Batu Cave

If you are planning a good foreign trip with your family, the beautiful country of Malaysia will be a good option for you. This Islamic country has many cultural and natural tourist attractions and is known as one of the most popular tourist destinations in Southeast Asia. Batu Caves Complex is one of the most famous sights in the country, located in Kuala Lumpur.
Batu Caves is one of Kuala Lumpur’s most visited tourist attractions. The mouth of the Cave is located at a height of 100 meters above the ground. The complex consists of a large limestone hill with three main and large caves and several small sub-caves. This cave shrine is located about 11 km north of Kuala Lumpur. In addition to the natural beauty of these caves, there are historical and beautiful sculptures in the heart of the main cave and its surroundings that many people go to see the caves.
Cathedral Cave is the largest and most popular cave in the complex, with many houses and shrines 100 meters deep. At the foot of Batu Hill, there are two other large and popular caves that tourists visit. These caves are The Art Gallery Cave and Museum Cave, which contain paintings and works of art by many Hindus.
People interested in this Cave should know that to enter this Hindu temple, they have to go through many steps, and of course these steps are not very boring, because on the way to reach this temple and cross the stairs, there are monkeys. You will see a number of monkeys who can entertain you with their sweet movements and take the tiredness away from you, but they are a bit playful and may cause you problems. crossing this number of stairs is not much to see the wonders inside the temple. Be sure to visit this spectacular cave and make yourself a guest of a world of surprise and amazement. After crossing the stairs, people can see the very large golden statue of Lord Murugan that they had seen from a distance before the stairs started. The Murugan statue is gigantic, and very shiny especially when the sun is up. This golden statue is 42 meters long and it is interesting to know that it was built by 15 skillful sculptors. it is made of steel and concrete and of course gold plating for three years. The construction of this huge statue cost about 42 million rupees, and in its construction, 1550 cubic meters of concrete, 250 tons of steel and also 300 liters of gold paint were used for the final coating. If you go up about 272 steps next to this statue, you will reach an area where you can see a beautiful view of Kuala Lumpur. Many monkeys live around these caves. This area is also one of the best areas for rock climbing enthusiasts in Malaysia.
Four hundred million years ago, these hills and caves were formed as a result of several geological metamorphoses from a prehistoric lake of limestone, and it is interesting to know that the first explorers and inhabitants of this hill after monkeys were the people of the “Temuan” tribe. They used the entrances of Batu Cave as a shelter and lived in secret. In 1860, the Chinese who had migrated to Malaysia came to the hill to fertilize their farmland, following the extraction of Chalghuz, but William Horandy identified the caves and published the documentation in 1887 of Batu Cave. And immortalized his name and made him famous. Years later, an Indian merchant named Thamboosamy, visiting the largest cave on the hill, decided to build a Hindu-style shrine and offer it to the Murugan so construction began. In addition, skilful sculptors and painters adorned the inside and outside of the caves with religious structures and sculptures, and Batu Cave quickly became a destination for Hindu pilgrims and tourists from all over the world. Of course, we should not forget that the main owners of these caves are monkeys. Around 1920, wooden stairs were built here to make it easier for visitors and tourists to climb to the top of the cave. After a few years, sturdy concrete stairs replaced these wooden stairs. Since then, Batu Caves, named after the nearby Batu River, has been one of Malaysia’s most popular tourist attractions. This area gets very crowded, especially during the Typosam Festival.
This complex is located 13 km north of Kuala Lumpur. To reach these caves, you have to take bus number D11 from the central market of the city and get off at the cave station. There is also a bus number 69 from Jalan Podo area to this destination. Kuala Lumpur city taxis also take passengers to this area, which you can use.
Batu Caves is the main venue for the annual Typosam Festival in Malaysia. During the festival, thousands of domestic and foreign tourists travel to the area. This festival is usually held at the end of January every year. The Typosam festival process begins the night before at another location in the city center and continues the next day in these caves. With the arrival of people in these caves, this colorful festival officially begins and lasts about 8 hours. About 1 million tourists participated in the previous festival. This is one of the largest human communities in the world.
In the past, people brought gifts with an object called “Kavadis” at the festival. You must have seen the Kavadis in the movies, a kind of device that rests on the shoulder and there are two buckets on both sides to carry objects. Many disciples carry their offerings – containers of milk – to the Lord Murugan. These Kavadis were usually decorated with peacock feathers. Some of these Kavadis weighed about 100 kilos! Therefore, you must have high physical strength to carry them. Many participants in this festival walk to the end of the cave. Going to the bottom of these caves is not everyone’s job and requires a lot of physical strength and balance.