where to get a boat ticket from, I found out that the shipping company that handles the ferry service from Malacca to Dumai has an office in KL. I stormed over to their office, got my return ticket and waited patiently until 2PM for the embassy to open again. I handed in my papers, paid RM135 and was told to come back on February 8th to pick up my visa. Fingers crossed, I will have a 60 day visa by next week. In the meantime, Polly and I went to Batu Caves which was a otherworldly experience for me. Soon after the caves were discovered around 1878, the Hindu devotees began making pilgrimages to the caves, clambering up the jagged rocks to the Temple Cave in 1890s. They turned the cave into a shrine for Lord Murugan. Just recently, the worlds tallest stature of Murugan was revealed at an impressive height of 140 meters, a huge golden stature of beautiful Murugan which makes it very hard to take your eyes off of him. There is something mesmerizing about him and the ceremonies that take place in and around the caves.
The most important ceremony is the Thaipusam festival, which is held February 10th this year and which I will have to miss as i will be in Indoensia by then (hopefully).There are plenty stories about what Thaipusam is about. Among the most popular is that it commemorates the day Lord Siva's consort, the powerful goddess Parvathi, gives her son, Murugan, the vel (lance) to vanquish three demons and their large army which were plaguing the world. Thaipusam falls on a full moon day in the auspicious 10th Tamil month of Thai when the constellation of Pusam, the star of well-being, rises over the eastern horizon. In Kuala Lumpur, the festival is celebrated on a mammoth scale at the Batu Caves temple on the outskirts of the city. It began in 1892, started by early Tamils who migrated to colonial Malaya. Several hundred devotees spear their cheeks with long, shiny steel rods -often a metre long - and pierce their chests and backs with small, hook-like needles in penance. Tourists watch in awe as metal pierces the skin with hardly any bleeding and, apparently, no pain as the devotee stands in a trance in the dawn light after weeks of rigorous abstinence.
There we had breakfast, one of my favorite dishes, Roti Canai and Roti Telur with fresh coconut water. Yummy.....In the evening, we checked out Times Square, a bustling shopping area on Bukit Bintang. Second hand bookstores are hard to come by so I ventured into Borders where I bought Karim Raslan's "Journeys through Southeast Asia". I like to read travel literature and though there were many books about Nepal and China, I only found 3 books pertaining to Southeast Asia. This book will be my travel companion for the next couple of weeks until I find another one. More thumbnails ...
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