Batu Caves

The first thing that caught my attention as the taxi from Kuala Lumpur pulled into the parking area for the Batu Caves was the nearly 14 story tall golden statue of Lord Murugan (Hindu god of war) that dwarfed the long flight of stairs up to the cave entrance to say nothing of the people climbing them. Made of 1550 cubic meters of concrete, 250 tonnes of steel bars and 300 liters of gold paint and taking 3 years to build, it is the world's largest Muruga statue.

Before reaching the first of the 272 stairs leading up to the Cathedral Cave, we got to enjoy watching Alex play with the many pigeons in the courtyard. Evidentially, however, Steve and I couldn't put it off any longer and began to climb the steeper-than-normal stair case. I thought it was funny that every stair was numbered. Makes me wonder if there is some significance to the number 272 and the counting up to it in the Hindu religion? Along the way we are kept company by a couple of Cynomolgus Monkeys that were looking for food. Even though these guys didn't look as friendly as some of the other monkeys we had seen, I still love the fact that there are monkeys everywhere we go in Southeast Asia.

At step 272 (almost 100 meters above where we started, or 33 stories straight up) we were greeted by as sign that proclaiming "No Exercise Beyond This Area", however this turned out to be not quite true because just after entering the biggest of the caves around here (called the Cathedral or Temple Cave) there is another flight of steps down, and on the far side another flight up. Yet, none of that bothered me once I was confronted with the majesty of this beautiful cave reaching yet another 100 meters up.

The paved cement floor and concrete Hindu shrines were a little distracting from the natural splendor, but this is one of the most visited and popular Hindu shrines outside of India. It's also where the Malaysian Hindus (as well as others from India, Australia and Singapore) celebrate the festival of Thaipusam.

After walking around and checking out all the nooks and crannies, especially on the far end of the cavern where the Lord Murugan Temple is with its natural skylight, we headed back down the stairs. This time we stopped off to check out the Dark Cave, about halfway down the stairway. It looked to have some amazing rock formations and there was much less human impact made on these caves. However, given our time constraints we decided to head back to the base and return to Kuala Lumpur.