The Niah Caves

Niah is a block of limestone rising out of flat forest in northern Sarawak, hollowed into caves of enormous size. Reaching them means a short boat crossing at the park headquarters and then several kilometres of raised plankwalk through lowland rainforest. The Great Cave opens as a mouth tens of metres high, and excavations here from the 1950s onward recovered human remains and stone tools far older than anything then known from island Southeast Asia, along with a long sequence of later burials. A further plankwalk leads through darkness to the Painted Cave, where red haematite figures and the remains of boat-shaped coffins survive behind a barrier. Guano and birds-nest collectors have worked these caves for generations, and their bamboo poles are still lashed to the walls.

History

The mining engineer Robert Coulson wrote to Alfred Russel Wallace about bones found in caves in Sarawak, and after the British consul G. J. Ricketts was appointed to look into them in 1864, Alfred Hart Everett surveyed 32 caves, among them Niah and Subis near Miri, though the first published account of a visit to the caves of Mount Sobis, long credited to Everett, is now known to be by William Maunder Crocker. In the 1950s Tom Harrisson, curator of the Sarawak Museum, reasoned that the cool, dry cave with its millions of bats and swiftlets could have fed ancient people, and from October 1954 excavations here recovered human remains around 40,000 years old, the oldest known settlement in East Malaysia, with later studies of 2006 dating the first human activity to about 46,000-34,000 years ago. Between 1954 and 1966 some 750,000 animal bone fragments were dug up, one of them from a young tiger, and the Painted Cave nearby holds rock paintings dated to about 1,200 years ago and boat-shaped wooden coffins (Wikipedia, Niah National Park).

What to look for

• The Great Cave mouth - an entrance chamber opening tens of metres high above the plankwalk.
• The Painted Cave - red haematite figures on the rear wall behind a protective barrier.
• The collectors' poles - bamboo scaffolding used for birds-nest and guano harvesting.
• The rainforest plankwalk - about three kilometres of boardwalk each way through lowland dipterocarp forest.

When to go

Any month works, though the drier stretch from June to September makes the plankwalk less slippery. Start early, since the walk in and out takes around two hours before you spend any time in the caves, and afternoon storms are common. Bring a strong torch, because the passage to the Painted Cave is unlit and the boardwalk inside is uneven.

Before you go

The plankwalk each way is hot, humid and slippery, with sections of steps, and it defeats people who underestimate it. The caves are unlit and the floor is wet with guano, which smells strongly. The rock paintings are faint, distant behind a barrier and disappointing to many. Facilities at the park are basic and Miri is around two hours away by road.

Nearby

Lambir Hills National Park and Miri lie to the north; Mulu is reached by air from Miri.

Key facts