World cruise 29M1

From Margaret
Port Klang & Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Batu Caves and the KL Tower

The Batu Caves are a series of limestone caves in the hills near Kuala Lumpur. For a detailed description of them see Wikipedia. To get to the main cave, which is now a major Hindu shrine, one climbs up 272 concrete steps, closely monitored by the horde of macaques looking to see if you are carrying anything which looks like food. If you are, they will snatch it from you.

Inside are a multitude of small shrines depicting various Hindu deities. Some of them had priests in attendance who would, for a small offering, recite prayers and burn incense on behalf of your petition. I watched several Hindus do just this.

The main cave does not have a lot of stalactites or stalagmites. Whether this is due to that particular cave's formation or to human actions, I do not know. Further, being relatively close to the top of the cliff it has got a large opening to the sky toward the back and over one of the larger shrine sites which makes it much more light inside that I normally associate with caves. Again, I don't know whether this is due to human activity or a natural "cave-in" occurrence. The opening does let in enough light to let vegetation to grow inside the cave. Monkeys, pigeons, and even a few chickens are everywhere. The whole place has a somewhat dingy, dirty, and unkempt look.

Overwhelming the caves is the huge statue of Lord Murugan, a Hindu deity which stands adjacent to the entrance. It is 140 feet tall and painted gold. The paint came from Thailand and has something in it which repels insects and animals. As far as I could see none of the multitude of pigeons and monkeys would get on it.

The entire Batu Caves site is the locus of the Thaipusam festival, an all day affair which draws Hindus from all over the world.

After the Batu Caves we had an excellent lunch in an Indian restaurant and then a tour of downtown Kuala Lumpur and a visit to the KL tower. One certainly gets a bird's eye view of the city. I do have to confess that big cities just don't have a lot of attraction for me, so I was rather glad when we headed back to the ship.