Batu Caves of Kuala Lumpur
- Lester Martin
After my Don't Mess With Melaka and Singapore - The Lion City day trips, what was I all fired up to do that got me up VERY early for the THIRD day in a row? Well, I was fortunate enough to have a person take me on a personal tour of the Batu Caves and with a sight like this greeting visitors… you would have got up early again, too!
Heck, you would have even taking a selfie like I did!
My guide for the day was Dr Ganthan Narayana (red shirt in following picture) who teaches at UTM and Dr Pritheega Magalingam & her husband were so kind so shuttle me into Kuala Lumpur from my hotel early in the morning. 1000 thanks to all three of them!
As I stated in an earlier blog posting, I truly cannot say enough nice things about the kindness and professionalism displayed from EVERYONE in the class I was fortunate enough to lead them through.
After soaking in the breathtaking 140 foot tall statue of Lord Murugan it was time to walk up the 272 steps.
Besides seeing other folks huffing & puffing like me (well, most not as bad as me!) we were greeted with monkeys along the whole staircase. I was a bit nervous to get too close as these little monkeys can be pretty intense and are so much stronger than most of us think.
Lots of folks were taking pictures standing beside the monkeys and I knew I made the right choice of NOT doing this when I saw a monkey rip out an earring from a fella who thought he was JUST going to get a great picture; now he has a ?great? story to tell – and an earring to replace!
Yes, more steps… more monkeys…
I was so happy to reach the top!!
Ganthan and I were greeted with some beautiful sights at the entrance of the caves.
Walking into the main cave, I was surprise at the size of the cavern. Most of the structures and temples were undergoing renovations, but it was clear how beautiful they were even covered up.
Then I had ANOTHER set of stairs as shown above and below. Thankfully, there were far fewer than the ones leading to the entrance of the caves.
More great views (and monkeys) from this upper cavern!!
One the way back down we say MANY MORE monkeys!! Even some babies!!
We found another very cool temple at the base of the stairs.
And yep, ANOTHER cool temple!
With another very awesome Hanuman Statue (yep, I had to take another selfie!).
Wait… What… ANOTHER temple?!?! OF COURSE!!
Just to the right of this was the entrance to the Ramayana Caves. Yes, that’s ANOTHER selfie!!
It was just as cool inside with so many handcrafted statues and figures.
I was so happy that Ganthan had a great time, too. He said it has been years since he was inside and he was pleasantly surprised at all the work that had been done to beautify this cave. He admitted he was excited to bring his children to visit for the first time.
We then headed over to the beautiful campus of UTM.
We headed to the top of the campus' main building to the observation deck where I got some nice pictures of the Pretronas Twin Towers and the Kuala Lumpur skyline.
I did not get a chance to visit the observation deck of the Twin Towers as it was closed on Mondays. Yes, poor planning on my part! Haha! All in all, this was a great day and it was a pure joy to see the Batu Caves. I am also very appreciative of the generosity of Doctors Narayana and Magalingam. Thank you both so much!!