Back to nature

Well it seems that I took a small step to conquer my own fear yesterday. Me and few friends went to visit Niah Cave and to tell you the truth, I have not walked that far for quite sometimes. The journey from Miri town to the Niah National Park took about 1 and half hour drive and then we have to take a boat ride to cross over a river (shortest boat ride - abt 1 minutes!) and started walking the trail for about 3 Kilometres to reach the Cave mouth. Owh! if it's not for the proper pathway/plank walkway, I don't think we'll make it less than 1 hour to the place. We first reach the Trader's Cave, it was name for the trading activities that took place there since long time ago where the collected birds' nest exchange hands between the traders and the birds nest collectors before it were taken out and sold at markets in town. We further climb up the steps and reach the main cave mouth of Niah Cave, they called it West Mouth and it's huge and very cooling inside. There is a gated area of archeology excavation site inside the cave where the archeologist have discovered existences of human as old as 40,000 years and remnants of early settlements in the cave. There is this eerie feeling to the whole cave and I have a new respect for the birds' nest collectors. Really, they would climb up a makeshift bamboo poles to reach the ceiling of the cave and collected the Swiftlets Nest which would end up as delicacies to others. It's a tough way of making a living, I'd say. I did not further climb up the trails into the deeper parts of the caves as I was bone tired at that point and make my way back outside to wait for my other friends. But anyway, having reached the main Niah Cave is a small accomplishment to me already. Haha! These are few pictures and sorry for the not-so-good quality as I was only using my handphone and regretfully did not pack my camera (sheesh!) for this outstation trip. Now I'm off to rest my blisterred feet. Ouch!

Listen: Girlfriend & Hot - Avril Lavigne (accompanied me along the walk back from the cave) Phew!