Greetings from Klang!

Since Klang is not so far from Kuala Lumpur (KL), we arrived by train from Ipoh to KL and were met at the station by Rotarian Aaron Samuel, our coordinator while in Klang. He described Klang as a cowboy town of 1 million. In spite of its population it retains many frontier and port city aspects. On the way to my homestay we encountered cattle grazing and crossing the street amidst housing developments and businesses.

We experienced a terrific downpour and thunderstorm while we presented to the Rotary Club of Klang yesterday evening. Every time there was thunder our projector screen shook just a little.

Our cultural visit (and for me, vocational visit) earlier yesterday was an outing to Batu Caves and Dark Cave. We had been warned about the aggressive macaques, and everything we had been told was true. They snatched any plastic bag or drink that they could from the hands of tourists, and generally made a mess. But of course there was some appeal to seeing them up close, including the babies. We snapped lots of photos.


The cave itself was filled with shrines and lit with impossibly high skylights. Though a tourist attraction, many devout Hindus were there to perform religious functions, including old men and women carrying babies up the 272 stairs to the cave. The huge Murugan Statue was surrounded by scaffolding as it was being cleaned.

Dark Cave, adjacent to Batu Caves, was an entirely different experience. Not lit except for skylights and the flashlights we carried, we had a 45-minute tour with an emphasis on ecology and conservation. Our guide carried a notebook with photo prints of cave life, including flatworms, trapdoor spiders, and millipedes. Overhead the fruit bats chirped and chattered, and far above we could see them coming and going from a misty skylight. The cave was rich with guano and cockroaches, and home to a timid dog. A massively tall flowstone formation featured films of cascading water, the best visual depiction I've ever seen of how flowstone forms.

Globalisation has certainly reduced degrees of separation. Not only all this time have we not been far from American pop radio stations, but often at food areas there is at least one "Western" hawker stall that offers food like french fries and pizza. Over and over we meet Malaysians who speak sophisticated, British English as fluently as the languages spoken in their homes. At Batu Cave I encountered a tourist wearing an Oregon t-shirt. And then last night after the Rotary meeting, Ashley learned that her host has a cousin who is an alumni of MIUSA, the organization where she works. She will meet him in the next few days.

Planned for the duration of our stay in Klang: vocational visits, a cultural tour of Klang, and a Tamil wedding dinner!