Long Weekends and Religious Holidays

Due to several well placed Public Holidays, I found myself with an unprecedented five day weekend. Last Thursday 24th Jan was the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, and so naturally a day off here in KL. Yesterday, Sunday 27th was the Hindu festival of Thaipusam, and again naturally, since this fell on a weekend, a replacement holiday was given for the next day. Therefore by taking Friday 25th off work, it gave me a nice long weekend with nothing to do.

Seeking to occupy my time with some worthwhile adventures, an opportunity arose to see the Thaipusam festivities in the historic island of Penang, north of KL. With everything in place for a long weekend there, I was looking forward to the trip. Which probably explains why on the Friday, the trip was cancelled due to some unforeseen event. I was left with nothing to do now for the remaining days.

Luckily I managed to go watch the celebrations here in KL at the Batu Caves on the Sunday. These caves are extraordinarily beautiful located about half way up a rock face. To get to it and the Temple inside, the pilgrims must walk up 250 odd steps that at some point are practically vertical. Once inside the natural beauty of the caves mixes with the mysticism of the Hindu Temple to create a fairly stunning image.

Due to the importance of this Temple, many of the nearby Hindu’s also came that day, and according to reports there were estimated to be just over a million people.

So there we were cramming in with the rest of them watching as devotees pierced themselves with metal hooks and spikes and journeyed around the base of the caves, and then eventually up the steps into the Temple. We too undertook the journey in the baking heat of midday, (minus the piercing’s of course), and found ourselves inching along the massive queue up the steps. In the heat, I lost track of the time but afterwards realised that the journey up the steps, and a quick look into the Temple set us back close to 1.5 hours, though it seemed a lot longer.

Suffices to say that the Trances and the Piercings were definitely shocking to witness. I personally saw one man spew out blood during his trance, which I later attributed to him biting his tongue during the event.

All in all it was a very interesting experience, one that I shall not quite easily forget. As usual, pictures and videos to follow.