Malaysia Part 6 - Batu Caves & Pasar Seni

Friday 13th July

Batu Caves

Not far out of Kuala Lumpur is some limestone caves. The Batu caves are named after the Batu river that flows nearby.
Quite a few tourists visit the caves but it is also very popular with the locals. There is an Indian population in Malaysia who are Hindus.

I'm not sure when they extended the rail system to include Batu Caves but it has made it very accessible for Hindu people to go to the temples. The fare from KL Sentral to Batu Caves is 2 ringgit.

The first thing you notice when entering the gates is the big green statue of Hanuman and shrine. I saw quite a few Indian people take their shoes off and bow to the statues in the temple. I dont know much about Hindu gods.

Walking a little further, there is an impressive sight! A huge golden statue of Lord Murugan. The statue is around 50m high and was erected in 2006. Leading into the caves is a lot of stairs! The guides say there are 272 of them. It was a bit of a tough climb for some and I saw lots of tourists stopping at the side to catch their breath. Personally I'm fine going up the stairs but the ol' knees dont like coming down.

At the top of the stairs is a giant archway leading into a big cave called the Temple or Cathedral Cave. This temple is dedicated to Lord Murugan. You can walk back inside the cavern and see hindu shrines lining the walls.


Wandering around the site are a lot of macaque monkeys. I thought they were really cute. They are not like ones I have seen in Indonesia as they do not seem as cheeky. We didnt have to hang on to our hats or any loose belongings.
They sell bags of bananas and peanuts that you can feed the monkeys. Since a lot of tourists buy these, the monkeys are quite friendly and come very close. I did see some European tourists feeding one monkey some McDonalds.... dont know how healthy that is for the monkey.

This reminded me of an Indiana Jones movie

Half way up the big staircase there is the entrance to the Dark Caves. The caves have been taken over by a conservation group and you can do a paid tour.
Inside the caves live many bats, spiders, cockroaches and caterpillars. There are a few species that are not found anywhere else in the world.
In the middle passage there were a lot of stalactites and stalagmites that reminded me of Jenolan caves in Aust.

As the name suggests, there isnt much light in the dark caves and it was just interesting to see how a whole ecosystem exists in such dark, damp and cold (compared to the rest of tropical Malaysia) environment.



Pasar Seni - Central Markets

After visiting the Batu Caves, we took the train back to Pasar Seni. The Central Market (Pasar Seni) is a light blue building that used to be the site of the wet markets. The locals used to buy/sell fruit and vegetables as well as meat and fish here. The floor was usually wet from melting ice and water used to clean the floors hence the name "wet markets."

The old wet market site wasnt torn down when the markets moved but instead it became a market for Malaysian handicraft and various knick knacks. Outside there are lots of stalls with people selling the same kind of knock-off merchandise as in Chinatown but here you dont have to bargain much and the prices are much lower and more reasonable.In fact, some of them set the price of the product so you dont bargain at all.

It is really nice to wander around and look at the Malaysian handicraft inside the Central Market. I found a store with some batik goods. Some of the handcrafted goods inside can be quite expensive.

Pasar Seni is a short walk from Petaling Street and Chinatown.