Mulu Caves of Sarawak

If you ask anyone to name one of the natural wonders of the world, the odds are a thousand to one against them naming anywhere in Malaysia. Yet here, in the state of Sarawak, is to be found one of the strangest and greatest wonders of all. For deep below the limestone hills of Gunung Mulu National Park are the most stupendous caverns ever visited by man, thousands of metres below some of the best preserved rain forests in the world.

One cave-Gua Rusa (Deer Cave in English) - has been known to local forest dwellers for centuries. Its huge openings, at each end of the mountain it penetrates, allow daylight to illuminate 200 metres waterfalls that pour from the roof after the frequent rainstorms. They are alos witness to the great exodus of bats every dusk as they fly off in search of insects and fruit, looking like clouds of black smoke as they twist and turn, disperse and gather in the dying rays of the sun. Down below, thousands of footprints on the clay floor show how the cave got its name.

Many more caves have guarded their secrets more carefully. In fact, they remained undiscovered until the past eight years. To delve into their total darkness has called on the special talents of speleologits-cave explorers-equipped with the skills and gear to tackle the unconventional mountaineering which the caves demand. Its draw is so great that several expeditions have come from Britain to join officers of the Sarawak National Forest Department in the work of finding, mapping, photographing the caves. Working with clinometers, instruments which measure angles; tape measures and compasses they have discovered 150 kilometres of caves, and this under a stretch of hills measuring only 50 kilometres in length and never more than 16 kilometres in width! They probably remains much more to be discovered, for in Europe new caves are still being found after a hundred years of exploration in already well explored caving regions. The most spectacular cave yet entered is undoubtedly the Sarawak Chamber, twice as large as any previously known cave. It is so vast that 40 jumbo jets could be parked inside with room to spare.

Deep inside the caves the speleologists found that they were not alone. Signs of life were everywhere, even more than 6 kilometres from the nearest daylight! Far beyond the range of the bats, cave swiftlets make their nests. These amazing birds find their way in the dark by making clicking noises and listening to the echoes. It may seem crude compared to the electronic navigation system of a modern airliner, but it works. The little birds thread their way through passages large and small with perfect accuracy. Sometimes, as in Tiger Cave, they fly in at dusk in such large numbers that thay sound like the roar of a waterfall as they pass by. Not only do the swiftlets navigate in inky blackness, but they also run the risk of snakes waiting to catch them from the air as they whirr round corners. These snakes, known as cave racers can be up to 3 metres long. Fortunately for speleologists they tend to cause alarm rather than harm!

Not all animals who enter these caves are able to find their way out again. Benarat Caverns provides morbid evidence of this. The floor of this very deep cave, running 1000 metres below the surface, is littered with the bones of countless bats, swifts and the occasional larger creature which found its way into the labyrinth but not out again.