Hello lovely readers! I apologize for the lack of posting lately…we finally made it home to the States and we’ve been soaking up this time with our friends and family. It feels so good to be home! But I still have so much left of our adventures to share. So on the heels of one holiday, I’ll transport you back to another, Deepavali, a Hindu holy holiday that takes place in November.
As I mentioned in this post, we ended up staying a day longer than expected in Malaysia to sort out some business with my passport. We realized however that this also allowed us to still be in Malaysia during Deepavali, a holiday which we had been watching the country prep for over the past week.
We had heard that there was an open house at the Batu Caves (which house several Hindu temples) the morning of Deepavali, but we decided that might be a bit too intense for us. We had heard rumors of hundreds of thousands of attendees, and after Korea, crowds like that just aren’t my thing. But we did think Deepavali would be a good day to re-visit the awesome caves, so we timed our arrival near the end of the open house.
It was still fairly busy, but luckily, a heavy rainstorm right about the time of our arrival cleared out a lot of the crowd. Not ones to shy away from some rain, we hauled our butts up the steep stairs, rain be damned. We’re bad ass like that. However, once at the top we decided to hang out for a while…both because it didn’t sound particularly fun to battle the downward trek on steep stairs when they were slippery with rain, and because the climb up took a lot out of us and we were tired and sweaty! Isn’t travel so glamorous sometimes?
Overall, despite being a holiday the crowds at the Batu Caves weren’t too bad. However, the train ride back sucked. I don’t know why, but a lot of men seemed to be leering more than usual (something I’ve noticed that happens in Malaysia more than other countries), and it made me so uncomfortable I was nearly in tears by the time we reached our stop. Even Matt was on edge from the creepies on the train! As we made our way back to our hotel through a busy and dirty part of town, I saw a rat and a guy blew a snot rocket into the gutter right in front of me, and in that moment I felt so overwhelmed and disgusted by Malaysia that I told Matt to “Take me to Starbucks right now!” He complied, and after a latte and some relaxing to Christmas music in plush chairs, I felt much better. Sometimes, I just need a minute away from it all.
How do you deal with stressful situations/bad days when traveling?