Exploring Niah National Park (Part 2)
Continued from Part 1.
Our caving journey continues … We passed through the Burnt Cave, headed towards the Padang or Large Chamber.
The Padang is a wide space inside the Great Cave. I’m not sure what’s the purpose of the hut. I am guessing that it’s a shelter for bird’s nest collectors or used to be a place for trading.
This tiny hole is favourite place for switflets to nest. Harvesters have to crawl into this hole and someone my size can dream on to enter this small opening. Beware also there might be snakes hiding in one of these holes.
From this point (the hole) onwards, we entered the darkest part of the cave. We turned off our torchlight for a few seconds and stood in total darkness just to experience how brave were we. The surrounding was dead. There was no sign of life at all except for the chill air.
Our walk inside the Great Cave ended at the East Mouth that leads to jungle walk heading towards the painted cave.
A walk through the jungle is breathtaking considering the air we had to breathe on while we were inside the Great Cave.
The wall paintings on the Painted Cave is protected by wire fence by the Sarawak Museum to protect it against vandalism. Unfortunately, my Lumix DMC-FX07 could not zoom far enough to capture a better image of the paintings. Age is another factor that has caught up with the painting causing it to fade out.
Here’s a better look of one of the many paintings on the wall, courtesy of http://www.endemicguides.com/NiahNP.htm.
The Painted Cave was our last destination on our caving quest. We made a return the same way we came in within 30min. On the way back, we stopped by the souvenir stall, where Iban ladies from the nearby Rumah Chang (Iban longhouse) sell local handicrafts, biscuits and canned drinks.
Before we head back to the park’s headquarters, we made a quick detour to Rumah Chang, to show my colleague how a traditional Iban longhouse looks like.
I’m not sure how many doors inhabits this longhouse but from my observation, it looks like more than 100 doors or families in this Iban village. This is the view from the river, lower part of the longhouse.
View from the school’s football field.
If in Cyberjaya, there’s a restaurant called Padi House but this is a true definition of padi house. Harvested padi or paddy are kept in this hut called kajang (in Bidayuh). The padi is dried under hot sun for a few days or weeks before it is pounded to separate the grains from the husks.
A typical scene in any longhouses is pig sty. Pig is a common livestock in a Dayak village apart from chicken and duck.
After the short 15 mins tour on Rumah Chang, we walked back to the park’s headquaters. We checked out at the reception and reached Miri town at around 5.30pm. That night, my whole body was aching especially my foot but still, it was a worthwhile trip. We packed early that night as our flight back to KL the next morning was at 6am. As I packed, I checked all the drawers in the hotel room incase I’ve missed any of my belongings. In one of the drawers, there’s a torchlight. Apparently, the hotel equipped every room with a torchlight. There goes Puvan’s second disappointment. He spent RM12 on his torchlight and when he returned to KL, his mom would be wondering why the heck her son bought a torchlight all the way from Miri as souvenir. Hahahaha …
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were you ask “detoured” whn u were in niah? we were detoured! we had to went into the jungle, got very dirty and muddy. they had marked the trees for us to follow. it was fun though.
no geng! we intruded the construction site. didn’t want to go through the muddy track since we weren’t prepared with extra clothes.
[...] continue at Part 2. [...]
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