Malaysia

Hello from Malaysia!

These pictures are actually from my last trip to Malaysia about a month ago, but I'm here again, so Emily suggested I create an entry.

The picture below is of the entrance to Batu Caves, a geologic formation of interest and a Hindu shrine located just to the north of Kuala Lumpur. There are 272 steps (labeled for your convenience) leading to the entrance of the limestone cave. Along the way, there are numerous monkeys to distract you from the humid climb to the top.








The main cave holds a shrine of Lord Subramaniam, a Hindu deity. This is a site of an annual festival, attracting thousands of people participating in a pilgrammage.

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batu_Caves)

On this trip, I was with my good friend Bruce Palmer, who lived in KL for three years while working at ExxonMobil. He had actually never visited this site while living here, but he certainly knew about it. He also showed me and some other colleagues from Ryder Scott around town and into the local markets. It was nice to be there with someone who was familiar with the area.






The next two pictures are from our hotel room window. We stay at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, which is right next to the Petronas Towers. The towers are actually much more impressive in person than in pictures -- not just because of their size, but because the outside of the building is clad in stainless steel, which I never realized from looking at any pictures I had seen. In most pictures, it looks to me like the towers are white. Photographs just can't capture the changing light reflected from the steel. The towers are particularly pretty at night when they are all lit up against a dark sky.