Fantastic Malaysia Travel - Niah Caves of Sarawak

Niah Caves of Sarawak located in Niah National Park, Sarawak

Visiting NIAH NATIONAL PARK, 131km north
of Bintulu, is a highly rewarding experience -
in less than a day you can see one of the
largest caves in the world, as well as
prehistoric rock graffiti in the remarkable
painted cave, and hike along primary forest
trails. In the outer area of the present park,
deep excavations have revealed human
remains, including skulls which date back
forty thousand years, and artifacts like flake
stone tools, mortars and shell ornaments -
the first evidence that people had lived in
Southeast Asia that long ago.

The park is roughly halfway between Bintulu
and Miri, 11km off the main road and 3km
north of Batu Niah. From Batu Niah, it can be
reached either by a half-hour walk, by
longboat or taxi.

From the park headquarters, it's a
thirty-minute walk to the caves. Take a
sampan across the river and then follow a
wooden walkway through dense rainforest
where you are likely to see monkeys,
hornbills, birdwing butterflies, tree squirrels
and flying lizards. Some distance along the
walkway, a clearly marked path branches off
to an iban longhouse, Rumah Chang, where
you can buy drinks and snacks.

The main walkway continues, heading up
through the Trader's Cave (early
nest-gatherers would congregate here to sell
their harvests) to the mind-blowing, west
mouth (60m by 250m) of the Great Cave.
From within the immense, draughty darkness
you can hear the voices of the bird's nest
collectors who collect swiftlet nests for use in
the famous bird's-nest soup; their thin
beanstalk poles snake up from the cave floor.
Once inside, the walkway continues on, via
Burnt Cave and Moon Cave, to the Painted
Cave, thirty minutes' walk away. Here, early
Sarawak communities buried their dead in
boat-shaped coffins, arranged around the
cave walls; dating of the contents has proved
that the caves had been used as a cemetery
for tens of thousands of years. One of these
wooden coffins is still perched on an incline,
its contents long since removed to the
Sarawak Museum. It's hard to distinguish the
wall paintings behind the coffin - a
thirty-metre-long tableau depicting boats on a
journey, the figures apparently either jumping
on and off, or dancing. This image fits various
Borneo mythologies where the dead undergo
challenges en route to the afterlife.

There are two other trails in the park. Jalan
Madu splits off the main walkway around
800m from the park headquarters and cuts
first east, then south, across a peat swamp
forest, where you see wild orchids,
mushrooms and pandanus. The trail crosses
Sungei Subis and then follows its south bank
to its confluence with Sungei Niah, from
where you'll have to hail a passing boat to
cross over to Batu Niah ($1). The more
spectacular trail to Bukit Kasut starts at the
confluence of these two rivers. After crossing
the river, the clearly marked trail winds
through forest, round the foothills of Bukit
Kasut and up to the summit - a hard one-hour
slog, at the end of which there's a view both of
the forest canopy and Batu Niah.

The Niah Caves of Sarawak

The Niah Cave is located in the Niah National
Park. Humans inhabited the Niah Cave some
40,000 years ago. See the painted drawings.

Early Sarawak communities buried their dead
in boat-shaped coffins, arranged around the
cave walls; dating of the contents has proved
that the caves had been used as a cemetery
for tens of thousands of years.