Visiting the Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia.

Batu Caves is one of the touristic destinations for travellers in Kuala Lumpur. If you are visiting Kuala Lumpur, this is one of the top attractions on the list. It’s the most touristic spots in Malaysia which consist of total 3 main caves featuring Hindu temples and shrines in a limestone hill located in Gombak district, closing a distance of 13 km from Kuala Lumpur which takes around 20 min to reach the place.

The main attraction of this cave is the gold coloured statue of Hindu God Lord Murugan at the entrance, beside the steps before entering the caves. Hindu devotees gather to worship the god here, it’s one of the popular places for Hindu devotees in entire Malaysia to worship and pray to the Lord Murugan temple in Batu Caves.

The height of Murugan statue is around 42.7 metres which is one of the big statues of Hindu gods all around the world. The first sight when you reach the Batu caves will be the statue of Lord Murugan. When you climb up the steps you will enter the main cave known as cathedral cave or temple cave.

Hollow Limestone towers are from the old prehistoric era. Let’s say around 350-400 million years old with its caverns, crags and crevices. Inside the cave, you can see small shrines and small statues depicting the Hindu gods. At the end of the caves, you can see the blue sky when you look above, its like sun rays directly falling above you. Every day morning sun rays directly fall on the temple inside the cave which makes it more attractive to the visitors.

While climbing the steps you will see the way to Dark caves from the left side. It’s more of an adventure cave than the normal cave. To enter this cave, you need to book the spot early to enter. For further details of the dark caves click here. This cave consists of rarest million year spiders and other animals, but you won’t see much other than bats and cockroaches. While entering the cave they will give all the safety precautions. Once you enter the caves, you need to crawl like a spider and some places you will become wet because of sliding. This tour involves 2km educational tour for 30-45 minutes and adventurous tour around 3 to 4 hours. Once in a while, it’s a good experience to tour the caves getting dirty through crawling, sliding and getting wet with natural atmosphere. You can even try rock climbing at the back of the mountains.

Monkeys at Batu Caves

While climbing up, there are monkeys everywhere to get your attention and take pictures of them. Even though they are not dangerous, when they see any food items or water bottles in your hand or bag, they will become aggressive and take your food by force. Make sure to take care of your belongings while you are with monkeys. Don’t smile at them sometimes they think you are threatening them. You can even find small waterfalls left side while going up to caves recently opened.

You cannot enter the caves while wearing sleeves or shorts above the knee as its a religious site they follow the tradition. You can rent sarong for 3RM (ringgits) at the entrance of the cave before climbing.

Ramayana Caves

At the bottom of the caves, you can find two small caves which are Ramayana caves and cave villa. Both the caves consist of Hindu statues and art paintings in a wall describing the history of Lord Rama and other gods. Ramayana cave has an entrance fee of around 5RM. It’s worth a visit once.

While going to the Ramayana caves, you will see a 15-metre tall statue of Lord Anjaneya (Monkey God) and its temple. Cave villa has an entrance fee of around 15RM and it includes audio tour also.

One of the festival here in Batu caves is Thaipusam which is known to be the biggest Hindu festival in Malaysia held for 2 days. Around 1 million people gather every year during the end of January and starting in February. In this festival, devotees carry the kavadi decorated with peacock feathers and flowers on their shoulders with the weight of 1-100 kgs and metal skewers hooked to their bodies which is a rare sight to see. While holding that weight they will climb up the 272 steep steps to offer their devotion to god.

Around the Batu caves, there are some climbing routes starts from the northeast area known as Damai caves. Some local adventure companies organise abseiling and spelunking trips at this place.

Batu caves are open all the days from 6am-9pm. The best day to visit the caves is on weekdays early morning. Ascending to the top of Batu Caves, you can even see the entire city view of Kuala Lumpur along with Petronas twin towers and KL towers.

How to reach:

• The easiest way to get Batu caves is by KTM train in Kuala Lumpur which is connected directly from KL Sentral to Batu Caves. The train frequency from KL Sentral to Batu caves is around 20-30 minutes. Click the details of KTM Train Schedule to check here. The cost is around RM 2.60 – RM 3.00 to reach Batu Caves.
• You can even reach by bus either from Central Market (Bus no: 11/11D) near to Puduraya bus station. One more place to reach through the bus to Batu caves is from Titiwangsa bus terminal in Kuala Lumpur.
• The Taxi fare from anywhere in Kuala Lumpur to Batu caves is around RM 20 – RM 30. From airport to Batu caves, it costs around RM 90 – RM 100 directly.