Batu Caves

Today, after catching up on our sleep Samantha and I visited that famous Batu Caves. The caves located at the top of a small mountain. To get there you have to climb straight up over 200 steps! To the side of the steps is a huge gold statue of some Hindu god (Samantha and I had a hard time reading up on what all the statues were because there wasn't plaques or brochures anywhere at the caves, so I apologize for the vagueness). There were tons of monkeys on our climb up. One monkey stole a tourists water bottle! After catching our breath at the top of the stairs we entered the caves. They were huge!!! Inside there were multiple small shrines to the Hindu deities. And tons of pigeons and monkeys! Then we climbed another 30 or so stairs to another cave with more monkeys and shrines. The monkeys were really cute! The shrines were kind of disappointing because of all the grandeur of the other cool shrines we have seen on this trip. The walk down the stairs was much easier than the walk up! At the bottom of the stairs was another set of caves. To enter those caves, we walked over a pretty pond, teeming with koi fish. There were also a couple pretty waterfalls adorned with huge pink metal flowers. On the other side of the pond, there was a stage that had a traditional Hindu dance performance going on. We sat and watched the end of the performance and then went to see the other caves. On the way there, there were birdcages, a snake pen, and couple monkey cages. The first cave just had shrines, the second cave had shrines and a reptile exhibit. The reptile exhibit was very sketchy. These dangerous snakes were held in rickety cages. Some of the cages didn't have anything in them..which kind of made us think that the old inhabitant had escaped. It was very creepy. Overall, the caves were impressive and it was a very interesting place!