Monday, October 11, 2010

Mulu: Clearwater Cave & Cave of the Winds

The next day I took my longboat tickets down to the river to take my ride up to Clear Water Cave and Cave of the Winds.

nicolekiss in mulu
Outfit of the day


They're located way up north and either needs couple of hours walking in the jungle or just a quick 45 minutes on the longboat. On a entirely different direction to Deer Cave.

Naturally, I picked the easier and more fun version of travelling, as usual.

longboat


Though I saw that I wasn't the only one with that idea on my mind.

longboat on river
numerous boats ready to depart.


My boatman for the first ride.

boatman


There were two boatmen on my boat, one in front in control of steering, the other at the back in control of the engine.

boatman in front


And off we went into the jungle river. My head at this point went something like: "Ooo... this was pretty exciting."

longboat riding on river


tie my hair up
with my hair tied up


Honestly, the boat ride was just like many of the forest/jungle river rapid shoot I've done in my past: there were plentiful in Indo-china, one in National Park on the West Malaysia and perhaps, oh.. I couldn't remember.

It wasn't anything fancy, but the fact that I was cruising down the rainforest river kinda made the whole experience a little bit exciting.

vertical view


rainforest on river


another longboat


longboat on rainforest river


It was hot, then it was shady, and then hot again. I couldn't decide if I was about to have a sun stroke because then a nice area with lots of shades and then it felt like heaven.

wooden side


Like a typical National Park boat ride, I was stopped off at a native residential area to have a peep of the local natives in their natural habitat.

native hut


Oh look... a cock roamed freely about.

cock
What? I did say a cock.


And a hen.

hen


And natives wearing modern day over-washed t-shirt selling local made products.

big earlobes aunty
This aunty let me took numerous photo of her while maintaining a strict face to appear candid. So cute.



colorful bracelets


ratan baskets


beads bracelets


The view from this place was remarkable. It felt like a cut-out from a golf resort poster overlooking cloudy mountains in the distance.

field and mountains


the sky


goal


I love this shot of this cute foreign girl trying to hang out with the local kids.

foreign and local kids


If only the world could behave more like kids.

foreign and native kids


After spending nothing on the one-stop-shopping-detour, I went back to the boat to wait for our next stop: Cave of the Winds.

cave of the winds


Now Cave of the Winds has got to be one of the most beautiful caves I've seen in my lifetime (thus far).

wind cave entrance


ppl waiting at entrance of cave of the winds


tour guide
my ranger



The natural breeze that flowed through the caves has allowed many quirky formation within the caves that were both perculiar and beautiful.

stalactites stalagmites helictites in a cave


speleothems stalactites


big formation


beautiful long stalactites


plentiful stalactites in cave of the winds


cave


light hole


Reasons for Stalactites, Stalagmites and Helictites (horrizontal formation):

stalactites stalagmites helictites


Another description telling you what moon milk is (Moon Milk?).

moon milk description


In the Cave of the Winds there were random limestone formation that looked like animals.

bat stone
a bat


mother and child
mother and child

Which reminds me, there's this father and daugther that's just the cutest.

daddy carrying baby on the back


Imagine going caving with your baby daughter like that. Aweee....

baby and daddy


Walking away from Cave of the Winds, we took a wooden trail down to the river where some of the tourists went swimming in the cooling river.

climbing down the stairs


ta da


me and cave


Why nobody informed me I should bring swimwear. T_T (oh I know, because I didn't ask).

So while taking a rest and watched others have their brought-along lunch, I went to observe the system that was Clearwater Cave.

clearwater cave map system


It's amazing how extensive the cave and water system ran inside these mountains.

It's even more amazing how human can trace these system out.

clearwater cave map system
clearwater overall map


Getting to Clearwater Cave required a steep climb up several flights of stone steps.

stairs to clearwater cave


clearwater sign


(well, a lot more than several flights)

mid-stairs to clearwater cave


Now Clearwater Cave has got to be the coolest cave in Mulu.

Once you reached the top, you would need to make your way down the cave by descending into the water cave. Yes, you hear me, water cave.

stairs into clearwater cave
The stairs to the right led to the Lady Cave (this would be mentioned later *wink*)


posing in front of clearwater cave


outdoor stalactites
stalactities on the outer part of the cave


now before I show you the amazing photos I've taken in Clearwater Cave, here is a description of how the cave's formation came about.

how water changes the shape of a cave


Basically there used to be a lots of water the flowed through this cave. And when the cave was full of water, the limestone was "cut" by water evenly making a very even tube shape within the cave.

Eventually the water resided and more "cuttings" were done on other parts of the cave making other "holes" and "passage".

Thus... was how Clearwater Cave came about.

river in clearwater cave


light hole in clearwater cave


beautiful clearwater cave


I didn't manage to take a lot of photos in this cave, firstly because, my 500D wasn't equipped with a good lens and I didn't have a tripod back then, and taking photo in such a condition under such lighting (pitch dark cave) was just... DIFFICULT.

So I could only show you three photos that I was most proud of. :)


Onto the last cave of my trip, and the last part of this post - The Lady Cave.

lady cave description


Why it was called the lady cave.

Initially I thought it was the formation on the roof of the cave.

vagina on cave


I see two holes there, one long slit and one tiny round hole, the rest is up to your imagination. *whistle*

What are you thinking?

It's called the lady cave because there's a shadow reflection in the cave that looked like this.

lady shadow in lady cave


Formed by this stone.

lady rock


Doesn't it look like a lady?

Well, we'll never the real reason behind the name of this cave. *smirk*

So let's finish up with a few more cave photos and let's get out of Mulu.

lady cave


pretty lady cave


entrance to lady cave


exiting to lady cave


I missed civilization and proper cellular connection.

Bye Mulu. See you again when I return one day with a better camera.

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