My favorite night in Kuala Lumpur

Batu Caves
April 19, 2009

My favorite night in Kuala Lumpur was the night we visited the Batu Caves.

The Batu Caves are huge natural limestone caves a little distance outside Kuala Lumpur that have been turned into a place for devoted Hindus to pay homage. Several important Hindu shrines have been placed into the caves, and can be reached by climbing the 272 steps up to the mouth of the big cave. Once a year, a huge festival takes place here, with thousands of devotees coming from miles around. This festival is famous for the especially devoted pilgrims that stick silver skewers into their tongues and cheeks and carry heavy burdens (heavy jars of milk, for example) for miles to present to the shrine. Our journey was much easier than that, no special body piercings and the only heavy thing I carried was my camera. In fact, our journey was surprisingly and serendipitously easy and fulfilling.

Before we started, I had seriously doubted our success in finding the caves. We had planned to go in the morning, but before we knew it, we had napped and interneted and tv’d the day away. It was late afternoon when we finally got around. We decided to go exploring, since we didn’t have much time left in KL. The vague directions to get to the correct bus were from my 2 year old Lonely Planet guidebook (which had been wrong soooo many times in the past) but we were determined to try. After a bit of wandering, we stumbled perfectly onto the correct bus station, and luck had it that the correct bus was just getting ready to leave. It was fate. For a couple of Malaysian ringgit (less than $1) we were able to take the bus, full of locals, that dropped us off right in front of the caves. As we were walking towards the cave entrance, there were many little shops set up selling beautiful flower garlands. I knew from watching Bollywood films and movies about India that these garlands were sometimes placed on shrines. I imagined it as an exchange for prayers and blessings. Since I had been going through a lot of personal turmoil and was trying to figure out a lot of big life decisions, I figured it wouldn‘t hurt to have a go at getting a flower garland to decorate a shrine. And of course, I wanted to fully experience the visit. As I was buying it, I chatted with the nice old guy making the garlands--I wanted to get his explanation of what they are for. It was a little difficult to understand his English, but I’m pretty sure he was telling me to put it around my neck, like a necklace. I didn’t want to look disrespectful like I was ignoring or disobeying him, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but feeling a bit sacrilegious about wearing something I thought was for the shrines only. But, I put it around my neck anyway, and we walked in. As soon as we entered the gates and walked into the area around the caves, we were the center of attention. There were not any tourists that I could see, and it was exactly as if we had walked into a small town in India, or possibly the set of a Bollywood movie.

As we walked toward the steps leading up to the cave mouth, we were stared at, as though we were walking down a catwalk. People parted and stared. Men in the nearby cafes stopped eating to watch us. Entire families, with the beautiful women and girls colorfully dressed in saris, stopped talking and looked at us. Children screamed. (okay, so maybe I am exaggerating a bit now, but it was weird.) At first, I thought it must be because not many tourists visited the caves, except for during the big festival. Then my heart sank as I realized they were probably upset at me for wearing their sacred flower garland as a necklace!!! No!!! How horrible of me!! I was going to be struck down!!! I was so nervous and embarrassed! Just as I was trying to think of a clever way to sneak the flowers off my head, two teenage boys came up and asked to take a picture. I was not in a position to say no, so I somewhat reluctantly posed for a picture. Then we continued walking towards the steps.

Soon, we were approached by an older guy. Luckily, he spoke English really well, so we soon learned that he worked at the caves as a chanter of religious songs in front of the shrines. After I heard that, I had so many questions for him!! I asked if it was okay that I wore the flowers as I did. (It was.) I asked if he would chant for us so we could hear him. (He would) I asked if he would show us around and show us what to do, so we could be like the natives and not tourists. (He would love to.) He showed us that we should take off our shoes before climbing the stairs, as the locals do. He introduced us to the priests at the different shrines. He asked the priests to pray for us and they did. We didn’t understand what they were saying, but every once in awhile we would hear our names. We got the red marks on our forehead, and also white marks. I asked what the different marks meant. (But I don’t remember now.)

The most spiritual moment was when we were seated in front of a big shrine and he chanted 3 whole songs for us. He used a microphone and his voice echoed throughout the tall cave. Even though we didn’t know the words he was singing, they held an eerie power that cannot be explained. Staci and I were both lost in our own thoughts and prayers and dreams but his words were so moving that we both had tears in our eyes. When he finished, we thanked him profusely and gave our tithes like true devotees. We even received some blessed fruit and another flower garland that had been draped on the shrine. We also rang a huge bell, to let our prayers be heard. After that, we descended the stairs, me very reluctantly and sadly. I did not want to leave. I wanted that night to continue and continue.

As we neared the bottom of the stairs, our guide invited us to eat and took us to a nearby restaurant and then took us to catch the bus. As the perfect ending to the perfect night, we walked up to the bus station just minutes before the bus came to take us back to the real world.