Kuala Lumpur, take 2

Back in KL, as they say (and so miss out on saying "Kuala Lumpur"!). I'm staying with a girl I met on a trip in Kota Kinabalu--she's a magistrate and so so so so sweet. I was thinking yesterday morning as I got out of a nice bed in a clean, empty, quiet room and walked over barefoot without fear to the showers, then helped myself to some yogurt out of the fridge--hospitality is one of the top human experiences. I mean, aside from all the amenities, it's just amazing to me that after a few hours, this girl was all "Come to my house!" and meant it! Then there's trust--she must really trust me. And of course, I trust her. How many times do you get to see trust in the flesh, so to speak? It makes you feel really good about people.

KL is definitely my favorite city. There's so much transportation here I could get from one end of town to the other in probably 15 minutes if I really tried. Three local rail lines, commuter rail, buses, etc. etc. It's got a lot of highways, so it's not THAT pedestrian friendly, but after:
--every city in Borneo
--most of the cities in Java
--all of larger towns in India
it's a cakewalk. And there's more food here than just rice and noodles, though they still dominate...I'm getting rather tired of rice and noodles. I will never complain about pizza three days in a row again (did I really complain about that?).

One major site around here is the Batu Caves, which are maybe 10 minutes by car from where I'm staying. We drove out to see them last night and once again, it was little South India! It's really funny that the one place I went, Tamil Nadu, happens to have immigrants all over Malaysia. There were lots of colorful temples built into the sides of the cave, and some tableaux-type displays of Tamil people or maybe gods and goddesses pulling donkeys and things--sort of like a miniature Tamil amusement park. It also has 272 steps and many mischievious monkeys.

So long!