Caves, caves and .......more caves!

I arrived in Miri early, but it took ages to get to my hostel, due to the buses! I actually gave up on the last one and walked the 30 mins there in the baking heat. The hostel 'Dillenia' is lovely, really clean, lots of fresh fruit for breakfast and an extemely nice owner, who's full of helpful information. I can't believe how few travellers there are here though! I'm the only person in a 6 bed dorm.
I went to Niah national park for the day with some Singaporean's on holiday. The caves are gorgeous, to get there you have to get a boat across the river, then walk through the jungle for 45mins. The caves are known for the swiftlets that live there, their nests are collected by the locals for birds nest soup. The first cave we passed through was where the collectors used to make their camp. The main cave is the Great cave, there's a board walk all the way through, but you need a torch as its not lit up. We saw plenty of bats and a few bugs inside. It takes about 20 mins to walk through to the other end. We saw lights in the ceiling, locals collecting birds nests, its amazing how they get up there, they have to climb a bamboo pole and somehow scramble about on the roof. The next cave is the painted cave and as we were walking there it started raining, a proper tropical downpour, we heard it first, then saw it coming and i had just enough time to get my brollie out before we got soaked!
The paintings in the cave have practically vanished, but it was beautiful all the same.
We stopped for some some Durian on the way back to Miri, i'd smelt it before but never been brave enough to taste it! Those of you how haven't smelt Durian before, you really don't want to, its so bad its banned on buses in some Asian countries! It was disgusting! It tasted kind of oniony and the taste lingers for ages, i couldn't believe how much to others liked it, they ate about 5 of them, a mouthful was too much for me!
I had a day to waste in Miri, its not the most exciting place, i visited a chinese temple and then wandered around a shopping centre to keep out of the sun!
I booked a trip to Mulu national park, I had to fly there in a twin otter plane which was a bit scary, particulary the landing! But what a gorgeous place! After a quick lunch I met the rest of my group - Fran and Tom, a retired couple from Brisbane who have been sailing around on their yacht for the last 2 yrs (it was a small group!) We headed off to visit Langs cave which was very pretty, with lots of stalactites and stalagmites. And we saw a green tree snake on the way!
Deer cave was the biggest chamber cave in the world, until it was announced while we were there that a cave in Vietnam has been measured and is 3 times bigger! You can't describe the vastness of the cave and photos don't do it justice, but wow! We sat outside the cave just before dark to watch the bats flying out, it wasn't what i expected, they fly out in a snake formation, but great all the same.
The following morning we had a boat ride to some more caves, first was wind cave, which is more of a tunnel system, causing the wind to blow through, strange hey!
Then clear water cave and yes you guessed, it has clear water in it!
Instead of taking the boat back i headed off with a couple from south africa for the 2 hour walk back. We passed through the last of the caves, moonmilk cave, it was like a little fairy cave compared to the others. It was a great walk back through the jungle, saw lots of lizards, amazing butterflies and a Sumatran pit viper!
So i'm a bit over the caves now, but was very impressed with all there was to see.

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