I took one of the train lines out of town to get there, which only cost about 30 cents. The stop is right next to the caves, and the first thing you see upon leaving is a giant statue of the Hindu god Hanuman. A few steps further towards the caves and there's an even bigger statue of Murugan, as well as the stairs leading up to the caves themselves.
I went to the shrine part first, which is in a large cave chamber that's fairly well lit by openings in the top of the cave. There were little statues and shrines throughout the cave, but the cave itself was the more impressive part.
The more interesting part of the caves for me was the natural, untouched part. Tours into the cave system cost about $10, which is a lot for Malaysia but still pretty reasonable. The only source of energy getting into the caves is through the guano of the fruit and insect eating bats, and this supports an ecosystem of 180 types of animals and insects. The tour was about 45 minutes, pointing out all the different limestone formations and little creatures. One of the most unexpected animals was a dog curled up in the dark deep in the caves. Apparently the dog is the 3rd generation of a family of dogs born in the caves, and has become so accustomed to them that it won't leave. It gave birth to puppies, and they hoped that caring for them would lure it out of the caves, but when they tried to remove it from the cave it just immediately ran back into them. The caves are also the only habitat of a specific type of trapdoor spiders, and contains the last 180 of them in the world.
On the way out there were lots and lots of more monkeys. No matter how many monkeys I see (a lot) I still find them incredibly fun to watch.
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