Sunday, May 15, 2011

Batu Caves

Batu Caves which is located approximately 15km to the north of Kuala Lumpur were discovered in 1881 by an American explorer.

Over time, the place was used as a picnic for the colonials and later as a hideout for the Communist. The caves are now an important site of worship for the Hindus.

It is a limestone hill with series of caves and cave temples. Built in 1891, it is created by K. Thamboosamy Pillai, a prominent Malaysian of Tamil origin during the pre-independence years. He was a wealthy businessman, tin miner and government contractor who were also considered as the leader of the Tamil community.

One of the most fascinating features here is the world's tallest statue of Lord Murugan, standing at 42.7 metres high. It was unveiled in January 2006 and took 1550 cubic meters of concrete, 250 tons of steels bars and a whopping 300 litres of gold paint to build.

Visitors coming here to witness the caves have to climb the magnificent 272 steps staircase that leads up to the temple. In the future, there will be a cable car which connects the base of the hill to the top but nothing beats the fun of walking up the stairs to reach the caves.

The interior of the main caves are pretty large and house a few temples and souvenir shops.

Inside the caves, the Subramaniam Swamy Temple is the centre of worship for the Hindu god, Murugan. The caves become very busy when Hindu devotees and visitors from all around the world come to Batu Caves during Thaipusam.

Visitors will be in awe of the paintings depicting scenes from Hindu folklore and statues of deities.

Keep an eyes for the monkeys surrounding the caves as they can be quite nasty when it comes to food.

The other attraction added to this site is the Dark Cave where entrance fee of RM35 will be charged for adult and RM18 for children below 10 years old.

At the foot of the hill, a significant transformation seems to took place since my last visit here, probably some 15 years ago. There is a nice and relaxing recreation area called "Cave Villa" which augur well with the surrounding. The management charge an entrance fee for visitors to enter this park though.

Getting to Batu Caves now is a breeze when compare to previous year as the KTM Komuter station is just beside it. A trip here from KL Old Railway station will take approximately 20 minutes (RM 2 single way).

4 comments:

Malaysia Travel Blog said...

I am looking forward for a chance to visit this place.

Newspaper Star said...

from KTM station walking to Batu Caves is how long? Or how many KM?
I feel government is doing well in this, because if people drive there during Thaipusam, sure we have parking issues.

Borneo Falcon said...

I won't say how many km. It is probably just 50m only.

Diane said...

I don't see visiting such a wonderful place in my future but I enjoy reading about places like this. Thank you for the pictures.