Malaysia continued...

SO the next morning, we got picked up at our hotel by our personal tour guide! We got into a small car - not what we were expecting, and our guide told us all kinds stuff as we drove the couple of hours out to the elephant rehibilitation centre. We stopped a few places along the way. First stop, the famous Batu Caves. The caves are famous for 2 reasons: the first being that they are thousands of years old and made of limestone. The second being that the Hindu's build a temple in the caves feeling the holiness from them. Every year in January they hold a huge ceremony there where they poke spears through their skin and pull various things up the mountain to the top as penance (sadly we were not there to see this). We didn't climb up to the top, but we did get to see the temple grounds on the ground level which was really awesome and even got blessed by the Hindu priests there. Next stop was a small Batik shop - Batik is a type of cloth decoration that uses silk, wax and dying. We saw some hand made Batik being made and bought a few souvenirs there. Then onto the Centre. When we arrived, we walked down to the bottom area where you could see 5 elephants wandering about and looking back at us on the other side of the fence. We got to see them being washed, then we got to feed them, ride them, and pet the baby elephants. The river was too high to ride them in the water :( but otherwise it was really awesome! There was a small museum inside the centre that talked about Asian elephants and the centre. They also played a short video for us detailing the mission behind the centre. It was a really great time and I would recommend it to anyone going to KL!At this point KL starts to kinda blur together. We had to change hotels the next morning as the one we were in was full. So we moved to a place in China town! Oh the craziness! Our hotel was not nearly as nice as the one we wer e in before AND in was located right on one of the main noisy streets. However, there was alot of atmosphere everytime we walked outside. Street hawkers trying to sell all kinds of stuff and various Chinese style street foods. We did some shopping (which is crazy cheap in SE Asia) and got ready for our return to Thailand. I bought some cheap shoes for the beach and a really pretty beaded shirt. We managed to book a flight to our next destination AND our accomodations and then just kicked back for a day. We spent 2 nights at the hotel there and then headed out on a flight to Phuket. Back in Thailand...