Tropical Winter, Mon, 21 Aug 2017 | written by Simon
Simon at a Cave, Jungle, UNESCO site in Asia, Malaysia

Surprisingly good sleep for a dorm room! Nobody snored, the fans kept us cool, and the earplugs did their job. Maybe it’s the friendly geckos, at night they did get off the walls and were roaming everywhere, keeping peace and order. Also, some very helpful ants started sorting out the problem of chocolate bits lost in the front pocket of my backpack.

In the morning, I packed for a 9:30 departure to the Garden of Eden walk. At the start, it was pretty straightforward – a raised wooden path to the Deer Cave. On the way we’ve seen a stick insect, a few millipedes, and a horny caterpillar. This group included an Italian couple and a family of five. One of the kids managed to drop her phone down the limestone crevasses under the path and it took half an hour to take it back. I spent this time hanging out in the bat observation point before the entrance to the Deer Cave – the most massive of the lot, where bat colonies thousands strong roost during the day.
When the phone was found, we moved into the cave. I knew it will be big, but this is massive! Like, you could park a few airplanes inside massive. I think the widest single chamber is over 120m wide and probably as tall. It is utterly breathtaking.

And the whole top is bats. It’s hard to see them at that distance, just small specs on the limestone, but there is evidence enough of their presence. You see, bats can eat up to 2/3 their body weight in insects a night. That’s 30 tonnes of insects that the Deer Cave bats bring in their bellies every morning. Guess where their toilet is. Yes, the cave floor is covered in guano, with literally mountains of it in places above which most of them roost. And the guano is moving. Millions of roaches and all sorts creepy crawly insects feed on it, digging tunnels and walking on top. Then spiders eat them, then lizards eat spiders… It’s a whole ecosystem based on bat poop in there. And yes, you can smell it pretty well, though it’s not actually as bad as you might think.
And deer. There aren’t any in there now, but they used to come to this cave to drink its poopy water, as it contained the valuable salt they need, washed out of the bats. Yum! People used to hunt these deer, hence the name.

At some point, we got off the main path which loops and goes back, and moved through the rocks towards the other entrance on the other side. The whole cave is 900m from end to end, and it used to be longer, joining with the nearby Green Cave, but it collapsed. The passage was less tight, but more slippery than yesterday, with some ropes in the way. To get out, we had to walk through the stream – fortunately on the end where it gets in, so not the poopy side.

The Garden of Eden is the part of the jungle that emerges in the other side, in the place which collapsed. Lush green, stream – it is quite idyllic. Another 40 minute trek through the jungle, with constant up and downs through roots and mud, with a few more stream crossings, took us to a waterfall. Here we had lunch and rested for an hour. So, now I swam in two waterfalls within just four days. Not bad!
We went back the same way – it seemed so much faster now! After we emerged, we went for a quick tour of the nearby Lang Cave – a small but very pretty one with a variety of fantastic formations, including a massive Cthulhu face and lots of rock labia.

Back out, we went back to the bat exodus observation point. It was empty in the morning, but now it’s so crowded! Well, for local standards, some 35 people in total (but with lots of stereotypical Italians who just can’t shut up). These two caves are probably the most popular of the lot and most Mulu visitors go to see them on the shorter loop trips. We were the only Garden of Eden group of the day, pretty sure as we didn’t meet anyone when baking up.

Two hours later, I was still waiting for the bats. More and more people kept showing up, there was easily a hundred of us here in the end, mostly white, but also some East Asians. I was lying on the reclining bench looking at birds flying above hunting insects, thinking: those birds are doing the exact same thing as the bats will when they finally emerge, yet nobody is paying them much attention! The time kept passing, the jungle came alive with more and more nighttime noises, some gliding mammal flew over our heads, and the bats… didn’t show up. They will eventually, but once it’s dark we can’t really see them anyway, so at some point I just gave up and went back to camp. Shame, but I have one more night when I can try to catch them, hopefully with better luck!
After dinner and more chats with the two lovely Spanish girls, I went off to record some jungle noises. On my way, in the toilet, I met a pretty big mantis / stick insect like bug that just landed in the middle of an ant highway, scooped a few into its mouth and flew away.