Batu Caves, Kuala Lumpur

For those who want to escape from the city centre of Kuala Lumpur, you may choose to visit Batu Caves. It is around 13KM away from city centre alog Middle Ring Road 2 (MRR2) & you need to climb the rock stairs with 272 steps to reach the top and inside of the cave. Batu Caves is open to public daily from 9am - 4.30pm. There is a Lord Murugan Statue near the entrance of the caves. The RM2.5 million statue entered the Malaysian Book of Records as the tallest statue of a Hindu deity in the country.

Every year, during Thaipusam as many as 800,000 devotees and other visitors may throng the caves. As a form of sacrifice, many of them carry kavadis. These are large, brightly decorated frameworks, usually combined with various metal hooks and skewers which are used to pierce the skin, cheeks and tongue.

Batu Caves is consist of three main caves and several small caves.
1) Temple Cave or Cathedral Cave is biggest of the caves and best known. The ceiling is 100 m above ground and this huge chamber is lighted by daylight from several holes in the ceiling. At the end of the caves you can see the bright sky, when you look above you. As the name suggests, this cave contains several shrines, and the Sir Sri Subramania Swamy Temple, visited by many devotees..
2) Dark Cave is below Temple Cave. The 2000 m long cave contains a large number of endemic cave animals. They make two different spelunking tours, which are held daily after advance booking. The short tour requires good shoes and physical fitness. The long tour is a real spelunking tour and requires a change of clothes and shoes
3) Gallery Cave at the foot of the steps to Temple Cave contains an art gallery. There are statues and wall paintings showing scenes from Hindu mythology.