beware of monkey pee (lone wolf series - 2)

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Just to state a fact: the Kuala Lumpur (KL) Airport is not actually in KL. It takes a good 45-50 minutes to drive from the airport into the city. It's a lovely drive and both directions it was fabulously free of heavy traffic (well, anything compared to Shanghai is fabulously free of heavy traffic). Anyway, I was able to spend a few days there and have some interesting experiences, one of which I will share here.

First of all, this is a monkey:

Of course I have seen monkeys in person before--in a zoo. I've never seen monkeys roaming around in the open like pigeons or squirrels or foxes. It was a bit shocking but also quite funny. I was not the only one to find the large population of wild monkeys running around to be entertaining either, a lot of people were stopping an taking pictures. Where was I, you may ask? I was here:

These are the Batu Caves. Those stairs? Yeah, there are about 285 of them and I went alllllll the way up there. I went with a friend that I meant in the hostel, Ana, and we were both loving seeing all of the monkeys running and jumping around. They were absolutely everywhere and did not care in the slightest about people. They are like pigeons, but with fur and tails. It is hilarious to see them sauntering on the stairs and making themselves at home, like the people were just invisible. There was a monkey eating a sandwich:

I have no idea where he got that sandwich, but he was sure loving every bite. Ana and I were about one-third of the way up the stairs and and stopped to take a breather. We turned around to look at back at the city because the higher and higher you get up the staircase, the more of KL city center you see. As we turned to continue our upwards trek, I made a comment that if these monkeys that were sitting on the balustrade and the ledges over the stairs decided to, you know, do their business, we were going to be in the direct line of fire. Ana looked at me like I was nuts and laughed, so we kept going. 

When we reached the halfway point, we stopped for another breather and to admire the view. Just as we and a few other people around us were stopping, we feel this spray of wetness come over us. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I dive down and Ana lunges to the side. We cry out in this rather squeakish manner, not really wanting to admit that we were probably just hit with monkey pee. Some of the tourists around us dived as well, just in case another spray was coming.  

Ana looked around and started to laugh because low and below, there was indeed a monkey, but a monkey with a water bottle. (Seriously, those little critters are quite smart.) The monkey was twisting the cap off a half-empty bottle of water and when it got it open, it decided to make it rain on the people around it. In retrospect, it was a rather nice gesture considering how hot it was there. 

We continued our journey to top, laughing the rest of the way about getting peed on by monkeys and hope if felt any wetness again on the way down, it would just be water. Alas, on the way down there were monkeys sitting in the paths to the point of obstructing the stairs and everyone was trying to skirt around them because they are known to get a bit vicious, hence the sign:

So, if you ever find yourself in KL, take a a morning to visit the Batu Caves and admire not only the views and the cardiovascular experience, but the monkeys as well...just beware of monkey pee, you might not be so lucky.