A Walk Through Batu Caves

One of the things I did on my latest travel to Malaysia was to finally visit the ever colourful Batu Caves. I've been to Kuala Lumpur a few times now but always with my hubby and he is more of a constant shopper while I'm more the adventure seeker and sight seer of our duo. This time travelling with my friends was admittedly a lot more fun because we planned a whole day tour travelling from one coast of Malaysia to the other; the first stop being the Batu Caves.

After convincing myself that the online photos of the Batu Caves would more than likely give me about seventy five heart attacks in under three minutes flat I pretty much decided for myself that I would climb maybe three steps, take a few pics and then chase the famous wild monkeys that live  amongst the caves. As luck would have it the monkeys were way up the very steep seemingly never ending top and were basically calling out to my camera so I ended up making my way up after all, climbing all 272 steps whilst fearing I was going to fall down and break my arse.

Check out the staircase on the left. Standing at the bottom, it was like looking up at the worst stairmaster you ever did see. I got half way up and thought to myself "Surely I've lost seven kilos by now". I did not. 

The climb was worth it in the end, despite the sweatiness, the awful stench of sour milk everywhere (apparently milk is left as an offering in the Hindu shrines?) and the fact that a few of the Indian people climbing the steps alongside us were rather rude; telling people to get out of the way because they were walking too slow, telling others to move off because they wanted their picture taken where someone else was already standing, etc. One guy motioned for me to move because he couldn't be bothered going around me on the very wide stairs even though I was standing still on a platform, clearly sucking for dear life on my asthma ventolin just to get myself breathing properly again before I ascended the next lot of stairs. I just looked at him while shrugging with my ventolin in my hand as if to say "I can't effing breathe right now dude...", didn't budge and made him go around. I'm pretty much convinced that if you approach people in a polite manner you can get whatever you want but being a rude and arrogant prick will get you absolutely nowhere, especially with me. There's something ingrained in me that seems to sit up straight, get its attitude out and go "Oh, Nah uh!" while wagging its finger when people get like that.

My pink Conversed feet stood their ground. Self important Indian guy = 0. Lung failure me = 1.

When we first arrived I was instantly drawn to the hanging garlands for sale and wanted to take some with me but considering they were used as religious offerings I didn't know how that would go down and wasn't sure if people would get offended or not if I wore it as a massive necklace plus there was always the slight chance I'd be an easy target for bees. Pictures had to make do, but they really were so pretty...

The colours and the physical strangeness of the statues interested me greatly and at the same time confused me. Admittedly, I don't know a lot about Hinduism.

This guy stood out to me. I was trying at first to figure out his job title then spent the rest of the time trying to read his face.

Finally found the monkeys. They were scrambling to and fro about the highest level of the cave. Keeping my distance (apparently they can be quite mischievous and slightly dangerous - rabies dangerous), I took a plethora of photos but they moved so quick it was hard to get a decent non-blurry result. Thankfully this little fella was too engrossed in his coconut to give a crap about me shoving a camera in his general direction.

His teeth - scary. Would totally eat your face off.

We went early in the morning, beating the crowds but was more than thankful to beat the midday heat. I can't imagine climbing those stairs in the hottest part of the day. I probably would've given up half way through, thrown my arms up in the air and rolled myself back down, begging for water along the way.