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 Known as the rock
caves in English, Batu Caves is located
just thirteen kilometers away from
Kuala Lumpur's central business district and
just outside the city limits whereby these limestone
caves are a popular place of interest for the
annual Thaipusam festival. Batu Caves, in the
district of Gombak, is the home of the main
Hindu shrine in Malaysia and it was discovered
by William Hornaby, an American naturalist in
the 1800s. The festival is a spectacular affair
which attracts thousands of devotees to this
famous Hindu temple and is a place of
pilgrimage for the Hindus.
There are several
caves within the Batu Caves complex. The main
Temple Cave at the top has a ceiling of over 100 meters and is
decorated with Hindu shrines. To reach it, one
has to climb a steep flight of 272 steps, a feat
performed by as many as 100,000 devotees during Thaipusam while at
Photo: Batu Caves the bottom of the cave, an
interesting
art gallery can be seen here whereby visitors
have the chance to look at the colorful statues
and wall paintings of Hindu deities and also the
characters from the Hindu mythology. Visitors
too can feed the monkeys and pigeons which roam
freely around the temple grounds at this famous
tourist attraction in Selangor.
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