June 29th, 2016

Day 91: Kuching – Fairy Cave & Wind Cave

Readers, I hope you are not tired of caves, because Malaysia has A LOT of caves, and we visited just about all of them. The Fairy Cave and Wind Cave are a short day-trip from Kuching, so we hired a taxi in the morning and headed out early to beat the crowds. Definitely worth the trip – the caves were practically deserted when we visited. Fairy Cave was really pretty – a massive, well-lit chamber filled with crisscrossing paths, flanked by lush greenery growing among the rocks.

 

Our first stop of the day – the Fairy Cave outside Kuching

 

Climbing the four flights of stairs to reach the cave entrance – it least the old stairs have been replaced!

 

Igor venturing into the Fairy Cave

Fairy Cave – a magical place, especially when you have the WHOLE thing yourself!

 

Meandering paths run throughout the cave

 

The Fairy Cave is so green, it feels like a long-lost garden

Wind Cave, on the other hand, was made up of several tunnels that traverse the inside of the mountain – flashlights are essential here! These tunnels are filled with roosting bats and nesting swiftlets, and thanks to the low ceilings, we got up close and personal with the animals!

 

Following the map of the more extensive Wind Cave system

 

Entering the dark passageways of the Wind Cave

 

Hundreds of bats roosting on the ceiling of the Wind Cave

 

The bats are so cute! We find a thousand more inside a crevice

 

We saw tons of swiftlets & their loogie nests – the birds build these nests using their saliva to “glue” twigs and bits of grass together and secure them to the cave walls. Apparently, eating these nests is considered a delicacy in China, so many of the caves in Malaysia allow people to “harvest” the nests at the end of the swiftlet breeding season

 

Eggs & baby swiftlets!

 

Inspecting the cave formations and fossils – including an ancient scallop, proving this area was once under the ocean

 

A fantastic visit to the Wind Cave!

We got back to Kuching in the late afternoon and headed downtown to pick up some lunch and shop for a new mosquito net for our trip to Bako National Park the next day. It took us several hours and Google Translator to finally find a mosquito net. Once again! – maybe just our Capitalist mindset – but you’d think the jumping off point for a major park would have a few stores that carry trekking gear. Instead, every store seems to sell the exact same options of everyday clothing, accessories, etc.

 

Lunch in the food court at the Plaza Merdeka Mall – the only place we could eat in air-conditioning

 

Malls bring out the juveniles in us! Stopping at the arcade for a few games

 

Walking through the outdoor markets, as NO ONE in the mall sells mosquito nets

 

Finally found a Chinese shop in the India Street Market that is the *one* place that sells mosquito nets. The Chinese get it.

 

Walking back along the riverfront in Kuching

 

If we didn’t know before, we certainly now know that the name of the city of Kuching literally translates to “cat” in Bahasa – hence, cat statues EVERYWHERE

We headed back to our hotel in the Chinatown neighborhood and got our bags ready for the next day. Also, after four weeks of washing our clothes n hotel sinks, Lindsay finally broke down and visited a real laundromat.

It’s been a month since our last laundromat (in Australia!) – the 24-hour self-wash in Kuching’s Chinatown was an easy stop – their washers even had detergent pre-loaded!