sign in a cave in Laos

4 December 2012

Merapoh 2012 Nov, Pt 5

On the 2nd day, we tried to find Gua Jebuk, but didn't find any caves after a morning of searching. We had parked at an orang village and the men there said there were no caves.

After lunch we went to some un-named hills on the east side of the road and had better luck, finding some nice caves.

Gua Sungai Babi had lots of pig footprints in the mud. There were sacks of guano. A small river went through the cave.


We then climbed up the cliff using tree roots to haul ourselves up and walked into probably the largest cave on the hill.

The chambers were huge, cathedral like. We named it Gua Hanuman. Guano had been extensively dug from the cave and there were dozens of sacks still in place, more than 10 years old.


There are the remains of a wire cable outside, used for getting the sacks down the cliff.
There are some nice formations inside the huge chambers.

 Yellow nuggets!


This is the rock that looks like the Hindu monkey god Hanuman

This is the Hanuman statue at Batu Caves -
We saw a mother whip spider carrying her babies on her back. This is the first time I have ever seen this in a cave . See more on the whip spider.

A nice series of stal and a calcite water urn !

 Back at the entrance
We went on to the next hill. Found a nice river cave, the river cuts through a corner of the hill and has created a great phreatic passage. We named the cave Gua Hantu Menari, as the silhouette looks like a friendly dancing ghost.


millipede

                                 the smoking ledge !

 bird nest



The last cave of the day was Gua Patung Kembar. Habli's photos -



See previous day, Bukit Katak.

© Liz Price
No reproduction without permission

2 comments:

  1. what a great blog! from your opinion, what make caves in merapoh different and unique from other caves that you have discovered so far?

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  2. Thanks for your comments.
    Actually the Merapoh caves are not that different from others in Malaysia..... but every cave is special in its own way! The Merapoh caves are interesting as it is a new area for me - the caves have never been explored by cavers before.

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