I'm off to see the wizard

Thaipusam

Wow, what a crazy experience. I'm trying to find the number of people that were there last night but I can't seem to find anything. It turns out the festival runs for three days so I didn't have to rush here but I'm glad I was there for the opening night. The owner of the hostel I was staying at had a meeting at 8 and told us all about the festival and had a q&a session then he showed us how to get to the Batu caves. There were 4 main sections of the festival, 1) the washing/piercing area 2) The main gates to the cave 3) the 260+ stairs up to the cave 4) Inside the cave where the piercings were removed. We headed over there at around 9 and spent 3 hours at the first section watching people go into trances dancing around to rhythmic Indian music. Each group of three or four devotees had a little band with them and they were banging out some really good Indian music. Seeing these guys go into the trance was something else, the looks in their eyes and the way they acted was just creepy and out of this world. Most of them looked possessed and they made some unhuman noises, a few looked like majestic kings and they would bless all the people around them. It was really something else, unlike anything I've ever seen. Some people just carried metal containers of milk on their heads and a lot of people shaved their heads. After 12 we decided to go up to the cave and see them take the piercing out before we left. Unfortunately there were soo many people that it got really backed up at it took us an hour to move about 100m to the gates. I was still with one of the guys from the hostel at this point but when we got close the gates people went nuts and started pushing, I'm surprised there was no one trampled to death. It was so hot and there were people pressed right up against you for a good hour, I'm amazed no one around me passed out. When they really started pushing there was a little girl beside me and me and this other guy had to hold people back from squashing her. In the big rush through the gates I lost my friend but I figured it wouldn't be hard to find him considering there weren't many Indian people with blond hair. It took me another hour to get up the stairs to the cave and I was pushed and prodded the whole way up. Not the most pleasant experience but it was defiantly worth it to see this craziness. When I got to the top I found my friend and we went and watched them take the piercings out. Just watching the guys still in the trance was so freaky, I really can't even explain it. When they came out of the trance most of them passed out and them seemed really out of it when they finaly came too. After that we had to go through another huge crowd to get back down the stairs and out to the buses. We finally arrived back at the bus station at 4 am and walked back to the hostel, stopping to take a picture of the Kenny Rogers Roasters. I didn't think those were still around and especially not in Kuala Lumpur. There are also a lot of Nandos around which surprised me, I thought there was just that little one in Richmondhill. Today I got up and changed hotels to a place with a nice hot shower and then met up with James from Kenya to go see the Twin towers. They were big towers. Not really that exciting, we went to go for a tour of the skybridge that links them 150 m up on the 41 and 42 floor but when we got there they said they had no more tickets for today. I went up to the lady and asked her anyways and she asked us to come back tomorrow. I told her we were leaving and then she gave us two tickets, someone had canceled so we now became part of the group from S. Arabia (Mr. Sadik Gari). They gave us all of 5 mins to shoot some pics from the bridge and then we came back down. After that we got some Cinnabuns and then took the subway back to chinatown where we are staying. I came to get my pics taken off my camera and I posted a bunch on my site. Tonight we are going to go see Meet the Fockers and then to a bar.

posted by Brandon Share @ 3:20 PM