we've been to two more national parks since i last wrote. today we went to lambir hills, a nice park that gave us a great four hour jungle trek leading to a hill overlooking the park. really nice, but not amazing.
yesterday, however, brought us to niah caves park, just one more unforgettable caving experience. the caves at niah stand out from those of mulu for a few reasons. the first is that niah's caves are an important acrcheological site, where a 40,000 year old human skull was found inside, serving as the first evidence of human existence in the islands of southeast asia. in addition to skulls, people have been uncovering pottery, tools, wall paintings, and all the other goodies an archeologist could hope to find. that's all well and good, but it didn't mean much to ashley and i.
what blew me away about niah caves was that, unlike most of the caves in mulu, there are no lights along the trails. that means that for fifteen minutes, ash and i hiked through a giant underground tunnel, with bats, swiftlets, and fist-sized crickets skittering about. it wasn't ashley's favorite activity, but she made it through, twice, without a complaint, so i was impressed. it was pretty scary.
but the real highlight of the caves relates to the swiftlets. about 500,000 swiftlets live inside one particular cave, building their nests into shallow pockets in the rock walls. leave it to the chinese to decide that these nests, which are made entirely from the bird's saliva, would taste good in soup. at the mouth of the cave is a small structure, the headquarters for a small staff of birds nest harvesters who freehand climb up 500 foot wooden posts and ropes to the cave ceiling to pick the nests. according to one of the nest pickers i talked to, the going rate right now is 1300 ringit for a kilo, or about $200 a pound. when i asked him what the soup tasted like, he said he had never had it, but that he heard it wasn't very good. it was absolutely incredible to watch these guys, risking their lives climbing at dizzying heights, all so someone in china could pay out the nose for a bowl of mediocre soup.