Malaysia

One of the more interesting sites that we visited while in Kuala Lumpur was the Hindu shrine of Batu Caves. This temple has a series of smaller shrines that are built inside a giant cave. While it is definitely set up as a tourist attraction, with all of the hawkers and beggars that you would expect, it is one of the most important Hindu pilgrimage sites outside of India and attracts over 1.5 million pilgrims a year!

The entrance of the site is guarded by a 140 ft golden statue of Murugan and a whole bunch of monkeys. The monkeys are relatively tame and really just sit around and wait for tourists to give them something to eat (or drink).

To get into the caves, we had to climb up 272 steps to the main entrance. The cave itself was quite impressive and roomy. There we several holes near the top that let down beams of light that really gave the whole place a ethereal feel.

All of the individual shrines were scattered in different nooks of the cave. In typical Hindu style they were all brightly colored and had intricate carvings, sometimes directly into the stone face.

It was definitely a cool site and I can only imagine what it is like during the Thaipusam festival when all the pilgrims come to worship.

Since we didn't have to meet Jen's Dad until after Christmas, we decided to spend about a week hanging out over Christmas in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

With our numerous HiltonHonors points and our Diamond VIP status, we were able to score a phatty room on the executive floor of the KL Hilton. It was a beautiful room, with a great view of the city, a huge bathtub for Jen, a 42" flatscreen tv, and one of the most comfortable beds I have ever slept in. But the best part about it all was that we got free breakfast AND free drinks and snacks in the executive lounge everyday. So while we had planned to spend a good portion of our time in KL exploring the city, we actually spent most of it sucking down free booze and lazing around our room.

Jen particularly enjoyed the free wine, often taking a glass back down to the room for her bath.

When we did get out of the room, however, we were able to take in some of the tourist sites around KL and had a grand old time. The Petronas Towers, now the 2nd tallest building in the world (but tallest twin towers), were pretty impressive for a couple of geeky engineers.

We also went up the KL Tower which had panoramic views of the entire city as well as some wacky tourist exhibits encircling the bottom. The most surreal of which was the "Winter Park", which was essentially a whole bunch of plastic polar bears and penguins surrounded by fake cotton snow and Christmas decorations. We took an obligatory picture just to document the absurdity of it all.

I'm a little embarrassed to say, however, that we spent a good portion of our time 'exploring the city' inside the numerous malls. Partially because they were air conditioned, partially because that is where a lot of the restaurants are (see the previous entry), but mostly to be blown away by the sheer unabashed commercialism. I've never been in a mall with so many designer stores, nor one that sells $150,000 watches, nor one that has a BENTLEY dealership inside the mall. Ridiculous. Someone must be making a ton of money in Malaysia....

All in all, we had a great time in KL and it was the right balance of relaxation, luxury, and exploration to get us primed for our travels ahead.

Even prior to leaving Sri Lanka, we were excited to go to Kuala Lumpur for the food. When we were supposed to be writing final reports for our project, Jen and I would send links of Malaysian food blogs back and forth, and we had 20 different restaurants that we “just had to try”!. These foodie blogs had a ton of pictures and in depth descriptions of flavors and textures that we could almost eat the food off of the computer screen. Here are a couple of our favorites as an appetizer:

A Whiff of Lemongrass
Kampung Boy City Gal

In honor of these Malaysian foodies, I’m going to write my first food entry of this blog.

Rain Nudle House
Pavilion KL – Food Court

Located in the massive food court of the Pavilion mall, the sleek modern décor and downtempo music at Rain Nudle House allows you to escape the overwhelming commercialism of the mall, and enjoy all the incredible flavors of Thai cooking. Slipping into the comfortable, white leather wrapped booth, I was impressed by the variety of ways that the repetition of vertical lines had been used to symbolize the rain. There was a wall of raindrop Perrier bottles, a cascade of bamboo stalks dividing the lounge and restaurant, and the requisite picture of the Thai King.

While the décor was strikingly modern, the food was traditional Thai…exactly what we had been looking for after a year of rice and curry. We ordered some of our classic favorites and couldn’t have been happier when the waitress brought out the steaming pot of Tom Yam Kung. The hot pot was literally overflowing with jumbo river prawns, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, mushrooms, lemongrass, chilies, and all manner of other goodies. The flavor was just as moving with the perfect blend of sour and spiciness.

Next they brought out the Mango Salad with Deep Fried Catfish. The Mango Salad was a mix of shredded green mango, shallots, carrots, and chili peppers, sprinkled with peanuts and topped with a lime and fishsauce dressing. The flavors and texture worked well together, but I would have actually liked the dressing to be a little spicier. The Deep Fried Catfish was not what we were expecting at all. We had assumed that the salad would have small pieces of catfish mixed into the salad, but instead it was served on the side and resembled more of a crispy cracker than anything else. It was relatively flavorless, but it had a nice crunch and actually worked well if you scooped a little salad on it and used it as a chip.

As a main course we had Pad Kha Prao, Chili Chicken with Basil leaves and white jasmine rice. This is one of my favorite Thai dishes and a lot of Thai restaurants screw it up in the US by overloading it with onions or other fillers. Thankfully, the chef at Rain Nudle House did not disappoint, delivering us a dish with a sweet sauce, tender chicken, lots of spicy chilies, and a healthly amount of Thai basil. It was incredible, and between us we wiped the plate perfectly clean.

Even though we were both stuffed after all of this food, no Thai meal is truly complete without some fresh Mango and Sticky Rice. We shared a small portion this delectable dessert and came away completely satisfied. We'd recommend RainNudleHouse to anyone.