Kuala Lumpur: the Asian Adventure Begins.

Our flight from Rome to Kuala Lumpur via Kuwait City was a long ordeal, but went smoothly. We settled into our Chinatown guesthouse and discovered that, for the first time in six months, we were really and truly jet-lagged. For four nights, we were up until 5 am, rising at 1 or 2 pm and patronizing a conveniently located Seven-Eleven for our 3 am snack runs.

Jet lag SUCKS.

So our four nights in KL turned into six, and even then we didn't do much sightseeing outside of Chinatown and the malls we were scouring for new trekking shoes.

We DID spend an afternoon at the Batu Caves, a Hindu shrine set in an enormous limestone cavern just north of the city. After scaling two hundred-some-odd steps and evading the dirty-looking monkeys perched on the railings, we emerged into the cavern. We spent a half hour exploring the temples and the little shrines tucked into the corners of the cave, followed by a keening, clarinet-esque music and a funky drum-beat courtesy of a pair of musicians in the main temple.

At the base of the cliff are more caves, these with an admission fee, containing sculpted depictions of Hindu stories and more shrines, all painted in bright (sometimes psychedelic  colours. To the side is a reptile sanctuary housing a huge monitor lizard, a turtle and all sorts of creepy and slithery things. Super cool, but not where you'd want to be caught in an earthquake!

S.