A Steemit introduction for Kuala Lumpur - one day to convert as many as possible!

Those of you who follow me will know that I am a traveller who loves to explore new places. This time I was lucky to spend one day and one night in KL, Malaysia.

It was my first time in this country and having now seen a little of it, I intend to return with my family after Luna is born and spend at least a week there.

The Three Questions

Whenever I travel alone, I always talk to many people and they tend to ask the same three questions:

• Question - Where are you from?

• Answer - England, London

• Question - What's your name?

• Answer - Sam

• Question - What's your job?

• Answer - I post my life on Steemit!

The conversation usually dries up at this point because my old answer was much more complicated to explain and those who do not have english as their native language struggle to understand. But today was different!

There was a 4th question!

• Question - What's steemit?
• Answer - well... you already know the answer :)

A very special day in the life of a Steemit mad photographer

I arrived late at night and had to cab it to my hotel for a concerning amount of money. Around one quarter of the total amount of Malaysian ringgits I had in my wallet. After a very peaceful night in a low budget Ibis I enjoyed something that the Balinese are not so good at: a classic vegetarian English breakfast.

I normally eat a vegan diet but do have a few eggs from time to time as you can see here. The watermelon is something I have every morning as it is the best way to start your day, for it re-balances the alkalinity of your body…especially if you’ve been drinking acidic stuff the night before :)

So, I set out from my Ibis with 8 hours to kill and absolutely no idea where I was going. I just followed my nose to the nearest train station and paid for a ticket to KL central. On the way I saw a few typical city sights through the window.

Curious that kissing is regarded as indecent behaviour on the trains. I wonder if you can kiss in the streets or the parks? Hope so! Otherwise, were can you kiss? Only at home with the curtains shut and the lights off???

I have seen many cities in my life and am aware that one must travel out away from the centre to get to the good stuff.

So I looked at the train map and decided that the last stop going north would be my destination - a place called Batu Caves. A friendly Malaysian man on the station platform told me there was a golden Buddha there with lots of steps to climb. Sounded perfect. So, off I went. The train tickets were super cheap - around 2 ringgits (around $0.40) to go from the centre on a half an hour train ride to the caves. And unlike most cities I have visited, the tickets were in the form of round plastic tokens.

Batur Caves

The place I found at the end of that train ride was simply stunning. And I find it hard to use words at this point to describe what I saw, so I'm just going to show with my High Dynamic Range pictures... and just a few words.

You can see the train station bottom left. So this was the sight I was greeted with.

After a one minute walk from the station I met Mr Monkey Man.

And then I found the golden Buddha and steps my station friend had told me about. Though is that actually Buddha? Perhaps someone can tell me?

Before plucking up the courage to race up those steps with my bare feet in the midday sun, I explored a bit and found a ground level entrance to the caves but was put off by the entrance fee.

So doubled back at hit the stairs.

At the top was an entrance to a huge cave at the end of which was a way through to something even more special than this. The ceiling was out of this world.

Here is the entrance to the second cave.

And this is what I found within. A colourful little temple with a half naked Holy man blessing tourists.

Looking up from the middle.

Here is the little temple with the queue of tourists waiting for their turn behind the curtain. I considered joining the queue, just to find out what happened behind the curtain! But meditated instead for a while in the awesomeness of my moment.

The view of the first cave on my walk back.

On my way back down now, looking back up at the awesome cliff face.

The clouds were arriving quickly on my way down and it was raining by the time I made it back to the station.

I do believe this is my best monkey shot to date. I have spotted many in Bali but none as tame as this father & son, posing so perfectly still for me to take the required three shots to make my hyper-real HDR pictures.

The great city of Kuala Lumpur, viewed from the perfect spot I had hoped to find.

Hope you enjoyed this visual diary of my very enjoyable day.

Love and Light to you all.