Chin Swee Caves Temple - History

History

After completing the building of Genting Highlands Resort in 1975, which at that time was just a hotel with a small casino, he began construction of the Chin Swee Caves Temple. With the same dedication that he demonstrated in developing the Genting Highlands Resort, the late Tan Sri Lim began by gathering a group of friends many of whom were from his own Anxi Clan and ancestry village of Penglai and established the Chin Swee Temple Society. Always leading by example, the late Tan Sri Lim began a donation drive by contributing a 28-acre land for the construction of the Chin Swee Caves Temple. In addition, his companies Resorts World Bhd and Genting Berhad made a cash donation of RM8.1 million for the building fund. The late Tan Sri Lim was elected Chairman of the society while his son, Tan Sri Dato’ Lim Kok Thay was appointed its Deputy Chairman. The Chin Swee Caves Temple, which was officially opened on 29 March 1994 by Tun Dr. Ling Liong Sik (then the Minister of Transport), overlooks lush green slopes of virgin forest with a view of the winding road ascending to Genting Highlands. Such is the tranquility of the place that just by standing there one can feel the peacefulness of the environment in the midst of the moving white clouds and gentle cool breeze. Construction of the Temple was both arduous and dangerous due to the steep and rocky terrain, which made it impossible to utilise modern machinery for fundamental work such as piling. However with the same tenacity and determination that he put in when building Genting Highlands Resort, the late Tan Sri Lim who acted as the planner, architect, designer, contractor and supervisor used manual labour for the digging of the foundation for the temple. He and his team manually dug holes of 80 to 100 ft in depth for this tricky hill slope development. After all these tedious and time consuming work the Temple was completed in 18 years. More importantly, despite adopting such manual approach in extremely difficult situations and risky environment, there were neither casualties nor work- related accidents reported during the whole period of construction.