KL Day 2 Part 1: Batu Cave

After a tiring day, the alarm was seriously being ignored. Poor alarm.

I took the opportunity for a quiet coffee and to blog. So nice. The agenda was easy - Batu cave and Berjaya Times Square.

Finally the remaining people decided to get up and head to the hotel buffet! The kids were overjoyed to have "pick and choose" bfast. On many of our trips, we had budget hotels and bfast were usually tabao back.

The restaurant looked magnificent but the spread was nothing to shout about. Still, we had happy tummies.

We headed to Batu Cave via taxi. It cost us about RM30. The journey took us about 20 mins. Hello, Batu Cave.

According to the Indian taxi uncle, the Batu Cave is where god Murugen built his temple. The story goes, he and his elder brother was competing in a mission to cirle the world. He was on (or with?) his peacock and his brother and his elephant. His brother is the elephant god. He lost, got angry and went to the high mountains with his peacock. Henceforth, his temples are always found in the mountain and in cave.

A big golden statue of Murugen greeted us.

It was magnificent at closer look.

Before we embarked on the 272 + 3 steps (3 steps were recent years added on for safety) stairs, there were pigeons feeding on seeds.  Lil Shauna had fun walking amidst the pigeons.

After mission toilet was completed, we started our ascend. The only toilets were at the base of the cave. It wouldnt be very fun to solve the toilet problem once we started climbing.

I was wearing shorts and had to loan a scarf to cover my legs at RM3 before the climb. There were many people climbing alongside with us. It didn't feel that bad actually but we still stopped many times to rest, take pictures and avoid the monkeys!

We saw so many monkeys, both big and small. They are not at all afraid of humans. I read from many blogs how unfriendly these monkeys are and monkey bites aren't nice. We tried to stay away. Zaky who freaked out previously at close encounter with monkeys responded quite well.

We finally made it to the entrance of the 1st part of the cave at 250+ steps. Everyone was very much alive. Looks so mysterious.

The cave was huge but human invasion has damaged the natural landscape. There were some ceremonies ongoing.

It was a limestone cave with natural lighting. Daddy Lim took this super artistic shot. He didn't include us, chey!

We climbed the remaining steps to another part of the cave.

It was much smaller this time. Some other rituals were ongoing. We were more interested in the monkeys that scale the rock wall on one side. Can you see them?

The monkeys made their way down to find human food. They are skillful taking out what can be eaten and discarding the rest.

We didn't stay long and started the descend to the Dark Cave. After the hard climb, our legs were turning to jelly as we made our way down.

The Dark Cave is near to the Batu Cave, at about the 230 steps point. Educational tours were being carried out at RM35 per adult and RM25 per kid. It was a good 30 mins wait but we decided to sign up. We entertained ourselves by reading the informative boards put up. Zaky didn't want to read and was happily snapping pictures.

The tour was about 30 mins and totally worth the entrance fee and the wait!

We were given a mini torchlight and a guide brought us into the cave, explaining the history, structure as well as different living organisms in the cave. It was an eye opener! Different kind of animals/ insects live in different part of the cave depending on amount of light, humidity. Part of the cave was totally pitch dark.

We saw rock formation that I only read about in books or saw on TV!

It was so good. The kids had fun bcos it was an adventure. Lol.

After the tour, we continued our ascend down. Jelly legs, jelly legs. We had to constantly remind Zaky to take it slowly. No accidents. Yeah! The only picture that we had as a family so far.

We managed to get a cab to Berjaya Times Square. I read that cabs would easily quote RM50. This taxi uncle only quoted us RM35, claiming some traffic jam. Zaky fell asleep in the cab and we had peace. The taxi uncle was chatty. It was interesting that all the taxi uncles that we met were super chatty and entertaining.

Mummy Lim