Visit to home of Lord Murugan - Batu caves

As decided Shriks and I were off to visit Batu caves complex next day. Catching a monorail from Bintang station for KL sentral and from KL sentral we boarded KL commuter train bound for last station Batu caves.

Best part about Kuala lumpur was its transportation with different trains and buses connected so well with heart of city that in our entire journey so far, we had never used cab more than twice.


Walk-able distance from the station, we reached caves complex, greeted by huge statue of Lord Hanuman. It was amazing to see limestone mountain with caves complex, huge statue of Lord Murugan guarding it. Wow !!!! Amazing sight of tourist feeding monkey's who would come running at the sight of coconut and banana which also forms part of prasad given in the temple.

 

First it was visit to temple of Swami Venkatachalapathi, none other than our very own Tirupati Balaji. small but beautiful. After offering prayers and capturing in our lens we moved further to small pond at the base of mountain with people feeding monkies and fish in pond. We begin our climb to cave complex, capturing Lord Murugan in our heart and in our lens.



Since it was already afternoon and sun in its prime, climb was dehydrating and tiring. We managed to reach first phase of cave complex in around 30minutes.  The cave was grandeur !!!! We were just awestruck with such a magnificent place.

 
 In first cave was temple of Lord Sri Velayuthar, On seeing us and couple of other tourist, the priest offered prayers with our names. Diya offerings here are filled with wax different as compared to diya filled with oil or ghee in India. After taking darshan we moved to main cave of Lord Murugan.

Cave of Lord Murugan was again extension of first cave and massive. We just couldn't believe our eyes. With chantings of Gayatri Mantra from speakers in the temple, Atmosphere was very peaceful. On reaching temple, we offered diya and also lit camphor fire as offering to Lord Murugan. Again the priest performed puja with our names. We were quite lucky as in both the temples after we had darshan, it was closed for two hours in afternoon. It was wonderful sight of some tourist from middle east performing puja at the temple.




After spending some time in caves, we begin our climb down and our next stop was one restaurant run by third generation tamil who's grandfather started the business since Batu cave complex was opened for public more than 100 years ago. Again it was unlimited full meal of my choice with lunch served in traditional banana leaf.

With nothing much left to see we started our journey back to station and then to our hotel. It was amazing and delightful journey one because of the place was more than grandeur and second it was journey to a place which is suppose to be single largest Hindu cultural centre outside India with more than a million visitors every year.  

One more surprise was in store for me to find the train - KL kommuter at the station not only getting cleaned by house keeping before departing but also sprayed with perfumed water in the compartment to make the journey more pleasant.  Hope to see such replication in Mumbai Metro. Anil Ambani u listening !!!!!!! 

So here we were delighted to visit Batu and sad for our journey was moving in last phase and soon coming to an end. With wonderful moments captured in our heart and in our lens we bid au revoir to Batu caves and KL for our onward journey to LANGKAWI.









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