July 22

Niah Caves Part 2

Hi All,

  This is the 2nd of 3 emails about Niah Caves.  If you have missed the first one or any past ones, they are all posted on www.mydoramac.com.  Audrey gets them posted almost faster than I can create them.

  Anyway, this email is about our hike through the caves.  Pretty impressive though my camera really couldn’t capture it.  The 3rd email will be about the men who collect the birds’s nests and bird and bat guano.  Yum.

Ru

Niah Caves with Joy and Jim – To the Caves

We took off on an in land adventure and hiked to and through the Niah Caves, a National Park site in Sarawak not far from Miri. Our cruising friends, Jim and Joy Carey on Kelerin planned the trip, made arrangements for and drove the rental car. Randal and I just had to show up at 7am with our snacks and hiking shoes and split the cost of gas and the car rental. The car rental, 30 ringgits and the gas 40 ringgits was divided so was about $ 16 U.S. for us. It was about 60 miles from our marina to the caves. Jim did an admirable job of driving the small car that just fit 4 American size people. (And the steering wheel is on the wrong side and you drive on the wrong side of the road too.) Only one window would open, and the AC wouldn’t work. But hey, it cost next to nothing to rent and it did the job.

Our first stop was for gas which involved a tour around Miri and its frustrating puzzle of one way streets, always the way you didn’t want to go. But we found the station and then headed back out of Miri toward Bintulu. Our original destination was a different park where you might be able to see some crocodiles and take a boat ride too. But as began to realize how long it would actually take to get there, and that the Niah Caves were much closer, we opted for the caves. The Sail Malaysia Rally had planned to make a trip to the caves; then it became an optional trip at an additional cost. The last optional trip that was offered in Terengganu never happened. And the day the Cave trip might go, Jim couldn’t so switching to the Caves made perfect sense. As it turned out, when the cave trip was actually organized, none of us was around and when we learned of it the bus was full. Good thing we went on our own. http://www.forestry.sarawak.gov.my/forweb/np/np/niah.htm is the Cave’s website.

Our first stop, about 9 am, was for snacks in Niah Junction. It’s just like those places you stop at for gas and snacks in the US except the food is Malaysian and you’re not sure what it is.

Randal and friend at the snack shop. There was also a “display” of some very large turtles that we weren’t sure were alive or not. Sad when the displays for live things aren’t more humane.

Randal ate noodles but the rest of us had just small snacks. As it turned out, we all should have had noodles and more since it would be about 3 pm by the time we were back in the same snack stop having a meal. We just had no clue. I did have some of the dry floury cookies I’d bought at the snack stop and we all had water so it wasn’t dire or anything.

The Niah National Park Complex offered housing and a cafeteria for people staying overnight. We saw young hostlers and also a couple who probably took the VIP lodging.

Randal, Jim and Joy qualified for the “senior” tickets of 5 ringgits but mine was 10. We rented torches (flashlights) which you truly did need while walking through the cages.

Joy, Jim and Randal. You had to take a motorized boat the two minute ride across the river. I’m guessing they don’t have a bridge so they can control access to the Caves and Park to protect it. The one ringgit fee each way was minimal.

There was a small building that said Archeological Museum but it was closed.

You walk 3.5 Kilometers to the Great Cave. Most of it is along flat boardwalk through the jungle. Unfortunately there was no wildlife to be seen. We could hear lots of different kind of birds, but except for bright orange centipedes and two lizards, we never saw a monkey, flying lizard or anything else. We did see the huge Tapang trees like we’d seen in Kumai and the Singapore Botanical Garden and some fungai, but no orchids.

Not sure if these two were making love or war. They were totally still.

About half way you get to the entrance to a small village. We didn’t walk the half mile there, but in hind-sight wish we had and skipped the trip to the Painted Cave. You’ll see why when we get there. These ladies were selling cold drinks and souvenirs. We had the cold drinks on the way back.

Every now and then you would get to a gated area. Not sure if they were ever locked now.

And stairs! Randal wished we had counted how many we went up and down along the way.

Next email, “into the caves.”