Temple fatigue is real, especially when all of the temples we’ve visited in SEA have been Buddhist. Batu Caves, probably the single biggest attraction in the Kuala Lumpur area, offers up a Hindu response. While it’s a general tourist draw, there were a lot of Indians in attendance, which I assume is a combination of the substantial local Indian population and tourists. We are not, after all, that far.

If you’d never seen a Hindu temple, it would be hard to imagine that Buddhist temples were attempting to take it down a notch. Give credit where it’s due, though, as It takes a fair amount of effort to make a Buddhist temple look restrained. Unapologetically lurid, Hindu temples are a brightly colored rebuke to the very notion of moderation. Give the people what they want: tall tales and flamboyant displays.

The Batu Caves site is actually two attractions piled atop one another. There’s Batu itself, which is a Hindu temple built inside a limestone cave and dedicated to Lord Murugan, the Hindu god of war, in 1891. The 140 foot tall statue of Lord Murugan was erected in 2006, and still has that new deity smell.

The other attraction is the Ramayana Cave, home to several Suyambu Lingam, or naturally occurring Shiva Lingams. What I might call stalagmites. But I have no connection to the divine, because I’m a peasant. The other feature of Ramayana Cave, which gives it its name, is a series of dioramas depicting scenes from the Ramayana. I’m not 100% sure when they were installed, although they’re clearly modern, or if there were more primitive installations before these, but they certainly take advantage of the natural cave system.

The Grounds

The grounds feature a handful of bonus temples, beyond those built in the Batu Caves, and a metric buttload of fucking monkeys. So many monkeys. I submit to you that there are monkeys that are cute, both visually and behaviorally. Macaques are not those monkeys. They are rats with prehensile tails. The collective noun for macaques is infestation. Look it up.

Are these adorable? They are not. They are evil.

Cute? No. Clearly retreating to their lair so they can plot against us.

Practicing boarding techniques for ship-to-ship warfare. And you thought your yacht was safe.

You know what’s even worse than macaques? People.

Vendors were selling bananas for the express purpose of feeding the monkeys. No one needs a hand of bananas at a temple. These jamokes were teaching the monkeys that if a human was holding a banana it was theirs by divine right. Droit du fucking seigneur. [This is called foreshadowing, by the way.]

This is the big not-in-a-cave temple.

So I go into that last temple, which is a no-shoe temple, as they do. But I walked past this on the way up, and there is no fucking way I’m leaving my shoes for the thieving macaques. So I take them off and carry them in, all respectful like. But everyone starts gesturing and yelling at me, in a very chill Hindu way, until it finally dawns on me that even carrying my shoes is verboten. They force me back out to set them down on top of the steps, but that was the fastest temple visit I’ve ever done, and I was looking over my shoulder the whole time. There was no way I was letting the little terrorists run off with my shoes.

The Ramayana Cave

My first stop was the Ramayana Cave, an installation that strongly suggested that LSD is part of the Hindu sacrament. God loves all his children, but especially when they’re tripping. And then we love Him right back.

The approach certainly set the stage.

The immediate response on entering is to look for the disco ball. Color changing LEDs appear to have revolutionized the Hindu religion.

The true and real attraction, disco lighting notwithstanding, was the Ramayana dioramas. Spectacular.

Come for the Suyambu Lingam, stay for the trippy lighting.

Batu Caves

Everything about the approach to the Batu Caves is epically proportioned. A massive, 140 foot tall golden statue of Lord Murugan stands in front of the 1,000 foot tall limestone bluff and to one side of the 272 colorfully painted steps that lead to the first of the caves and temples. A temple sits to the left of the stairs and is dwarfed by its surroundings. It is truly breathtaking.

You’ll be surprised to learn that there are macaques all over the damn place. I refuse to call them monkeys, because I think it’s insulting to other monkeys.

Once the 272 steps have been surmounted, the vista opens up. That’s some cave.

On my way into this temple I was offered a piece of waxed paper with some kind of rice goo on it. I asked if I was supposed to use it as an offering and was told that it was their special blessed rice goo and was a free snack. OK. Then I stood in line briefly so this next guy could magically transform a 10rm note into a smear of ash on my forehead. It’s a miracle! He also gave me a banana.

I had to ask at the rice station what I was supposed to do with the banana, and they looked at me like I’d taken a blow to the head and explained that it was a snack. And that the common practice with snacks was to eat them.

So, with ash on forehead and banana in hand, I take the next set of 100 stairs to the penthouse temple.

If you know your classic literature, you know that a banana in the first act always goes off in the third (I even called out the foreshadowing for you, because I like you, but you’re a little slow).

Next thing I know, I’m being trailed by one of the fucking macaques. Not this one specifically, as I was too busy fending off a macaque attack to take a picture for you. Get over it.

This little bandit has locked eyes on my banana. I switch it to my left hand, further away from him, and he’s tracking it like DefCon One has been declared. Back to my right hand, left hand, right hand, and he’s tracking every millimeter of movement while inching closer. I’d seen what one of his mates had done to that poor woman in the square, and she was trying to feed them.

I finally tossed the banana over his head, away from me, so I could draw him off and finish my 100-stair climb, safety trumping snackage. Fucker leapt for it and gave a distinct what-are-you-doing-with-my-banana vibe. And I thought white people were entitled.

To everyone’s surprise, there was another temple in the attic. More ashes, please.

But I watched the guy after me, and the priest dude ducked back into the alcove and came back with a little golden statue. Merch! Maybe he donated more than 10rm, maybe there’s a secret handshake, but all I got was ashes. I wasn’t even offered a banana, but I knew better by that point anyway.

Past that temple, the space opens up into a limestone chamber soaring over 300 feet and open to the sky, like a Yucatán cenote. It’s a spectacular space, and the perfect cake topper for a truly beautiful site.

Sometimes tourist places are meh, and sometimes you totally get why people bother. Batu Caves paid off.

But not until the descent. No one bothered to explain that there were also 272 steps down. That seems like a thing you’d want to know.

But Wait, It’s A Hindupalooza

Everywhere else we’ve been in SEA, Hinduism is a palimpsest, overwritten by whatever local flavor of Buddhism has taken root. You can see its traces, most obviously in the Ramayana, but even that’s picked up Buddhist flavoring along the way.

Not so Malaysia, where Hinduism stands on its own. It has to be the Indian population. Malaysia has the most Indians of any of the SEA countries, both in terms of raw numbers (almost 3M) and percentage of the total population (about 7%).

So it’s no surprise that a substantial Hindu temple, Sri Maha Mariamman, can be found in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown. It’s not a massive structure, but it’s still the oldest Hindu temple in Malaysia, having been established in 1873. Its current structures were built in 1968. It looks like nothing so much as the temples we saw in Mumbai (before this adventure, so no blog posts about that trip).

This is a working temple, an active place of worship for KL’s Hindu population. And while it might lack the overwhelming scale of Batu Caves, it makes up for it with the quality of the execution. This was a Grade A Prime Hindu temple.

The temple’s interior.

The grounds were full of really well done sculptures and dioramas.

He who loves Ganesh is my friend.

There were galleries on both sides of the temple, flanking the exterior, with truly excellent tile paintings.

What a lovely addition to the Batu Caves tour. It will be interesting to see if the Hindu temple is part and parcel of the Malaysian experience, or if these were sports. If this is all there is, I’m satisfied. This is quality, quality templeage.