Going Guano at the Niah Caves
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Batu Niah,
Malaysia
Thursday, April 26, 2007
7am start and we're off on the 3km walk along the river to the Niah caves in the National Park. A nice breakfast, quick boat crossing and another 3km or so to the caves, along a boardwalk surrounded by beautiful primary tropical rainforest (or "jungle"). We stopped in to see the local longhouse and village along the way, much to the amusement of the semi-submerged women who were washing and swimming and god knows what else in the water. It was inviting, and even though the women were happy for me to swim (Boleh? Boleh! Can? Can!) we went on to see the caves.
The caves are impressive, vast structures with huge mounds of bat and bird droppings (also known as "guano", or "bat/bird shit") on the floor. No artificial lights are provided anywhere, and there are still local guys "mining" the guano to sell it for fertilizer - apparently this is one of the engines of growth for the thriving local economy. One of the caves, the Moon Cave, is completely dark so you have to use a torch to get around, very spooky. Another area had the light streaming in from holes in the ceiling to the jungle above, complete with dripping water which seemed to fall really slowly (terminal velocity?) Fantastic stuff.
The other big money-maker in the caves are the birds nests, which go to make the delicacy birds nest soup. The nests are made solely from the secretions of the birds' saliva - all the feathers and other detritus are removed before being added to the soup. This is a big delicacy in China and the nests fetch a handsome price. Just as well, as the crazy lunatics who harvest them climb up tens of metres on either a rope or a few long poles held together with screws - the things climb straight up to the ceiling, and some of them have rudimentary scaffolds up there with maybe three struts of timber to allow the workers to harvest the nests.
At dusk, the swiftlets all return to their nests in the cave after a day of whatever it is they do, and the bats come out, so we stuck around all day to see this incredible sight. Well, we actually stayed until it was pretty bloody dark, and lashing it down with more of that wonderful tropical rain they have here, complete with ominous rolling thunder that went in 20-30 second booms and echoed across from the cave and the huge limestone cliffs across the jungle. At that point we kind of went "was that it?" and headed off back to catch the boat across the river to the park HQ. Along the way we nearly killed ourselves on the treacherous walkways, saw some luminous fungi and fireflies and wished we'd had better torches. A fine dinner of Nasi Lemak Sarawak and tucked up in bed for 9.30pm. Knackered.
