Batu Caves

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

If you take one of the KL

train lines to its final stop,

you can visit the Batu Caves.

It is a limestone hill said to

be 400 million years old.

It is one of the most popular

Hindu shrines outside of India.

To reach the caves you must

climb an extremely long

series of concrete steps.

At first you will admire the

statues, like this gathering

of Ganeshas.

Very quickly though, the intense

Malaysian heat begins to overcome

you.  Don't worry about that though,

you will have a new distraction.

Notice the little figure on the

5th step in this picture.

Yup, monkeys.

At first glance, you will think

awwww, how cute is this

monkey with his coconut.

All too soon you realize the monkeys

get most of their food by stealing

items from unsuspecting visitors.

We know this from experience,

one of them snuck through an

opening in the railing and grabbed

a bag Rob had in his hand.  Rob

held tight and pulled it back but

we have heard tales of the monkeys

stealing cell phones and purses too.

Eventually, you reach the top

of the steps and enter the cave.

Since "Go Spelunking" is never

going to be on my Bucket List,

I was happy to see there was

an opening in the cave and we

could still see the sky.

Inside were a variety

of shrines

and cave temples.

And more stairs and monkeys.

Figuring the acoustics would be

quite interesting inside the cave,

when a monkey started to approach

me I didn't want to disturb the

other visitors to the shrine.

So, I stamped my foot at the monkey,

he sat back, gave me a long look and

rolled his eyes.  Imagine the attitude

of a 14 year old American teenager...

As we were exiting the cave,

someone said, "Hey, who wants

to go to the dark cave now?"

Yeah... that's me, in the pink shirt,

just about running down the steps.