This post is part of a series of posts that I did for our cruise on Royal Caribbean "Legend of the Seas". Do click the label "Royal Caribbean Cruise 2012" to view all posts related to the wonderful vacation that we had. Remember to check out our Facebook Page @ Daddy NiVleK for more photos and information. I couldn't possibly post all the photos here! And if you have not click "Like" on the right hand side, you should do it NOW!
For Day 2, we had to wake up as early as 0530hrs! That is even earlier than my working time. We were supposed to meet at the That's Entertainment Theatre at 0745hrs and we wanted to have our breakfast. So, we rushed to the Windjammer's Cafe when it is just opened at 0630hrs. We managed to snugged a nice seat before all the other passengers arrived.
Phew. It was kinda of rush breakfast for us since Jayden was still very much asleep in his pram and we had to wake him up after we had our breakfast and get him changed too.
Fried eggs are our favorite for the breakfast. You can't go too wrong with fried eggs.
Yesh. We hare almost closing by the Port Kelang soon! Did I mention that the cruise is always almost exactly on time? That is no mean feat! We were supposed to arrived at Port Kelang at 0800hrs and at 0740hrs when I took this, we are closing by already. Not too late, not too early. Just in time.
And well, for us we were actually a little late. By the time we reached the That's Entertainment theatre for the briefing, we were the last in our group.
Tada! No strollers! Instead, we used our new Manduca carrier! We wanted to challenge ourselves to carry Jayden up the 272 steps in Batu Caves. Nah. It is actually more of a convenience issue. Taking our strollers for the places that we want to go is not really ideal plus, our strollers are not really compact when folded. Finding our way for the shore excursion groups is a relatively simple task. Just go to the front, show them the tickets and they will give you a number and this is the number of your tour group and also the bus will have this number prominently displayed.
Disembarking the cruise ship! It is also a very easy process. We just need to present our sea pass cards and out we go.
That's our cruise ship - Legend of the seas! We will be back soon!
The ship is being wharfed at this cruise center. "Port Klang Cruise Centre" "Glenn cruise terminal" It is actually situated about 1 hour of bus journey away from where we are heading.
We were supposed to depart soon at about 0815hrs and we did not do so until almost 0845hrs. 2 caucasian ladies and a korean couple were late, very late. So late that the entire bus decided to BOO them when they come. Oh wait, did I mention about the tour group? This was the first time that I am sitting in a tour group that is predominately caucasians and not asians. Well, normally we book packaged trips from local agencies and 99% of the time, they are all Singaporeans or Malaysians. This time around, because of the diverse passengers that the cruise ship carries, we are having a lot of "ang mohs". Not that I am complaining, I just find it interesting. Coming back to the "Boo"ing, we eventually did not BOO. Why? Well, it appears that the Korean couple were in their 40s and the guy is actually disabled and walking on crutches. He only has one leg.
And interesting, we are going to Batu Caves. WOW. Somehow, carrying a big backpack for me and carrying Jayden for Hazel seems like a small issue compared to him.
We finally left and I didn't get a glimpse as we were traveling there. Our tour guide, Kalai (above dressed in green top) was busy explaining to everyone the history of Malaysia, etc etc and that was just the lullaby I needed. When I woke up, we were here already!
The steps!
Of course we climbed them! All 272 of them! The time that we had was actually rather short. We reached the place at about 1000hrs and had to go back to the bus at 1045hrs. Just 45 mins. It was not enough.
Phew. We have climbed really quite high. The steps here are also not your normal average steps height. They are higher than urban dwellers are used to climbing building steps and that just makes climbing it even more tiring.
At the top of the stairs, there is actually another path leading into the cave itself. Hazel decided that she had enough and will proceed to go down slowly while I go in and quickly explore the surroundings. In this limestone cave, there is a ornate Hindu Shrine and various colorful displays of Hindu deities.
Beautiful natural limestone structure.
Notice the guy on clutches? That is the Korean guy I was talking about. He actually climbed all the way up and into the caves. Woah.
Time for me to go down!
Time was really too short for me to do much exploring. I would have wanted to take a look at the Dark Cave.
Monkeys are everywhere and we got to be careful to not to have any shiny loose piece hanging on us. They are daring enough to snatch it from you and you can forget about getting it back.
And Hazel was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs and we went back, not before chasing the pigeons. ^_^
To our dismay, the Korean couple were late AGAIN. This time around another 30mins late. Everyone was noticeably unhappy and keep telling the tour guide to give them a piece of her mind and stop wasting everyone's time. And she did emphasize to them when they return that they need to be on time. Personally, from what I observed, the Korean couple has little understanding of the English language. In fact, they asked the tour guide if there is any shopping for this trip which she said no and they had to use a phone to type it in Korean and using a software to translate to English.If they had properly read the iternity they should have also known that this is a sight seeing trip with zero shopping time.
All right, that is all for the Batu Caves. Stay tuned for the next post on our trip to the Pewter factory - Royal Selangor and Independence Square.
