Ipoh 2023 - Ipoh Cave Temples Nam Thean Tong (Part 2)

 

Here is another cool photo of sunlight shinning through the limestone cave on the top. 

Here is what the outside ground area of Nam Thean Tong looked like. After a while, you kinda get the drill. All cave temples seems to have an outdoor garden too, maybe to balance off the darkness of the cave? So after going into the darkness, remember to take a walk in the light to balance back your inner energy! Just a note, there are a  lot of stray dogs around the cave temple ares, but they are quite friendly, They are probably been cared for by the cave caretaker. And their function is actually to keep the monkeys away from the temple. Every time we see some monkeys coming down from the forested area, the dogs would be the first to hear there and rush to bark at them. So I didn't minded the dogs here at all. They are working dogs! Heh.

The small garden here was pretty nice too. Again, much more modern looking that the ones in Sam Poh Tong.  More well maintained too.

A pretty pond here. Beware of the monkeys crawling all over the limestone and trees area behind ya!

One of the caretaker started talking to my husband, but not to me (figures). So like a typical temple, you could pay a small token to have incense or candle lighted up for blessing to you and your family. And since it was a pretty affordable price in ringgit, my husband decided to proceed with a blessing for his family.

I can't quite remember, but I think it's only 10rm to light this round incense and hang it outside the temple area. I mean look at it! It's so big! Totally money worth for 10rm. 

The blessing paper with my husband's family name written on it. I think it's a pretty meaningful way to visit a temple and do this, even though I didn't do any of it. I'm not a very good supporter of religious places of worship, unless for some reason I feel connected to it. 

Ipoh 2023 - Ipoh Cave Temples Nam Thean Tong (Part 1)

Walking a bit further down the road from Sam Poh Tong, was Nam Thean Tong. The name translate to Southern Sky Cave. Malaysia and Singapore were known as Nan Yang (Southern Sea) area to China. This temple was a bit smaller, and the entrance as shown in the photos above didn't gave me a very promising feel to the place. It just didn't felt like it was put together, lol.

Walking inside, there were also cave temple halls with Gods and Icons inside. 

The atmosphere here felt more modern, more cheesy. Maybe it's due to the lighting. I mean blue and green light illuminating the cave walls? Maybe like Wednesday, I am also allergic to colours! Lol.

Here is my husband for your reference on how huge the cave halls inside are like. 

Cheesy lightings.  But looked closer and you may spot some creatures inside the caves. 

Other part inside of the cave. I love how they just built stairs inside the caves. Love the natural rounded ceiling of the caves too. I wonder if these were natural.

There were more smaller cluster here and there inside the cave, each housing different Gods and Icons inside. You could spend some time exploring and looking out for them. 

Whenever there is a level looking area of the caves, they decorate it with more figurines. Small area, making it rather an intimate exploration.

Some of the figurines here looked pretty old. 

Quite a few dragons spotted inside the caves.

But most notable is this weird one just at the entrance with red lighted eye balls. Yeah, I don't feel very peaceful in this temple at all. It felt like it was just trying too hard. Very artificial. But fun, I guess.

Ipoh 2023 - Ipoh Cave Temples Sam Poh Tong (Part 3)

After spending enough time inside the caves and the inner garden, we finally decided to move on. We came out from how we went in. Above is just a photo showing how the morning sun shinning in from behind the limestones. 

As mentioned in earlier post, there is a vegetarian cafe here. It looked pretty huge too, but it wasn't open when we were there. I wouldn't have minded eating there to support it. I love temple vegetarian food in general. 

This is what the inside of the hall looked like. Simple, clean and wide And the stained glass window letting in the morning light was quite something! Seriously, can I have a house like that here?

We took a walk outside of the temple and found more multi-storey building in blue just next to it. I'm gonna guess these are guest houses for visitors to stay in during retreat. It looked pretty empty but quite well maintained. 

There was also a huge lotus pond right in front, and here I captured a lovely photos of the silhouette of a tree with the beautiful blue skies behind, with the reflection of the tree also on the lotus pond. I felt really good just standing here looking at this view. Peaceful and happy, probably because there were nobody here and that alone was just so nice.

Ipoh 2023 - Ipoh Cave Temples Sam Poh Tong (Part 2)

Walking further and further in to the cave, you will find cluster of Gods here and there. Just keep walking. Don't give up, cause there is a path way right at the very back that leads you to another magical part of this temple. It was the reason I wanted to visit this temple in the first place. 

Although the temple was pretty clean, they do leave their tables and chair just by the side of the pathway. I guess they didn't want to build cabinets in here. But the walkway going in and in was pretty cool. Imagine having a house built into the cave. How cool would that be! I've stayed in an apartment that has a wall that is part of a cave before in Italy, and it made the whole place so cooling! Like a natural aircon.

As we were visiting in the early morning, it wasn't very crowded inside. So it was comfortable to stop and linger to take photos here and there. 

Some part of the cave does get a bit narrow, but trust me, just continue on.

Walked to the very very back end until you come to an opening.  Walk through that into the light.

And you will be rewarded with an inner garden of the temple. Which is simply just magical. 

It's pretty much an inner garden, so you'll just be standing there surrounded by limestones all around you.

There is another temple built here, but for some reason, it is locked and empty. It looked so serene and eerie here in this beautiful place. You can just admire it from the front. 

It just felt like something you see from a movies or imagined from a fantasy book. Yeah, this was pretty much the highlight of my cave visit! I love caves! And this was just the first temple we visited!

Walking around the inner garden, there are mini caves with carving standing inside. I had a nice time walking around admiring them. I love these type of temple. Natural in look, not covered in gold and red.

Here are some notable ones. They looked so pretty! Even the mosaic wall they were standing on has such natural look to it.

Imagine if you can be immortalised and be sitting here in such a pretty quiet place for eternity. Yeah, I think that would be pretty awesome too! Don't you?

Ipoh 2023 - Ipoh Cave Temples Sam Poh Tong (Part 1)

Next day favourite breakfast! Kai Si Hor Fun and White Coffee. Kai Si Hor Fun is an Ipoh dish, and its like a cross between Penang Hokkien Mee and Penang Koay Teow Teng, and I love it. I even eat this dish in Penang, paying almost 8rm a bowl for it. Here, it's around 7rm 2 years ago. So I make sure I always have a bowl here.  

After breakfast, we were going temple cave exploring! Something I've always wanted to do in Ipoh since they are famous for it. I've only ever been to one cave temple in Ipoh before, and that was during schooling days when I went to Ipoh for a state chess competition. I had a paranormal experience there, and have been avoiding cave temples in Ipoh since. I can't quite remember which cave temple I went to, but I'm pretty sure it's the one nearer to Tanjung Rambutan with cliff side stairs going up and down the temple. Anyway, we were going to be visiting 3 caves this time, all clustered together. 

The very first one was Sam Poh Tong, which translated to Three Treasure Cave. Actually all the three caves are on the same road, and this one is the inner most cave. So we took a Grab taxi there from town, and hope we will be able to get a taxi ride back when we were done. The thing about Malaysia is, sometimes the attraction sights are so far away with no good public transport taking you there. So sometimes it is actually cheaper for me to travel overseas than it is to travel in Malaysia, cause the transport cost itself would be high if I have to take a Grab taxi everywhere!

Upon arriving at the first cave entrance, you instantly felt like maybe you are no longer in Malaysia. Everything looked so Chinese here that this could have well been a temple in China. The limestone background with the pretty tress and green pond in front also add to the atmosphere. Instantly you also felt calm cause you are now away from the town and roads and civilisation. 

So this was just the outside of the temple, the tall traditional gate was actually the entrance into the temple. The multi-storey building outside would probably be accommodation area for the care takers and monks of the place. Later we found that there is also a vegetarian cafe here, but it was closed when we were there. 

A different angle of the outside of the temple. There seems to be a smaller temple complex further down. I think this was the prayer hall.

Making our way towards the entrance. Although the whole front looked so grand, the actual entrance was just a narrow walkway. This actually made sense cause this was after all, a cave temple. So this was the entrance into the cave itself! How cool is that.

Once inside, everything changes again. Temperature dropped since you're now inside the cave. You also had to adjust your eyesight to the dark, There are lightings inside the cave, but where there are no Gods or Idols, or no pathway, there it remains path. There are halls and pathway inside, even stairs. 

Yeah. somehow the Gods here looked much more majestic. Almost as if they are in their natural habitat!

The halls here are odd shaped cause it depends largely on the same of the caves. The altars are built into the cave walls as well. And lightings hung mid air. It's dry inside, but some area you could hear water dripping, or damn and wet corners. 

Some icon paintings on the wall with old tiles.