More on rivers, caves and bats

With only two days to spend in Gunung Mulu National Park, Saturday was spent doing the standard tourist circuit - the 'Show Caves'. These are the four caves which are the most accessible from the Park HQ. After breakfast we were taken along the river by long river boat (four passengers plus the guide and boatman per boat) for 20 minutes or so to the 'Penan' village. The ride was spectacular - thru the muddy brown water with dense forest either side for most of the way. The river was quite wide but the boatman steered to avoid obvious obstacles (fallen logs) and presumably shallow parts.

A short video clip we made of our trip down river on a longboat between Mulu National Park HQ and the Clearwater cave.  See the Penan village on the right.



The 'Penan' people are a nomadic tribe of the Borneo forest who the Malaysian Gov't have 'persuaded' to a settled lifestyle. The village stop was really an opportunity to buy some handcrafts (presumably from the makers); we did not really feel welcome to go nosying around the village. We parted with some ringget (Malaysian currency)  for some beadwork. Another 5 minutes by boat to the first caves for the day. First up was a short steep climb to 'Cave of the Wind'. After an interminable lecture by the guide in the sweltering heat (he insisted on giving a full geology lesson to the disinterested tourists and everyone was too polite to interrupt him) we were ushered into the first cave.

If 'Wind cave' is named for the cooling breeze that blows through it, the breeze was on strike. But, it is sufficient to say that these caves were pretty amazing - they were all different, but each with many features of which any one would justify a visit. 'Wind cave' from memory was not that large, but with spectacular stalactites, stalagmites and suchlike cave stuff. Actually any of these caves is an entrance to a system that has been explored to (I think) 140 km, with plenty more remaining to be explored. The guide said the claim to be the largest system in the world has as of last year been passed by somewhere in Vietnam.

From Wind cave it was a beautiful 500 metre cliffside walk to Clearwater cave. Another steep climb to enter Clearwater cave. Once inside, the chambers in this one were massive and there was a sizable river running through this system. The guide took us thru close to 2 km within this cave; you can continue further if you intend more serious caving. Similarly, there was too much to take in at once.

One of the most spectacular things about all of these caves was the exit with the rainforest illuminated in the cave's entrance and the light coming in shafts through holes from the surface, and in some cases small streams cascade through the roof. This is an image that appears often in the Sarawak tourism posters.

We returned by boat for a couple of hours back at Park HQ before heading off to Deer and Lang cave in the afternoon. This was a nearly 4 km walk on boardwalk tracks through the forest which was spectacular in itself. Once we put some distance between us and the incessant babble of a bunch of German youngsters (and they smoke!) we were able to hear the myriad sounds of the jungle - birds and frogs and maybe far off monkeys. The only wildlife we actually saw was a variety of butterflies and the odd weird looking insect. Lang cave was full of more spectacular cave stuff.

Deer cave is the highlight. You smell it before you see it, as it is home to several million bats - of 12 different species apparently. The smell is ammonia from bat poo.

Deer cave is absolutely huge - the bats were just a black stain on the ceiling.  A tourist brochure attempted to explain the size by saying you could fly an Airbus into it.  It was very much a case of seeing for real the stuff we'd seen on nature docos - things big and small.  Masses of cockroaches on the surface of bat poop, translucent prawns with outsized pincers and small fish in the cave pools and a huge hairy centipede curled up in a corner. Leaving the last cave a little whiplike black and white snake crossed our path.

(More cave pics on Flickr)



Abraham Lincoln's profile in the entrance to the Deer cave.

We had probably spent about one and a half hours in the caves then went to a clearing below the two cave entrances where you can look up at the limestone cliff face and wait for the bat exodus. Sometime in the last hour of daylight they start emerging from the caves. After a while small groups of maybe several thousand started appearing in the sky, each group moving like a snake for the few seconds it took to disappear over the forest canopy. This happened maybe twenty or so times and we eventually spotted the part of the cliff they were emerging from (hard to see against the forest background).

Then the real exodus started - the bats must have numbered in the millions with a massive stream continuing for several minutes making shapes (corkscrews and donuts) in the sky as they headed out over the rainforest. A few smaller groups seemed to form clouds and headed to much higher altitudes hanging above the main stream of bats. 

After seeing that spectacle it was time to walk back the way we came accompanied by the sounds of the rainforest's night shift of birds, frogs and insects starting up as we returned along the boardwalk. The last half-hour was in the dark and we saw many fireflies among the trees.