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We left the Vinagayar temple and joined the queue at the foot of the stairs at 12pm. There was a long queue of kavadis waiting. This long queue of kavadis was forming since about 11.15am itself. From what I see, two lanes of the stairs were being used by people coming down from the cave. Those going up had to share the first lane with kavadis, and this caused a bottleneck at the stairs. Usually, the middle lane of the stairs is for the kavadis. This created an artificial crowd at bottom.
Later it was announced that the crowd who went up earlier (I presume between 10am and 12pm) did not come down immediately. Thus the cave was crowded.
We managed to start the climb at 12.30pm. While on the way up, I took some photos. It shows the crowd at the base of the stairs, leading out to about 20 – 30 metres away. The roads outside Batu Caves were jammed.
The walk up the stairs took about 11 minutes. Once inside, we found the crowd was quite a lot, but was flowing smoothly. We went about praying at both the Murugan temples. The paal kudam carriers did not have any problem unlike last year. Even the crowd at Batu Malai Murugan was less. Usually, we have to jostle to get to the arathi and get the vibuthi.
At the Valli Thevanai Murugan (the one on the inner cave), many foreign Indians were crowding the queue. Some devotees also tried throwing coconuts at the monkeys who were at the caves walls. We spent about 40 minutes in the cave. The RELA guys started to go around asking people who finished praying to leave so that others can come in.
As we started to walk to the cave entrance, we realised that the crowd going down was a lot, causing yet another jam. It took us about 15 minutes to reach the ground. Along the way done, it was announced that not a single case of missing children were recorded up to that time. However, there were announcements that pickpockets were rampant.
We stopped for drinks at the Police staff thannir panthal and also Nestle mooru panthal. The crowd was average, probably less than 3000 people. Plenty of foreigners just like in the morning. The shops were not having much visitors and the ferris wheel was running empty. Maybe its the heat that’s keeping the crowd away 🙂
We left Batu Caves at 2.30pm, having witnessed a historic event. The messages I got via SMS throughout the whole day from contacts in Port Klang, Kuala Selangor, Penang, and Johor Bahru all mentioned extraordinary turnout. The crowd in Thaipusam was just a portion of the previous years. In my opinion, from 10am till 2.30pm, there would have been maybe 30,000 visitors going up the cave. This is based on a calculation as follows:
assuming 2 out of the 3 lanes are used, and 10 people can occupy one row of stairs. the rate of people passing the stairs is set at 10 people every 5 second, which means 120 people per minute, 7200 people per hour, and 32,400 people throughout the time (4.5 hours) we were at Batu Caves. I add another 20,000 people who are on the ground (of course this is for over the 4.5 hours).
If I were to calculate the inflow of visitors via the all the gates as 50 persons every 5 seconds, that will translate into 600 persons per minute, which translates into 36,000 per hour. However, the crowd was prominent only between 10am and 3pm (5 hours). So, that will be 36,000 * 5 = 180,000 people. It was not crowded on the night before until around 10am. if I were to assume that the rate is 20 person very 5 seconds (from 6pm 22nd January until 10.00am 23rd january), that will be 20*12*60*(6+10 hours) = 230,400 people. Let’s assume the same from 3pm until night 12am on that day. So it will be 20*12*60*(9 hours) = 129,600. Thus my rough calculation shows the total visitors between 6pm 22nd January until 12am 24th January is 180,000 + 230,400 + 129,600 = 540,000 visitors.
I blogged about my visit to Batu Caves for last year’s Thaipusam, where I mentioned the crowd was there since about 8am itself until we left at 12pm. For sure this time the crowd was less. You can compare the crowd from last year and this year by viewing the photos here (coming soon).
There were many foreigners – tourists, expatriates and workers who thronged Batu Caves this time. Perhaps their presence was more glaring due to lack of the normal expected visitors.
Anyway, till today (4 days after Thaipusam), I still see the grim faces of Samy Vellu and others MIC leaders. That, I believe speaks for itself.
MP: Thanks, enba. Its a continuous learning experience, this blogging! At times, i feel like there’s so many things to write, but not enough time!
hey there,
good feeding of news over the week. and your blog is looking better each day. and your analyse of visitors to the thaipusam festival recently was mind-blowing, man.