July 5th, 2016

Day 97: Niah National Park

While we had originally planned to stay overnight at Niah, we discovered it is a relatively easy day-trip from Miri. Our hotel started serving breakfast at 6AM, so we were up at dawn and on our way to the bus terminal by 7AM. Our taxi rolled up to the bus station with minutes to spare for the 7:45AM bus to Bintulu, which we would take for an hour and a half, jumping off at their scheduled bathroom break in Niah Village. From there, we hired a local car to drive us the last 2min to the park entrance, and arranged for him to pick us up again at 4PM.

 

An early breakfast buffet, then off to Niah National Park, via the Bintulu bus

 

Planning our route for the day – we can hit all the caves by afternoon, no problem

 

They don’t seem to believe in bridges in the Malaysian parks – yet again, we take a boat for 1RM per person to reach the trails

 

The first cave is a 3KM walk from the river, but it’s on a boadwalk, so it’s really easy going. Igor loves that he can admire the view, and not worry about watching where he is going.

 

The limestone formations peeking out between the trees are stunning – these pictures don’t really do them justice – the trees seem to be growing directly out of the rock! It looks very prehistoric – like the “dawn of time”

The first cave is the Traders Cave – where merchants used to set-up temporary marketplaces to cater to the masses of people who came to the caves to harvest swiftlet nests. It is very open, airy and cool – a very comfortable cave (also no bats, so no guano)

 

Reading up on Traders Cave, before moving on to the Great Cave

Traders Cave is MASSIVE – you can totally fit a little village in here

The Great Cave – Niah National Park

The entrance to the Great Cave – a stairwell leads deep into the darkness

 

Ascending into the depths of the Great Cave

 

The Great Cave is home to thousands of swiftlets, who make tiny nests out of their saliva. For some reason, the Chinese like to eat these, so twice a year these caves are full of brave souls who climb up bamboo poles to collect the empty nests

 

Many of the poles remain in place throughout the year – they look so flimsy – we can’t image someone actually climbing one!

 

A natural skylight lets a beautiful beam of light into the cave

 

We get to the black-out section of the cave (where you can’t see any natural light), Lindsay is very disturbed to discover the path is populated with tons of weta-like bugs – HUGE crickets that keeping jumping across our boots! Grossgrossgross…

 

Safely out of the Great Cave, and on our way to the Painted Cave, another 500m or so through the jungle – where we spotted a cleverly camouflaged Green Tree Lizard – we see you!!!

 

Unfortunately, the cave paintings have not been preserved very well, and are now roped off. In addition to the rock art, the Painted Cave was also the site of any archeological discoveries, including human burial grounds. More information about the pre-historic human inhabitants be found in the museum at the trailhead (no pics allowed, tho).

 

After a great day exploring caves, Lindsay and Igor take a carefree walk back to the river. Igor wasn’t paying attention to where he was going and almost stepped on a snake lying on the boardwalk! It was bright red, yellow & black, so we decided to err on the side of caution and assume it was highly venomous. We showed a picture to a park ranger at the main office, and asked him if it was poisonous. “Yeah, yeah, it’s poisonous. It also flies.” We decided the guy was being a dick, until we got back to the hotel and Googled it – apparently the Banded Flying Snake can “glide” in the air by flattening it’s ribs! It’s also mildly venomous (not going to kill a human)

The trip back to Miri was a very annoying ordeal – first a pair of sick French tourists asked if they could split a cab with us (Igor was relieved when a second cab pulled up for them), then we missed the 4:30PM bus to Miri because the local we asked for directions wanted us to take company’s bus, not the rival. We finally get on the jam-packed 5PM bus, seated directly behind a couple who couldn’t be bothered to stop their three toddlers from screaming and jumping around the bus seats the entire drive back. We are sure someday we will have screaming kids like said asshole parents – today we are glad that these little monsters aren’t going back to the hotel with us.

 

Not our kids. THANK GOD.