Exotic Treasures of Malaysia

After spending time in the city, we were told that a must see place while being in Malaysia is the Batu Caves. We decided that this is something we definitely have to check out. We woke up early because the caves are a tourist area and wanted to get there before it got too crowded. We grabbed breakfast at a little restaurant called Nasi Kandar Pelita where the food was absolutely exquisite.

Just a bit of information that I found intriguing; the Batu Caves is basically a limestone hill, with multiple caves and cave temples. There are three main caves and a few smaller ones; however the biggest cave is referred to as the Cathedral Cave or Temple Cave. There is a gigantic golden statue of Lord Murugan standing at the foot of the cave. Batu Caves are located in the Gombak district, 13 kilometers north of Kuala Lumpur. While there we learned that the caves are something like over 400 million years old...that is amazing!! The caves are the sacred place for Hindus and Malaysians.

You can easily get to the caves by taxis or you can jump on a public bus at the Pudu Raya bus terminal. Bus Nr 70 and 349 are leaving from Lebuh Pudu (in China Town) every 30 minutes. Journey is about 45 min! Open daily from 7 to 21h! The fare for the bus was 2.50 MYR.

The busses are an experience that’s for sure! It was fun we meet a lot of other tourist; some from America, and a few from Australia. The bus driver was very polite and gave us a few travelling tips such as the monkeys.
After our adventurous bus ride we arrived at the Batu Caves. When we first got off the bus we were very surprised to see the amount of monkeys we were greeted by. Note to self: don’t be holding a bag of peanuts I was completely swamped with monkeys. Be careful some monkeys are playful and some will chase and terrorize you.
Although the caves were amazing to see, my buddies and I wished we would have been there during the Thaipusam Festival that is held on the full moon day which comes between January 15 and February 14 every year since 1891. This festival is massive and very important. It brings in at least 800,000 to 1.5 million tourist and locals. Now that is a time you need to be there to party with the tourist and the locals. It’s a time of sacrifice and torture to the human body; some examples they pierce their skin and then put chains through then and pull carts and they also walk on fire. How crazy is that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now for the big adventure whatever you do make sure you have plenty of water with you, half way up those 272 steps you are definitely going to be great full you brought water. It was extremely hilarious when PG tripped walking up the stairs. So I guess another good and useful thing to bring with you is band aids. However after the lovely and amusing hike up the stairs you get to the most fabulous place ever....the Batu Caves. You can look up and see the beautiful blue skies above you; it’s just an incredible view. After we visited the caves and took pictures of all the paintings we went down to the gift shop to collect a few souvenirs to bring back home and stopped off at a little cafe where we could drink coconut milk. All in all it was a great day we all had fun and we are extremely exhausted from the hike up the stairs. We decided will head back to the hotel take a nap and then go out and cruise the night life of Malaysia.