On Monday, March 24th we left our hotel in Kuala Lumpur and arrived at our destination of the Batu Caves around 9:30 AM. The Batu Caves is located just outside of Kuala Lumpur and can be described as a massive limestone hill with a series of caves and a Hindu temple and shrine. It is one of the most famous Hindu shrines outside of India, a famous tourist attraction, and a focal point of the Hindu festival of Thaipusam in Malaysia.
Upon arriving, we took pictures outside the caves, and visited a small temple at the bottom, before heading up the 272 steep steps to the cave and temple.
On the way up to the cave we couldn’t help but notice all of the monkeys hanging around the cave! They seemed to be hungry, as they would grab at peoples bags looking for food or drinks. One member of our group got her water bottle taken from a monkey, who proceeded to unscrew the cap and take a drink from it!
There was a gorgeous view at the top of the cave of the city of KL. As we walked farther into the cave we reached the temple. The temple was very beautiful and the cave itself was also very impressive with high walls of beautiful limestone rock formations.
After we finished looking around inside the cave we walked down the stairs and got brought into a building where we got a short talk about the Batu Caves and Hinduism. We were also given a very interesting book on Hinduism.
We then got a delicious lunch at an Indian restaurant and got back on the bus to head back to Penang! This was a very fun morning in Malaysia.
-Kristine