If you ask me about my favorite place to visit in Kuala Lumpur, it would be Batu caves and there are multiple reasons for it. And I am sure many of you would have seen this photograph of World's tallest statue of Lord Murugan which is just at the entry gate of Batu caves. This statue is one of the biggest brands of Batu caves but there is lot more which is usually not that popular in form of photographs. Let me take you to the journey of Batu caves and what all to expect when you visit this beautiful place.
As you park your vehicle around the hill which has caves, you see a view like what you see in above photograph. After walking a little you hit the main gate from where you need to start the climb towards the caves. Near the entry gate you find lot of pigeons flying around and the main reason is the feed they get from visitors coming to the Batu caves. I am sure there is some religious thing related to it but not very sure.
I love clicking pigeons and framing the photographs with them flying around, but couldn't create anything interesting at this place. Height of Lord Murugan statute makes you bend a lot and that's uncomfortable if you want to try shooting for a longer period of time. And the floor was not in a state that I could lie-down.
Above photograph shows the stairs you need to climb to reach the caves. The main cave is at the end of these stairs and there is another one which is on the left and there is a cut which takes you there. In the month of December, it was pretty hot. So climbing up was certainly a challenge and the water bottle is must to keep your body hydrated.
This is essentially a limestone hill with multiple caves. Outside India, this one of the important hindu shrines and that's why you find quite a number of Indians around Batu caves.
There are lot of monkeys around the stairs and around one of the caves. One of them checked open pockets of my bag and grabbed a box with few chicken pieces. I was if that monkey would have eaten those chicken pieces or not, as he jumped to the other side and I couldn't see him after a few seconds. I tried searching on internet and usually monkeys don't each chicken but there has been exceptions. I was unaware that my bag had this box of chicken pieces and in a way, this monkey did the right thing by taking it out from my bag as these caves have temples and it wouldn't have been appropriate from my side to carry this non-veg stuff there.
After reaching the top, here is what you see. Huge cave with beautiful texture on the top. When I visited, some construction work was also going on. You can see temples on the right and few structures on the left. As you get down, there are few more stairs to hit another cave which has some natural night through a big hole on the top. Water was continuously dripping from various parts of the cave and that looks like natural water coming out of the mountain through relatively softer areas.
There are some corners in these caves which are specifically lit and show important places inside these dark caves. I noticed quite a few families following a fixed path inside the caves and taking blessings from some of these corners which seemed important from religion standpoint. Certainly some of these were looking very beautiful and my travellingcamera wanted to capture them.
There is no entry fees for Batu caves.
As you reach the other extreme of the Batu Caves, there are few temples around the corners which resembles a lot of temples you find in South India. This is the place when visitors relax a bit before heading back or going towards the other cave. These 2 connected caves are called temple caves.
In the month of jan/feb Thaipusam festival takes place in Kuala Lumpur, and Batu caves is one of the important places where ceremonies take place.
Above photograph is clicked from Dark cave. In dark cave, you can also take a 45 mins tour inside the cave and they show you some creepy things like bats, different kinds of spiders and claim is snakes as well. I didn't have 45 mins, so I skipped but the reception had few transparent jars with some of these snakes, spiders etc to showcase what you can expect during the tour.
We spent around 2 hrs at Batu caves and loved each moment.
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