KL Forever

We were back in Kuala Lumpur, not as much as a choice as it was for obligation. I was due to see the eye doctor for a check up. It had been a week since I had been given the all-clear for a mini-holiday. Now it was business again, traversing the fume-filled streets to the RTS, then traveling by monorail to the hospital. This was not a happy time for me. I had felt that my eye had gotten worse over the week. The pain had returned somewhat, and from what I could tell, the ulcer had grown thicker. I still couldn't look directly into daylight, and for this I kept my head down most of the time. I was disappointed not being able to bathe the elephant at the sanctuary and felt as if everyone was having a party around me, while I watched on helplessly from my blurred bubble. I tried to put a smile on my face, but really I was anything but happy.

Expecting the worst at the eye doctor, I was surprised to hear that my eye had improved. Not only had the ulcer shrunk in size, but the infection was under control. There was little chance of the infection coming back. The doctor impressed on me once again how long it could take for the ulcer to heal. He mentioned the option of getting the ulcer scraped off, but it would be a painful process, and to be honest that didn't sound too appealing to me. I felt that I should let it heal in its own time in its own way. As long as I didn't need any more shots to the eye, I was good to go. Dr. Ahzer still gave my eye a good cleaning before sending me off. This meant some numbing drops, then some eyeball probing with a Q-tip like device. I hated these cleanings. He explained to me he was getting the slough off (indeed there was a lot of slough) but it was uncomfortable to keep my eye open and unblinking for long lengths of time. At the end of the cleaning, he'd dip the stick deep inside my lower lid and remove the slough that had come off. Yeouch. I couldn't wait to be done with all this eye stuff. I still had drops to put in, but I could now alternate them every two hours. This was a little bit of a relief. I was ready to focus more on my travels now that I was out of the danger zone.

It was a weird experience walking out of that eye hospital. I felt liberated but grateful at the same time. This was the place where my eye was saved. These were the people who forcibly held me down and pumped antibiotics into an eye that very much could have been lost. It still gets me, how close I was to losing my sight for good. Looking back at the photos that were taken, I have a hard time believing that I suffered from something that bad. The infection had spread in such a short time. In another day's time, who knows where I'd be. Only a few cells had to spread, literally one or two, beneath the cornea, and my eye could have been lost. I'm incredibly lucky. I'm left with a milky white blob on my iris, whether this is the scar, or the ulcer still healing, I don't know, but my eyesight has almost completely returned. Two months on and I'm almost fully recovered. I will always hold Kuala Lumpur as special, for this was the place I experienced the first real emergency in my life, and the place where I was rescued. I will always remember KL for this.

Scary Monkeys and a Long Flight of Steps

To celebrate our triumph at the eye hospital, Chris and I spent the afternoon at the Batu Caves, on the outskirts of town. To get there we had to catch a train from Central Station. We noticed, for the first time, that trains within Malaysia have seperate cars for women. There are even waiting rooms for women. I find this odd, like it's some form of segregation. Is it because women menstruate and are dirty, or maybe they turn whorish in the presence of men? Or is it the other way around, like reverse-segregation? Perhaps it's the men who can't control themselves, those lustful, leering, hand-wandering creatures. Whichever the case, it's weird to me.  By putting such an emphasis on avoiding sex, it brings sex very much to the forefront. Situations that should be no big deal at all, such as a man and woman alone sharing an elevator, turns into an opportunity for debauchery. The suggestion is definitely there. Women wearing the hijab, it makes you wonder what's going on under there. It increases the mystery of women; it doesn't take it away. That's my take on the whole separating-women issue.

We had experienced many religions on our journey thus far: the Christian religions of Europe, the Islam of Turkey, Arabia and Malaysia, and the Buddhism of Thailand and Hong Kong. Now we were stepping into a completely different world, even if that world was situated in some caves on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. Stepping off the train we immediately saw a giant blue monkey god statue. It was gaudy and impressive at the same time. It was my first step into the world of Hinduism.

There were a few temples on the base of the cliffs, but the main draw was a set of steps leading upward, next to an enormous golden statue. Pilgrims and tourists alike were climbing these stairs. I could only assume that they led up to the Batu Caves, so despite the scary monkeys eyeing us from railings and landings above, we began to work our way up.

After our monkey experience in Koh Phi Phi, where Chris had come under attack by a monkey village, I was nervous around monkeys. They can move lightening-quick. They've got horrid sharp teeth and claws. Plus they're crawling with lice and who knows what else. I may not have seen any of them throw feces yet, but I got the impression that they weren't above doing so. They eyed us like something out of a Hitchcock film, ready to pounce with their long, outstretched fingers. Yelps and screams were heard all around as monkeys jumped on people, grabbing things from their bags or directly from their hands. A monkey jumped at Chris, trying to get at a little plastic bag he was carrying (I believe it was my eye medication) and Chris had to swing the monkey away. We watched as other monkeys snatched bottles of water right out of peoples' hands. They were adept at opening any kind of bottle or package. Greedy little bastards. I held my bag close to me and kicked at any monkey that came within the periphery of my personal space.

At the top of the stairs we entered into the front section of the caves. Some horrific-sounding music played while we moved past a souvenir stand. Pictures of Hindu goddesses flashed in psychadelic colours. Had we dropped acid somewhere unknowingly? It was like moving through a dream, or a nightmare, these multi-limbed goddesses moving their arms around like hands on a clock, the same high-pitched voice playing from a boombox propelling us through the cave, as infectious as “It's a Small World” at Disneyworld. Whichever religion I had come into contact before, nothing come close to this. This was religion on hallucigens.

Monkeys were present just ahead, and we nearly had to bolt through a gate in fear of them dropping onto us. There was a temple at the end of the cave; the devoted knelt there in worship. The decoration was colorful and busy, with faces of gods, demons and cows layered ontop of each other, some with their tongues out, some with serene smiles. Flowers and incense and the crazy echo of music—it was really something to behold. However the monkeys were the real attraction. It was feeding time; some guy threw a barrelful of bananas at them. And the monkeys went ape shit. Such spoiled creatures, no doubt they had been given handouts as long as the caves had been a religious site. They fought like children amongst themselves, some of them quite nasty. There was a particularly bad monkey fight that broke out that got the tourists moving backward in fright. Monkeys out of control is as dangerous as watching, say, Northern English girls fighting over a bloke. You just don't want to be in their fight path. We fled from the monkeys and the whining drone of music (really, that song must have gone on forever) and caught the segregated train back to Kuala Lumpur.

Weird Noises in the Night

Fernloft Guesthouse was our base in KL. It had treated us well with its clean beds and free wifi. At first, before my hospital stay, we had stayed in a private room. Then, after my hospital stay, we had been put into a 6-bed dorm. This time around we had been put into the 24-bed dorm. I actually enjoyed the big room. I felt sort of anonymous in the enormity of the room, and the light went out every night at 11 sharp, thus taking the pressure off me to ask, “Is it okay to turn the light off?” I always hated that. The hostel was fully booked. The guy at reception had told us a group of American musicians were staying. We could hear guitars being strummed in the stairwell, and I have to say, I was intrigued. Finally some Americans. And musicians at that. Perhaps we'd have something good to listen to.

As we settled into our beds, I was aware of voices overhead. The terrace was on the floor above us, so I could only assume that these musicians had congregated there. The voices raised together as one. There were guitars being strummed and tamborines being thumped. It sounded a bit hippyish. I stood in the stairwell, and sure enough, a party was going on. I persuaded Chris to come with me to check out the show. After all, it's not every day that we get seranaded by American hippies.

The music had stopped by the time we reached the terrace. We walked into a very weird scenario. There was a group of young people gathered, I would say about twenty in all.  They were all eerily silent, as though the party had come to an abrupt stop. Chris and I grabbed some seats and sat on the other edge of the group, curious to see what would transpire. A girl sat on a counter with a guitar. She wasn't playing, rather she sat there with a shining smile on her face. Really, her whole face was glowing. It appeared to be wet with tears. She started talking, saying something like, “You know, when you're on a plane and you look down on the clouds, and you see the sun rising—I don't know—I just think of Jesus, and, you know, how much love he has. I don't know how to say it. It's like when you watch a bird in flight. You feel so full of love. Watching it—I don't know—it's like Jesus watching over us. He's so full of love. You know. It makes me think of, when you're in a car, and you're driving...” and on and on she went. Chris and I looked sideways at each other. Meanwhile, her words must have made some impact on the others. Quite a few of them were crying. There was a girl infront of us, her shoulders were shaking. Several girls came up to her and laid their hands on her. Not, the “oh there there” kind of touching, but an actual laying of hands while they moved their mouths, in what I assumed, was prayer. Yup, it turns out that Chris and I had turned up at some kind of revival. We felt incredibly uncomfortable, especially because everyone was crying. Chris was the first to get up, and though I was curious (afterall, this whole experience was supposed to be about taking in others' cultures), I followed. They burst into another song as we reached the stairwell. It was a well-rehearsed song, they all sung it together in harmony. I had never heard singing like that. It wasn't hymns. I don't know how to describe it. It was very hippyish, yet not hippy at all. It was a love/joy song to Jesus. They were so in love, the tears were running. It was very strange. Especially since they had chosen to do their thing on the roof of a hostel.

I tried an experiment that night. All this love about Jesus. Having been a die-hard skeptic for about seven years, I considered, okay, well here's the chance to find out for sure. I've tried the whole “Jesus Be My Savior” prayer before, and got tumbleweeds in way of response. Now with my eye in pain (it always hurt more at night) and running a river down my temple (so much so I was surprised I didn't have my own version of the Grand Canyon on the side of my head), I was looking for a miracle. The doctor said my eye wouldn't heal for months. I was going to ask for a miracle, in the humblest way possible. “Jesus, if you're real, I'd really like to know it. If my eye is healed by morning, I'll know it's a miracle. I'm not testing you, but this would be the best way for me to know. If you make yourself known through this miracle I swear to you I will follow you to the end of my life. You yourself said that whatever we ask for in your name you will give. Well this here will save me—right? If you could just let me know. That's all I'm asking for. After this I won't ask anymore” This was my “prayer,” even though it's hard for a skeptic to pray, thinking that mere words are spoken in the recesses of the mind. Regardless, I tried to be as open as possible. Listening to the love being professed above, I fell asleep. When I woke, my vision hadn't miraculously been restored. Rather the gunk had sealed my eye shut. I grabbed my bag of eye medication and padded off to the bathroom to do my ritual morning eye-cleaning. On the way I almost stumbled over a religious reveler sleeping in the hallway. Perhaps he had overdosed on love.

I'm quite critical of Christianity. Some forms more than others. In Britain I was very impressed with the attitude towards religion in general. It's regarded as a private thing. Even in the Church of England, doctrines are rarely discussed within the congregation. Religion can provide a community, I can appreciate that aspect of it, however it's not something that should have much impact on others' lives. The only time I ever got worked up about religion is when I read comments on Facebook from Tea Baggers back in the States. It's that particular brand of religion that irks me, the fundamentalist black-and-white, if-only-you'd-accept-Jesus-as-your-Lord-and-Savior, accuse Obama of being anti-Christian, prayer in school, look down on homosexuals, all Muslims being terrorists... well, you know the type. The vocal kind of Christianity. This sours my view towards Christians in general, and I guess it's funny because they might think they're being persecuted, but I think it's a load of BS.

Why am I taking the time to write about this? Because the next night, when most of the Americans had left and the hostel was a hell of a lot quieter, Chris and I sat down in the lobby to watch the National Geographic channel. There was a program on about bears. We were comfy, Chris and I, then out of nowhere a girl plonked down on the couch next to us. She introduced herself as Emily and told us how she had been helping on volunteer projects around the world. We had a wonderful discussion with her. Usually I don't like people interrupting my television time (it's so precious on the road) but Emily was both personable and interesting. I had an inkling she was one of the Christian revelers from the night before. In fact she was, but she brought it up casually and didn't make a big deal about it. She professed to be Pentecostal. I understood about all the laying of hands and such. As a group they had freaked me out with their intense emotion. However Emily seemed very level-headed. I really liked her. The next morning we saw her one last time. We were on our way to catch a bus and Emily was waiting for her group. Saying goodbye, she called out, “I'll pray for your eye!” God bless you, Emily. You really mean well.