How to Go to Batu Caves for the Thaipusam Festival

I guess it’s pretty typical. You tend not to see the tourist attractions of your own city, because you take it for granted. I mean, I’ve been to the famous Batu Caves Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur once before, but only because a new foreign friend wanted to see it. So, when my colleague – herself newly returned from diaspora – suggested going to Batu Caves on the Thaipusam festival, I figured, if not now, then when? 

The Hindu festival of Thaipusam

Not being Hindu myself, my knowledge of Thaipusam is fairly superficial. But in a nutshell, Thaipusam is a Hindu holy day related to the theology around the deity, Lord Muruga.

In Malaysia, the cave temple of Batu Caves is a key focal point of the celebration, as it is a temple dedicated to this god. Devout pilgrims bring offerings to Lord Muruga and make their way to Batu Caves in the days coming up to, and culminating on, Thaipusam day. 

One of the more famous features of Thaipusam pilgrimage is the kavadi. This is a rite related to the fulfilment of a supplication made to the deity, and involves some kind of physical burden.

Visually striking, it often involves bearing decorated canopies up to the temple, or pots of milk. Some pilgrims have spears pierced across their cheeks, or hooks upon their flesh. Man, woman, or even child, the devout offer their devotion in this way on Thaipusam. 

When is the Thaipusam festival?

The answer to the question of when Malaysian festivals take place often confuses foreigners. For many of our holidays, just because it was a certain date when someone came here, does not mean that next year it is that date again.

Most people will explain by saying, the dates ‘move’. In reality, none of the dates of these holidays ‘move’. They all stay on the same date, every year – when considered against their own calendar. This includes Hindu festivals like Thaipusam, because the Hindu faith has their own calendar.

You see, when you ask, ‘when is such and such festival’, what you’re really asking is, ‘give me the date in my calendar‘. And so, it appears to move, because the different groups all reckon years differently, have different rules in deciding when a holy day is, and the various lunar calendars correct against the solar Gregorian calendar differently (or in the case of the Islamic calendar, not at all).

In Malaysia there is not one calendar used by the people – we have at least four! Check local holiday timing before booking your flights!

But to answer the question: Thaipusam occurs in the early part of the year, in the Tamil month of Thai, which corresponds to a day sometime in late January to early February. 

Getting to Batu Caves

It is easy to get to Batu Caves from the more central parts of Kuala Lumpur. 

The cheapest option is by train, via the Komuter rail service. It’s pretty easy to figure out, since Batu Caves is the terminus station of one of only two lines. The Komuter train can be boarded from KL Sentral station.

Of course you can also get there by road – taxi, GrabCar, or bus, in declining order of expense. But if I were going by road, I might as well take Grab rather than the bus, to be honest. With one exception: the KL Hop On Hop Off double decker tourist bus also goes to Batu Caves. You can get tickets at their number 1 stop in the trendy district of Bukit Bintang. 

If you have your own car, you can also easily drive there, and park in the area next to the cave steps. 

Getting to Batu Caves, on Thaipusam day 

While it is quite straightforward to get to Batu Caves, there are a few considerations if you are going on Thaipusam day. Thaipusam is a major pilgrimage festival, to a temple site in a fairly dense urban location. Pilgrims don’t just come from around Malaysia, but from elsewhere in the region as well – maybe even beyond. I saw a clearly Caucasian Hindu pilgrim, bearing a kavadi offering in the procession. 

I would not – repeat, not – go to Batu Caves by car on Thaipusam day. The open spaces before the temple have festival market stalls set up, so the usual car parking is not available. Not only that there will be many actual festival participants who will quickly occupy parking spaces anywhere near the vicinity. You could try to find a parking spot, but the more pertinent question is, why would you torture yourself in this way? Why??

The public transport options are all still in play. On Thaipusam day, the area around the temple is super congested, so your taxi or Grab would still have to battle through the traffic. 

If you go with the train option, you’ll skip the road congestion, but the crowds on the train platforms are overwhelming! We went by train to Batu Caves, but decided to find a taxi for the return journey.

What was it like to take the Komuter train to Batu Caves, on Thaipusam?

The Komuter train line to Batu Caves carries passengers from its starting station in the further southern suburbs of the Greater Klang Valley. Generally the line is intended to ferry commuters from the suburbs, and pour them out at the various business districts of Kuala Lumpur.

But on Thaipusam day, this is not what happens. By the time it gets to KL Sentral, it is more than likely that the train is already carrying a full load of pilgrims from all the previous stops. I’m not sure there are even non-pilgrim passengers on this day, on that route! The trains might be so full, you could have to pass on one or two trains. Unlike other days, nobody is getting off at KL Sentral on Thaipusam. 

Eventually there came a train car we thought we could push into, and we squished ourselves in. 

When you get to Batu Caves, there will be so many passengers all getting off at the same station, which ordinarily gets nowhere near that amount of people. So many, that they had an on/off system at the platform to manage the huge crowds.

It worked this way: The entire platform was completely cleared, before the arriving train doors open. Then, everyone arriving must exit the station completely and immediately. Only then are the crowds outside the station waiting to get on, allowed to get on the platforms to board the departing train. If for some reason you managed to linger on the platform, you might be crushed by this reverse flow. 

Kavadi procession at Batu Caves on Thaipusam

The main attraction of the Thaipusam celebration at Batu Caves, is obviously the kavadi bearers. Brightly coloured floats borne on the backs of devotees, often adorned by flowers and peacock feathers, pass across the plaza in front of the famous long steps of the cave temple. Drummers and dancers, most of them in Indian traditional clothing, fill in the intervals. It’s really something to observe! 

My colleagues and I managed to make our way close enough where we could see the floats. On the ground, it was quite difficult to see where the procession path is supposed to be.

Curious crowds of onlookers and tourists, local and foreign alike, crowded into it so that the kavadi bearers sometimes had to deviate slightly to avoid them. Cameras on long sticks, cameras close up to the kavadi bearers – height was an advantage.

People pushed further in, arms snaked through gaps to snap quick photos. Several people nipped into the path to get that coveted frontal approach shot. But new people flood into the spaces they vacate, so that gradually the crowds began to almost merge into the procession. 

Tourism and the Fear of Missing Out.

There’s something about an atmosphere like that – a colourful and rhythmic procession that’s difficult to resist, the strangeness of the offerings that look macabre to the eyes of the non-believer. Most of all, everyone around you vying to take that shot that would be the most special one of all. 

The millennial age has made an acronym for this: FOMO. 

I found myself succumbing to the competition, and began crowding in too. Why, wasn’t I a travel blogger? Isn’t it my responsibility? 

I only came to my senses when I found myself snapping a close-up photo of a particular kavadi bearer, resting on a stool with his head bowed beneath the heavy canopy that he had borne on his body up to that point, his family giving him water and fanning him.

He was just a boy. A young teenager. When did I get so close? I had not seen the people at all, except only through the camera phone’s display screen. 

And I have never done it again since. You could say… when the impulse strikes, I thrust a vel into my ego and kill it. 

The Thaipusam market of Batu Caves

But the kavadi procession is not the only interesting thing about the Thaipusam celebration at Batu Caves. A market springs up in the open plaza around the site before Thaipusam, which ordinarily is the vehicle parking area. The Indian community comes out in force. 

Stalls upon stalls bedecked with colourful clothing, trails of beads, bangles and bling. Stalls piled with Indian sweets (very sweet!), vibrant in colour. There were stalls to get your ears pierced, and stalls for henna. And stalls selling just random things as well, like there might be in a typical Asian night market. 

I expected Bollywood and Tamil music to be playing from the speakers, but blaring in one corner was I guess… Indian heavy metal? 

Some distance away, there were pavilions where devotees prepare themselves. Chairs were laid out, covered in yellow cloth, for male worshipers to get their heads shaved. 

Festival organisers and festival-goers

In another part of the market, the obligatory festival address from the local politician was being broadcast. As I passed by, I heard pieces of it. It recognised the long history of the Indian community in Kuala Lumpur, and the long history of this land with the old land of India. The politician took the moment to announce a new government policy giving a visa waiver for Indian nationals. 

I remember wondering how real the promise was, in this pyrite age of convenience politics. 

We wandered further away from the temple steps, and one section of the market seemed to have already packed up and left. In their wake, a sight so common following festivals: rubbish. 

By the overpass, a local religious organisation had set up a booth area. A man was speaking into the microphone, appealing to municipal workers to quickly clear the overflowing bins. 

The story of Penang’s Thaipusam chariot in gold

We had ambitions of returning the same way we came: by train. But the pavilions giving shade near the train station were completely full. In the increasing heat of the day, we were a lot less in the mood to join the crush, compared to the morning. 

So we wandered off to the edges of the market, where the streets were rimmed with long lines of parked cars. Fortunately, we located a taxi before long, and gratefully entered into air-conditioned comfort. 

On the way back to the city centre, my colleague asked our taxi guy about the celebration. (He was Sikh, so we were not expecting him to be in the know. But taxi guys tend to be on the grapevine.)

He mentioned something about the celebration being a little bit low key that year, because the full moon was an eclipse. He also told us that the main procession had borne an idol of Lord Muruga on a silver chariot up to the cave temple.

After a pause, he said that the Penang procession up north had carried the idol on a gold chariot to their Muruga temple. He didn’t know more than that (but he did mention an important Sikh temple in India that was all in gold). 

It was later – much, much later – that I learned the gold chariot the taxi driver mentioned was only unveiled that very year. And that it caused quite a controversy! 

So, is Batu Caves on Thaipusam Day worth the trip?

Yes, absolutely.

Batu Caves on normal days is already a popular tourist attraction. But visiting Batu Caves during the Thaipusam celebration is definitely a notable cultural experience, as it is one of the many interesting festivals of Malaysia. However, there are a few things to think about to make the trip more pleasant, and to be a more responsible festival tourist. 

Tips for visiting Batu Caves for the Thaipusam festival

Are you thinking of witnessing Thaipusam festival at Batu Caves?