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 NIAH Niah Caves National Park is located about 109km from Miri and encompasses 3,140 hectares of forest and limestone and within the park are the Niah Caves, which includes the Great Cave, the Painted Cave and the Trader Cave. The Niah National Park was gazetted on 2nd January, 1975. The Great Cave is among the largest in the world and visitors often amazed at its sheer size as well as the noises, smells and fluttering of wings by the millions of swiftlets and bats inhabiting the cave. The population of swiftlets have been threatened by over-extraction of the bird’s nest and the State Government has recently imposed a ban on harvesting of bird’ nest. It is also at the West Mouth of the Great Cave that a 40,000 year-old skull was found by archaeologists indicating that human beings lived in and around the Great Cave. Red haematic rock paintings were discovered in another cave of the Niah Caves and this cave was named Painted Cave in 1958. These paintings were believed to be over 1,000 years old and together with these paintings, there were some small canoe-lookings ships of the dead. These are believed to serve as coffins and the Painted Cave as in fact a cemetery. The Trader’s Cave was home to the bird’s nest and guano collectors when such activities were still permitted and this is where buyers and sellers conducted transactions. The roofless village consisted of several belian huts and some structures are believed to be over 90 years old. PACKAGE FULL DAY NIAH CAVES Tour
Code : M04 Depart from Miri in the morning and proceeds to Niah by van for 1 hr and 30 minutes countryside drive. Upon arrival at Niah National Park Headquarters, register and have a brief study of the park at the display room. Then will be ferried by a small boat and followed by 3 km plankwalk leads you through the tropical rainforest to the Caves. The whole cave system which includes the Great Cave, the Painted Cave and the Trader’s Cave was declared a National Historic Monument in 1958 as an archaelogical heritage and is now under the managemant of Sarawak Museum and the Sarawak Forest Department. Trader's Cave is well known by the local people in the olden days far back to 200 years ago for being used by bird's nest traders to stay overnight during the bird's nest harvesting season. Hitherto, visitors still can see and observe themselves the remain of the iron wood as a village inside the cave. The Great Cave; also known as Niah Cave is a collection ground of the edible bird's nest. The excavation of the archeological site which has been carried out in since 1950 still can be seen. Most of the objects found here are the chinese ceramic jars dated 11th and 13th centuries. And associated with that was the skull dated about 40,000 year old also found. The Painted Cave is the only ancient painting found in the island of Borneo dated back to 1000 years ago. The cave painting is about 50 metres long and painted with the hematic rock. Associated with the painting are the coffins, which is called the "Ship of Death". They can still be seen inside the Painted Cave. The Niah Cave is famous for its edible bird’s nest found high-up in the Cave which was used to be home for stone age people before. People used to collect bird nests from high in the roof of these Caves clinging precariously to bamboo scaffolding.
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