Our visit to Niah Caves with Katy

Katy arrived last Wednesday night and we set off to explore Niah Caves on Saturday. A drive of aboiut 1.5 hours saw us at the National Park where we paid out 10 ringit each to get in and walked to the jetty to pay our 1 ringit fare to the ferryman to get across the river. There followed a walk of about an hour along a well cronstructed board walk with hand rail through the jungle, with interesting sights and sounds all around


Once we arrived at the caves themselves we were able to wander along the walkways very easily, each of us equipped with a torch. The huge caves are very smelly - full of bird and bat droppings! The nest collecters were there in force, climbing up their precarious poles to the very top of the cave to collect the swiftlets nests. The birds nest trade is very lucrative, but each year there are always fatalities - not surprisingly. The hunters were right at the roof of the highest sections of the caves - at least 60 metres up. The photos do neither the caves (or us) justice, but they were really impressive.

Niah is seen as the site of one of the most exciting archeological finds in the 20th century - a 37,000 year old skull - the earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in the region, buried under 2.5 metres of guano!