Malaysia, Borneo (Niah Caves): 40,000 Years

Looking out of one of the spectacular cave entrances
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After getting a very good taste of the jungle around Kuching, we set out for Niah (pronounced "nee-yah") in order to explore some of the world's largest caves. We were scheduled to fly Air Asia from Kuching to Bintulu, where we hop on an express bus to Batu Niah town (2 hours). However, we arrived at the airport on Tuesday morning to discover that our flight at noon had been cancelled. The next flight out was not until 17:40 and the last bus from Bintulu to Batu Niah town was at 15:00. Our first major travel dilemma on the trip, as we would not be able to get to Batu Niah town in the manner we had planned!

Batu Niah town is a bustling metropolis
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Batu Niah town is about halfway between Bintulu and Miri and there was an earlier Air Asia flight to Miri which we could have taken, and hopefully have caught a bus or hitched a ride from Miri to Batu Niah town (Miri is bigger and busier than Bintulu). When we tried to negotiate a new flight with Air Asia, they weren't having any of it and we had to keep the 17:40 flight or cancel our flight altogether for a full refund. We thought we would take the hit and miss out on the evening in Batu Niah town but as we walked around the airport concourse, we noticed that Malaysia Airlines had a flight to Miri at 12:30 - it was 11:10 at the time. As all of these inter-Sarawak flights were pretty inexpensive, we opted for a full refund from Air Asia, booked ourselves on the Malaysia Airlines flight to Miri and found ourselves in Batu Niah town even before the 17:40 flight would have left for Bintulu.

Inside the cave, the sound of disembodied voices mingles with the squeaking of millions of bats and swiftlets to create an eerie atmosphere

We passed many Malay kampungs along the river, walking to Niah Caves National Park
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Now, the irony of the whole travel situation is that, after desperately trying to get to Batu Niah town on time and as scheduled, we checked into the Niah Cave Inn and after 15 minutes walking around, we had seen the entire town of Batu Niah. There was nothing to do there except walk around the two or three streets in the town (think small American town in the middle of Wyoming or in the Scottish highlands with 100 people) and go into a few food shops or restaurants. We can say, confidently, though that the town is a great place to be stared at and heckled harmlessly by locals. The one saving grace was that Niah Cave Inn had a TV and one of the 3 channels they could get was Star Movies. Even though we had to endure watching the live-action movie of "Fat Albert" and the Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan "Around the World in 80 Days", it was nice to see something in English. The second night in the Niah Cave Inn resulted in better viewing, as we saw "Back to the Future" and "Night Watch", and we played a lot of cards during the showing of "Dungeons and Dragons 2" as it was really rubbish.

We took a boat across the very small river to start our trek to the Great Cave
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On Wednesday morning, we had delicious vegetarian mee (noodles) which cost under $2 for the two plates. After filling up for the morning we then headed to Niah National Park to set out for the caves. The walk from Batu Niah town to the national park was 3km, and it was a lovely stroll along the Niah River.

Along the way, we passed several small village or farm houses, some of which were built in the traditional Malay "longhouse" style, where you have very long wooden houses with several people and families all under one roof. We also heard many chattering gibbons as we headed deeper into the jungle. Upon arrival at the National Park headquarters, we registered to see the caves, took a boat across the river and started off on what we thought was going to be a short journey to the caves. Little did we know that the entrance to the caves was another 3.5 km along a very, very slippery (the park official told us that safety was at 10%!) plankwalk and it had just rained very heavily. There were many occasions whereby we were slipping all along the path but only Kyle managed to completely fall on his... a couple of times.

There were several treacherous and slippery planks to walk on during our 17km trek
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Despite the "problems" walking on the slippery path, we had a very enjoyable walk to the Great Cave entrance. We encountered many interesting creatures, including brightly-coloured millipedes, worms and butterflies, as well as many spiders (ugh). Best of all, we caught a few glimpses of monkeys swinging in the trees. We think that we saw long-tailed macaques and possibly gibbons, as at least one of them was swinging from tree to tree with his arms (gibbons) and some were jumping between trees (macaques). There were only a couple other people in the entire Niah National Park as it was the off-season, and therefore it was a brilliant experience being so close to nature on our own.

Along the way, we saw many interesting and brightly-coloured creatures
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Happy that we saw more monkeys and interesting wildlife, we made it to the entrance to the Great Cave with smiles on our faces. The Great Cave is very important archaeologically, as the oldest modern human remains discovered in Southeast Asia were found there. We walked through the entrance, which is 60 metres high and 250 metres wide, one of the world's most spectacular cave entrances - it's even bigger inside! Inside the cave, the sound of disembodied voices mingles with the squeaking of millions of bats and swiftlets to create an eerie atmosphere. The voices belong to guano collectors digging up deep layers of bat and bird droppings to be used as fertilizer, and people gathering swiftlet nests for the extremely pricey delicacy bird's nest soup. Standing inside the Great Cave can't be described in words, as the sheer size of the cave and the sounds from over 1 million bats and swiftlets within blew us away. It is really one of the most amazing natural wonders of the world.

Looking up at one of the few sources of light within Niah's Great Cave
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We were able to walk through the Great Cave for 1.5km, and part of the walk was in complete darkness. Using a torch (flashlight), we were able to navigate through the creepiest part called Moon Cave, which was pitch black and had very slippery paths (fall #1 for Kyle). At the end of Moon Cave we came upon the exit to the Great Cave and we then walked 0.5km along a jungle path to Painted Cave, the final cave of the day. This cave has pre-historic wall paintings which date back 40,000 years. You can still see the outlines and shapes which display spread-eagle human figures probably representing warriors and hunters, and some of the animals of the surrounding jungle. It was quite amazing to think how old the "art" is now.

This dragonfly was kind enough to pose for a few photos, for us to get the lighting just right
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We left Painted Cave and had to don our cool and trendy ponchos as the heavens opened up to let the rain pour down from the clouds (fall #2 for Kyle just outside the Painted Cave entrance, and a karate kick to Dan's back luckily didn't knock him off the plankwalk). We were happy to walk the 1.5km back through the Great Cave to give the rain time to stop, and when we got back to the plankwalk, we were able to remove our ponchos and walk the 3.5km back to the national park headquarters, and another 3km back to Batu Niah town. If anyone is keeping track of the distance we trekked/walked this day, it was a grand total of 17km! Also, if anyone is wondering what a plankwalk is, it is basically a wooden walkway a few feet off the ground to enable national park visitors to walk around the jungle without sloshing through several inches and sometimes quite deep swampy areas. It does rain a lot in the "rainforest", you know.

One of the first sights we came upon within the huge cave entrance
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Back in Batu Niah town, we tried to get money from the only bank within a 150-mile radius and failed as they didn't recognise non-Sarawakian cards. The guard at the bank was pretty intimidating with his shotgun, so we didn't press the matter, and we ate pot noodles for dinner with our 5 Malaysian Ringgits ($1.50) we had left to spend. So now that we were broke, exhausted and one of us had a very sore backside from crashing on the wooden plankwalk, it was time to move on to Gunung Mulu National Park.