Fireflies and sexism

We awoke much more capable if making a decision and before we were able to second guess it decided to do a tour this afternoon to go to the batu caves and Kuala Selangor for a fireflies boat ride, explore the city tomorrow and go to the Caermon highlands on a one day tour in Wednesday. Prices kept changing, availability kept changing, tour descriptions differed but we finally got it.

Joe thought it would be good, since our tour didnt start until the afternoon that we take the long way to lunch and make a stop at the Petronas towers and KLCC park. We didn't go to the top, as one of our plans was to do a roof tip bar later on in the week!  It was pretty and really cool to see one of the major hubs of the financial center of Kuala Lampur.

In general, this city is impressive, mostly because as many of you, I knew very little about it before I had arrived.  There are so many tall buildings, the only difference between it and NYC is that the tall buildings just aren't  as dense. There are tons of malls which caters to everyone from cheap eats to Tiffany's and everything in between.

Speaking of cheap eats, we hit lot 10 hutong; a hawker style center on our long journey from the park and tower.  This was organized; street vendors who were doing well would be invited in to this place so tourists could get a sampling of the best street food. Obviously it was touristy(like as in air conditioning and lots of pictures) and more expensive than street food but it was a great taste of what KL had to offer. We had an amazingly delicious noodle dish and a roast duck dish.  Even though we planned on eating our way through we only had enough room for 2 dishes!

We went back to the hotel to wait for our tour guide. He asked for us to leave an hour earlier to avoid traffic. We first headed off to the Batu caves, a temple that was rediscovered in the 1800s.  To make it accessible, they built colorful stairs; 272 of them. It's a free attraction and many tour operators design trips around going there. We wanted to fuse this with the fireflies to get both done giving us more time to roam on our own.  The highlight for me, was all the monkeys that were roaming around.

We then went to the straits if malacca, the smallest area between Malaysia and the Island of Sumatra in Indonesia. We hit up a museum and then got to see more monkeys.  Also a free attraction, there are tons of monkeys that post up by this tower, and tour operators, having to leave the city,  due to traffic, much earlier than nightfall(when the fireflies are out) had to fill space in the tour.  There are locals selling vegetables and nuts to feed them. There is some controversy around this but it did seem like a win win for all.

Speaking of controversy. I dont know how this topic even got brought up. But within a few interchanges of conversation, our tour guide made it really clear the place women should take in society; and that was the home.  I wonder if the fact that it was my name on the slip, and not Joe's that got him going (the power of the wallet), but he wanted to make it clear and used many examples. He stated how he loved that women, who were NOW allowed to work outside the home, would still keep up all their wifely and motherly duties(to which I replied, "that must be exhausting").  He even stated how he is noticing how many western men are starting to marry eastern women and he attributes it to the fact that the women really take care of their men. Somehow later, he even threw in with a chuckle how angry women get when the men cheat on them, to which I replied, yes people in general get angry when they are cheated on and rightfully so.  It was hard to know that I had signed up to do a 7 hour tour with this man(and that Joe, knowing how angry this was making me kept laughing, not realizing he was also encouraging him).  I think it was also hard because he didnt see himself as sexis . He kept comparing Malaysia to Saudia Arabia and stating how much more free women are and believed that women did exist to please men because they chose to(and were better because of it).  But I had fireflies to look forward to and unfortunately nothing I would say was going to change ingrained cultural beliefs(or tradition as he called it).  If this happens again, we want to see if Joe(as a man) stating western held beliefs about the status of women will fare better, worse or the same. 

Either way, we arrived at the confluence of the two rivers(that's what Kuala means-estuary) and had a seafood meal. Joe slurped it up but I was not feeling it. We then boarded the boat and went down the river. We had to wait a bit until it got dark but slowly, we saw a glowing speck and then another and then another. We were on the wrong side if the boat(and on the wrong boat completely as these kids would not stop making noise long enough for is to enjoy) at first but we switched to the other side and got to see first hand the flies throughout the trees, that looked like Christmas lights.

It was beautiful and amazing to see a smaller town!