Batu Caves

First it's not a Buddha. I got that as soon as we pulled into the Batu Caves parking lot...

So we successfully drove (thank you, Brian) and navigated (thank you, Google Maps) our way about 15 km north of KL to the Batu Caves. A side note on driving. After several days on the roads here as a passenger with Robin, I was pretty convinced that I did NOT want a car. Cars are fairly expensive, the roads are confusing, and the motor scooters whiz in and out of lanes. And it's 'other' side of the road driving. When Brian convinced me to get a car, he asked what kind of car a wanted and I answered 'narrow'. I've yet to take the wheel, but I will tomorrow. Back to the Batu Caves...

So the Batu Caves are actually a Hindu shire dedicated to Murugan, the Hindu god of victory and war. It's Murugan's giant golden statue that stands at the entrance to the caves and that we can see from our balcony in Mont Kiara. There are several shire areas at the foot of the mountains and then many more shrine areas up about 270 very steep steps.

Branching off the stairs about 3/4 the way up to the top shrine, visitors may tour the Dark Cave. This is a one hour guided tour. Our excellent guide, Jonathan, provided an entertaining and enlightening tour, complete with stops to view formations and see several insects that only live in caves. The cave guides are conservationists and stressed the importance of protecting these delicate ecosystems. The kids have watched the BBC Planet Earth caves episode at least 50 times, so this was thrilling for them. Violet and Tyler both report that their favorite part of the tour was 'total darkness' when all the guests turned off our lights and we experienced a few light-less minutes. Pretty cool. There's a 3 hour 'adventure' tour, sounds exciting, right? Well... guests spend part of the tour crawling through several feet of bat guano. No thanks.

Violet stilling clinging to Brian after tossing her sandwich.

After the Dark Cave tour, we continued up to the main shrine area. Tourists know the shrine for the monkeys. Violet made a mistake of trying to eat a peanut butter sandwich within view of the monkeys. They descended and started to climb her to get their hands on the food. She ended up jumping on Brian who ran away -- a money chase ensued and the moneys were going to win -- so she stuffed half the sandwich in her mouth and threw the other half as far as she could. New rule: bring no food into the Batu Caves.

Safely back down the stairs, we received blessings for health and safe travels complete with red smears of kumkum on the forehead from a priest before dining on amazing tasting Jain food at the base of the temple. Brian got a fresh coconut. Call it a coincidence, but the diarrhea started for me about a hour after we got home. (The first any of us have had in Malaysia.) New rule amended: no eating at all at the Batu Caves.

(A quick follow up before posting. We had dinner at Safiz, a local tandoori place - best tandoori chicken EVER. This will be a regular place for us to eat dinner. And my belly is back to normal, so maybe I blamed the Batu Cave food too quickly.)

Guy using a machete to cut open coconuts.

Violet checking out a monkey.

The moneys ignore you if you have no food.

Almost to the top of the 270 stairs! Kids climbed the whole way
on their own with no whining.

The monkeys will even nab your 7-Up

Huge cavern near the end of the Dark Cave tour.