Awesome Hindu’s Thaipusam Festival At Batu Caves

Jam at MRR2 near to Batu Caves.

Thaipusam o Thaipusam. Last time, friends always invited me to go photoshoot at Thaipusam but I always didn’t go with them. Last year, I got to see a little part of Thaipusam happened at Dato Keramat of Penang where people throw coconut for praying and I got to join in with my friend Arron and Chien Chern.

When I was back in Penang few weeks ago, I thought “OMG, I am gonna miss Thaipusam this year because I will not be in Penang at that time”. Then I thought again, “I can celebrate and check it out in KL!”.

Parking by the roadside like 2KM before Batu Caves. Really crazy man. Clap for us as we parked close. Hehe.

Yeah, KL, Kuala Lumpur is one of the place that celebrate Thaipusam too, besides Penang. So on the day itself, I didn’t go there as early as those photography enthusiast does, I went there after lunch in the afternoon with Arron again, but this time not Chien Chern, instead is a girl, Carmen from Penang too! Both of them residing far at Sepang and only get to come down to town during holidays and went to check out the Thaipusam festival at Batu Caves.

At first we thought of not going there because was afraid of traffic congestion and hard to find parking but after checking through the net about the traffic, it was just all clear only until near to Batu Caves. Really surprise that the traffic was super duper smooth all the way from Bandar Sunway to MRR2 near Batu Caves, there’s not even a little jam, really weird. LDP is an expressway that is always jam or slow but that day was just an exception.

While our vehicle getting close to Batu Caves, there’s already vehicle parking by the roadside as far as 2KM from Batu Caves. We didn’t want to park there as it was hot and we kept on believe that there will be parking space for us at a nearer spot.

There’s even illegal parking collector collecting a fee of RM10. Being a stingy person, we didn’t want to park there and we got moving and we found a nice place, just less than 500m from Batu Caves, according to the GPS. Haha.

Me, Arron and Carmen. All Penang-kia.

We should have take the KTM to Batu Caves as the station was just right beside it. But one thing, KTM sucks! Slow and dirty.

Yay, we reached Batu Caves safely and I was pretty excited because I got to take photos. I should have bring my DSLR with me but then this trip to Batu Caves was quite spontaneous as we didn’t really plan the trip. Luckily I have my Panasonic with me and it served me well all the time.

The weather was pretty hot and sunny. Perhaps it’s Thaipusam. Anyway, since we were here, so it’s nothing good of hiding under the shade, so we just keep walking where everyone was walking to, the cave, the Batu Caves.

Well, Tzu-Chi went there to remind people not to throw rubbish on the floor but…

In case you don’t know, Thaipusam is a religious festival of the Hindu. According to Wikipedia, Thaipusam is a Hindu festival celebrated mostly by the Tamil community on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai (January/February).

Rocks is that Malaysia is a multi-racial country where I can join the fun too! =)

Outside the famous Sri Subramaniar Swamy temple.

Frankly, I felt I was in Indian when I was there. Haha. It’s Indian anywhere! And they are friendly too. =)

Your current Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib. Haha. He is real big.

I say peace as it’s awesome. =)

Red Air Asia clowns. Cute.

Saw many sponsor booths at there and one of which is Air Asia which attracted me as the booth had the most crowds. Though, I didn’t get close because I didn’t know what was speaking on the speaker, it’s all tamil and I knew nothing, except “nan-de-ri” or something which means thank you.

Slums of Batu Caves.

Well, what you see is Malaysia, not India. It’s just not good with the trash management where trash are everywhere. I was actually keen to see Indian poking mouths and body but instead, I only saw them carrying the heavy kawadee up hill to the cave. As for poking stuff, I saw it in Penang last time.

Us before going out and was trying to capture the statue behind but failed.

Well, I have no idea what the people standing by the rail were looking at, it sounds as if we were supe
rstar, just without the red carpet.

Awesome art craft.

The cave wasn’t very tall or high after all, like about 5-6 storeys high but then the stairs up there was very steep. I really salute the people who carry the kawadee up, and kawadee is the thing that they carry on the back with their god statue on it.

Here we go. Up and down.

Another thing I saw was, the Indian devotees went up the stairs barefooted! It was a hot day and they walked barefooted. Really power.

Since there’s so many people on the stairs, we walked slowly and carefully, about 15 minutes, we reached the top. Many medical helpers were on standby there as some were almost fainted due to the heat.

Beautiful huge cave. I like it.

It was my first time being a nature cave and it is pretty. I love caves now. It’s not just a hole in the hill but it’s really a big caves which can house many people in there and there’s also a hole on top overlooking the sky. It would be creepy during full moon where moon shines in and a werewolf or vampire turned up. Haha.

Monkeys!

Smiling Indian kid.

Can you see the crowds? They just keep flowing in the cave.

Spent about 10 minutes in there, walking around and take a little photos then we went back down. It was just too crowded in there and a little bit smelly, no idea what smell was that..

It wasn’t that traffic jam when we was there, it was after we came. Really powerful.

And again, they were standing by the rail and looking at us. Hmm. Superstar?

Yummy juicy coconut!

The weather turned a little bit hotter after we came down and it was just burning all over our skins. How I wish I could get into an air-conditioned place as soon as possible and then we found coconut stalls. Bought a coconut for each of us then we drank, really quenching and the coconut meat was so awesome, young and juicy. Rocks. Only downside was that it’s not cold. It’s warm!

And so, I concluded my trip to Batu Caves and we all said it was real awesome. Another place is visited in Kuala Lumpur, time to go for the next place. =D Any recommendation of place to go in Selangor area?