Mid-range · 6-hour walk · Kuala Lumpur
The Lake Gardens and Batu Caves in six hours
The bird park, the Islamic arts museum, the old railway station and the limestone cave temple north of the city.
The three-hour route does Merdeka Square and the towers. This one takes the parkland west of the centre — a 90-hectare botanic garden holding the largest covered bird aviary in the world and one of the best Islamic art museums anywhere — and then rides the commuter train twenty minutes north to a 400-million-year-old limestone cave with a Hindu temple inside it and 272 painted steps up to it.
The route, stop by stop
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KL Bird Park
Twenty-one acres under one net, with three thousand birds mostly flying free. Part of the Lake Gardens and the best of them.
70 min here Walk here → -
Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia
Manuscripts, textiles, arms and a hall of architectural scale models, in a building with Iranian-tiled domes. Consistently the best-curated museum in the country.
80 min here Walk here → -
Masjid Negara
The national mosque from 1965, with a folded concrete roof meant to read as an open umbrella. Robes lent at the door outside prayer times.
35 min here Walk here → -
Kuala Lumpur Railway Station
A 1910 Moorish revival station by the same British architect as the mosque opposite Merdeka Square. Still in use and largely unrestored.
25 min here Walk here → -
Batu Caves
Arrive by train from the previous stop
Twenty minutes by KTM from KL Sentral. A 42-metre gold Murugan statue, 272 rainbow steps and a cathedral-sized cave temple at the top. Macaques will take food from your hand whether offered or not.
More in Kuala Lumpur
Every walking route in Kuala Lumpur, or the full Kuala Lumpur guide for where to stay and what a day costs.