Kek Lok Tong Cave & Lost World in Ipoh

Years ago I visited Ipoh and shared Dharma at various Centres and on our free time visited this  Kek Lok Tong cave. It is huge and very well maintained. I use to visit with the monks often because within the cave it is very breezy and windy. The cave opens up to the back which overlooks a huge garden and pond with a traditional health walk area.

Ipoh is two hours drive from Kuala Lumpur our capital.

I love this cave because it’s spacious and very airy. It has a very powerful and spiritual energy pervading it. I would often go there to do my prayers and enjoy the scenery.

This is the back of the cave.

At the entrance of the cave is a Kuan Yin pond. Very nice.

This is the cave as you enter from the main entrance.

Beautiful images of Manjushri, etc within the cave. I loved sitting in front of Manjushri to do my prayers here.

This is the back entrance of the cave.

The lake behind the cave that you would walk around.

The garden …..

It is a nice place to visit in Ipoh to get your spiritual batteries charged.

Tsem Rinpoche

_______________________________________________________________________

Update: 17 November 2010

I took a group of my students there to visit Kek Look Tong cave temple. Legend has it the cave temples were built by monks visiting from China, and they settled here and set up these temples.

The mountains here look very ancient, I guess it must have reminded them of home…I have always loved caves and mountains. Even as a small child, I wanted to run away to the forests and woods to meditate. When I came to Malaysia, I did not have that in many places. One of the places was Ipoh. I used to visit the caves temples and do my meditations and sadhana there, and also sometimes have a picnic.

We walked around the caves and also the park behind and I pointed out to them some ideas that would be very nice for KWPC. We are going to build a retreat centre in Malaysia that will be an alternative learning centre for healing, the arts, Buddhist philosophy.. There will also be a Tara walk and a large Dzambala and a Lama Tsongkhapa to bless Malaysians and the kind Malaysian government.

In the park behind the caves, there are many large ponds and lakes where they release catfish and koi and terrapins. There is also a path around the park where a lot of people were jogging or walking with their families. There were some gazebos there, and I gave my students a short Dharma talk there about how other beings suffer when we choose ourselves over others. We also did some short prayers there. It reminded me of the times I would go there to do my sadhana…the caves have not changed much actually. It is quite well-built because they don’t seem to need to do a lot of renovations or maintenance. Only problem is that it is wet inside and a little bit slippery.

I will be sending more of my students there to take a look. I like places like this where it is spiritual but also very fun and interesting. It is a good place for adults to go and get some peace and quiet, and also for kids to get out of the city.

By the way, we got to the caves using GPS. When my personal assistant Seng Piow first got the GPS, I didn’t think it was a good idea but it was very useful in Ipoh and worked well!!

The entrance of the cave…quite spectacular

A beautiful Kuan Yin statue outside of the temple. She wasn’t there the last time I visited.
There is a koi pond surrounding her, which is very well-maintained. There was some moss growing
inside but it looked natural and the water was clean and clear. The fish are very large and look
healthy.

My students and close friends at compassionate Kuan Yin’s feet

With my personal attendant Monlam and Jamie

I love seeing animals free. My students regularly release hundreds of kilos of fish into a  park in KL. We buy the fish from a wet market and release them. Then we go back and check also to see if the fish are okay, and also to feed them..

We were choosing our favourite fish. There were many beautiful koi in the pond there, very healthy and large and active

We throw coins at Kuan Yin’s feet. If the coins stay there, our wish will come true. Only two of my students managed to get coins to stay there hehe

Beautiful Kuan Yin statue at the entrance of the cave temples. I love Kuan Yin so much. When I was a child, I would draw pictures of her in Tibetan Form

David at Manjushri’s feet. David really loves Manjushri!

I love Manjushri too..I use to come to these caves to visit Manjushri many times before..

Making prayers to the next Buddha Maitreya

This is the back of the Kek Look Tong cave. There is a large park in the back with more lakes and ponds, and a lot of fish and terrapins. There are also some gazebos where people can relax in the gardens. When I came here years ago with my monks, we would sit on the grass and do our sadhana. It is very peaceful and serene here

I like trees like this…few roots on the ground, and very large spread of leaves. It provides good shade. It would be nice to have trees like these in KWPC. Then we can hold a lot of outdoor activities like classes in qi gong, tai chi, Dharma classes, childrens classes

There are a lot of enclaves like this. Would be a good place to have stone statues, and altars that blend into the rock and look natural

Mountains and trees, and even a reflexology walk for good health

Monlam exploring one of the enclaves

I used to come here and do my sadhana and maybe sometimes have a picnic with the monks

Placing my head at the feet of Manjushri

The temple also has nice statues of Taoist deities

If you sit here in the caves, there is a very nice cooling breeze!

Jamie Khoo…I call her Paris because when I first met her, she wanted to be like Paris Hilton hehe very cute

David with a uhhh stork…strange!

At the end of the trip, I took my students to buy plenty of gifts for others back in KL. I like to give gifts for my students. Many of them work very hard day in day out for the organisation, and it is nice to show them some appreciation..

_______________________________________________________________________

click below to watch the video

I was inspired by Sara while in Ipoh to get updates of her condition.

_______________________________________________________________________

17th November 2010

Today, I took some of my students and friends to a water park in Ipoh. Ipoh is in central Malaysia, and they have one of our study groups there. They are famous for a few things like pomelos and tau foo fah and also their mountains.

The water park was called Lost World and it was made to look very old and rustic and ancient and authentic. The whole water park was surrounded by mountains and there were lakes everywhere. It was really nice as there were even animals in the petting zoo! There was also a very nice aviary where the birds were running free. The birds were so happy and looked well-fed and FREE!!!!

My students told me Lost World is not as big as Sunway Lagoon which is here in KL, and it is also not as crowded. I would like to go and check out Sunway Lagoon soon too, because it is somewhere closer to home and more convenient. But I had a lot of fun in Lost World…I already know who I would like to send here very soon. They can just rent a van, or take two or three cars and drive here on a day trip…very fun, even if you’re an adult (or think you’re an adult!) hehe

Tsem Tulku

There were mountains everywhere. I have always loved mountains…so peaceful

The Lost World aviary. I would love something like this for my aviary birds. It is so natural and the birds are free and have a lot of space to fly and run around.

A lot of nice trees to shade the birds and keep the aviary cool

A lot of nice trees to shade the birds and keep the aviary cool

Majestic peacock

 
Something like this would be nice for the Tara Walk in KWPC. But the path needs to be smooth in KWPC so the elderly and infirm can also walk to Tara and receive blessings

 I have never seen this type of monkey before! Must be a new Tibetan species hehe

 Wherever I go, if I can I like to feed animals like dogs and fish. We recite Medicine Buddha’s mantra and blow it onto the food to bless the animals. By learning to feed fish and not eat them, we develop compassion because they cannot thank us for stopping their suffering. If you are my student, go vegetarian today. Stop eating flesh from dead animals.

Cute mumu!

Fat Monk feeds fish before we go on the paddle boats

I like to send Kecharians to places to relax and have fun. They work very hard, and need a break sometimes. I now have a department that works very hard to take care of my students and the Kechara staff, and also the newcomers to Kechara. They are called Kechara Care.

More mountains. I loved this view, I could just imagine myself in a small cave at the top meditating and doing practice. I am on a paddle boat while we take this beautiful picture….On the right, behind trees, there’s another cave. I dream this cave is my home and outside is green and had lakes filled with fishes for me to feed. I like this so much… All in the LOST WORLD in Ipoh.

The paddle boats were fun…Here I am paddling..heheh

Still looking at the mountains and ‘my’ cave

Some fun slides…safe for kids and also fun for adults

With one of my oldest students Fat Monk, who has been very loyal to me over the years. Fat Monk is a member of my ladrang team, and he helps to take care of the outside of the ladrang and do maintenance work. He also takes good care of my aviary and my tortoises which I rescued from the pet shops.

This is the entrance of the petting zoo at Lost World. It cost them RM6 million to construct this place and it has all sorts of animals like rabbits, macaque monkeys, parrots and macaws, and racoons.

 On the tram that goes around Lost World. They take you to all the major attractions so you don’t miss anything. Quite fun, and you can stay out of the hot sun for a little bit.

Behind us there are also fun fair games.

We took some paddle boats out on the lake. We should have taken the swans, they were much faster!

We’re having a race to the other side of the lake hehe… I lost…

This water feature goes all the way around the park. You hire some rafts and sit in the water, and get pushed along. There are jets built into the walls that push water out and make waves. Quite fun and safe for the kids!

They even had an artificial beach! We have nice beaches here in Malaysia, and this one looked and smelt like the real thing!

 Wai Meng (second from the left) was carrying that tau foo fah throughout the whole park hehehe Wai Meng doesn’t like to waste food. He leads the recycling initiative in KL that helps to raise funds for Kechara Animal Sanctuary

We were walking back to the exit of Lost World

A group photo outside Lost World

click on picture above to see the full map of “Lost World of Tambun”

I do recommend a visit here and don’t forget the visit the Buddhist caves 30 mins by car from the Lost World. Nice day out.

click above to watch video of me on a raft in the lake with magnificent background